Express Mortgages Express Loans Bingo Lose Weight Franchising Dating Music Downloads DVD Rental Shopping Book Shop Find Spare Parts Cut Your Bills Wine Shop Legal Store FlatShare

BIG PARADE WON’T END IN 2012 RUIN

Crowds in Trafalgar Square cheer England's 2003 Rugby World Cup victory

Sunday August 31,2008

By Jim Holden

CAN we please dispel one giant myth about British sport?

It is the idea that having a parade through the streets of London to celebrate a major triumph causes winning teams to fall into disarray.

The alleged evidence for this is the decline of the 2003 Rugby World Cup winners and the 2005 Ashes cricket heroes following open-top bus tours.

But the judgement is plain wrong. It was not the parade and it was not hubris that caused the downturn in fortunes.

In the case of rugby it was the retirement of the inspirational captain together with a cruel, long-term injury suffered by the talisman fly-half.

In the case of the England -cricket team it was injury to -several key players, like the talisman all-rounder and inspirational skipper, together with the absence of an opening batsman due to private agonies.

It was, I repeat, nothing to do with the parade.

“Ah,” say the mythmakers, “but the Australians don’t do parades when they have sporting triumphs, and they always keep winning.”

I’ve heard that argument so often but, actually, that’s the myth. In 1989 the Aussie cricketers had a ticker tape parade through Sydney when they reclaimed the Ashes.

And they kept the little urn for another 16 years. Their Rugby World Cup winners had a homecoming parade, too. They reached the next final but were beaten by England.

We should never forget that sport is fun.

If you do well, you celebrate. And for Britain’s -marvellous Olympic team a parade through London in October is right and proper.

It won’t make the slightest -difference to future performance and whether Team GB is a success or failure at the 2012 Olympics.