PERSONALITY

.In the business of entertainment there is one stand-out piece of merchandise – personality.

.With competition for the entertainment dollar/pound/euro/jam-jar reaching the bare-knuckle stage these days, personality has become more important than ever

.We are in the age when the political circus is governed by clowns – but clowns with personality, who everyone loves to hate.

.Johnson and Trump may be – indeed are — useless clowns when it comes to leading a nation, but they have a whiff of personality about their misdeeds. People talk about them, wonder what idiotic, even immoral act they’ll get up to next.

.As goes politics, so goes sport.

.We have developed to a stage – in all sports — where we are watching too many precision performers playing a precision game. And precision can make for pretty dull stuff, even at the highest levels of performance. What is missing is the sense of enjoyment. Of fun. We want our heroes to smile once in a while, makes mistakes, do stupid things.

.This has always been true. Football produced George Best, Jimmy Johnstone and Paul Gascoigne. Each, despite being totally and naturally talented, attracted trouble and headlines for as many wrong reasons as right – and each squandered his brilliance and had ended his first-class career by his early thirties.

.Yet ask anyone of a certain age who Britain’s greatest-ever footballer was – that trio will be right up there on the podium!

.Cricket? Well, while no-name batters and bowlers from all over the world pile up runs, wickets and dull statistics for the nerds, who do the public remember as the great ones?

.Ian Botham, Shane Warne and now Ben Stokes!

.Each able to command headlines on both front and back pages, each likely to suffer punishment by frowning authority – yet all three could to turn a Test, command back-page adulation and, most importantly, attract an audience delighting in watching them perform.

.They share the magic of personality, box-office appeal, whatever……

.Anyone for tennis? I need only mention John McEnroe — hated, reviled even, by the Wimbledon establishment. Loved by the public.

.Across the Atlantic and long after they’ve forgotten Trump, people will be able to tell you that the greatest baseball player who ever lived was Babe Ruth – indeed even over here, where baseball means absolutely zilch, just about anyone could still tell you that they’ve heard his name.

.Now the Babe was playing ball a hundred years ago, and the huge records he piled up have all been long since overhauled by other names (not that the man in the street knows them) but Ruth remains the classic baseball hero.

.But he didn’t provide any kind of noble example for the youth of his mighty nation. Which is undoubtably why the youth of his nation loved him. He was a spendthrift drunk, a braggart, a brawler, a gambler – and a few other things not usually recommended by your friendly neighbourhood marriage counselor.

.But Babe Ruth had personality. In spades. They packed the parks to see him, tittered when stories leaked of his misdeeds and loved him for them.

.So we come to speedway……

.What does our sport really want in a hero, a “what’s he going to do now?” personality?

.The rider who really catches the imagination, is an individualist, a free spirit who challenges not only the opposition but the generally accepted rules of behaviour. Essentially, he should be unciviised. Untamed.

.With all respect to the present-day Banditos (all of whom have a great deal more personality than many of the automatons inhabiting other tracks) I don’t think we’ve had a more truly unforgettable personality on the books in all our years than Jack Millen.

.“Crazy Jack” only wore black-and-gold for FIVE meetings, yet there are so many people today — over forty years since his tragic death – who still fondly reminisce so much about half-forgotten antics, you’d think he’d been with us for five years……..

.Since Jack left us, the biggest personality – in my opinion — to grace the colours is Rob Grant. A far better rider than folk today give him credit for (sixteen maximums and our third-highest all-time scorer) but again, ask folk what they remember about Grantie and they’ll tell you about on-track accidents and incidents, alarms and excursions, misadventures, opponents crushed and officials crucified, not his match-winning scores…..

.By the way, Rob’s 16 maximums (maxima?) are more than Michal Makovsky (who had fifteen and was himself a fondly-remembered personality) ever scored, more than Dougie Wyer (13) or Jim McMillan’s eleven…….. Just saying…..

.What makes it sad is that, in this disinfected, steam-cleansed, politically-correct day and age, the speedway rider, has still got a role in our society that reaches beyond showmanship.

.If the namby-pambies who run the sport would let him.

.A matter to be discussed.

.Next week.
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.Want to disagree with Dick (as so many do?). He is always happy to hear from interesting people at dick@crystalfm.co.uk