Adding an insult to feigned injury

SLEDGING appears to have broken out in all directions and it's got nothing to do with snow. Cricket, that gentlest of games, where gleaming flannels are de rigueur and everything stops for tea, is under scrutiny because an Indian has been accused of insulting an Australian during the current Test series Down Under.

There's an unreal quality about all this because, of course, there's never been anything gentle about cricket and the Australians have been sledging away for years without much, if anything, being done about it.

Whatever the reason for the Aussies' habit of getting verbally wired in about their opponents, it has to be conceded that they do it well and pretty relentlessly, which makes it all the more remarkable that they're getting so worked up about a stray shaft, so to speak, being loosed by the other side. Perhaps they were just feeling a little fragile when the incident took place. We've all had our off days when it is easy to snap if something happens for which we are not prepared. That said, however, in an age when sports people of all persuasions seem to spend a fair amount of time running about screaming abuse, what's another insult here and there?

There are times when I watch football on television and think how lucky these players are that the referees are such a bunch of softies. A real tartar of an official would have the average game reduced to five-a-side before the interval if he applied the rules with a bit of vim. Quite apart from jersey-pulling and playing dead, it seems to have become quite common for players who are about to be shown yellow cards to round on the official, foam at the mouth and scream abuse. We know it's abuse, because we weren't all born yesterday and those who are unable to catch the drift when the mouths are going would be well advised to get their sets adjusted.

If, on being shown a card, the tirade continues, another card, together with an invitation to leave the field, should be issued for whatever the referee cares to call it – bad language, violence of the tongue, ungentlemanly conduct or bringing the game into disrepute. If it was left to me I'd go further and bung in a rule which could be activated any time a referee felt like bringing an offending player to order by saying: "Don't look at me like that, you disgusting object." I had a school teacher who used to say that before belting me for fidgeting and it didn't do me any harm, unless you count a coolness in later life towards footballers who make millions and behave like juvenile delinquents. Some of them can't cross either.

Golf might appear to be comfortably placed in what could be termed the Twilight Zone as far as sporting behaviour is concerned, but this is not the case. To the casual observer, the game might seem orderly and civilised, but nothing could be further from the truth. As those who play can testify, it's a minefield – you just don't know it until you try it. Rather like the iceberg, it's the bit you can't see that does the damage.

Golfing abuse is masked by stealth and can be Machiavellian in its subtlety. In skilled hands, it can be undetectable even at the moment of delivery. I've been given the full treatment on the course and only realised it after reaching the sanctity of my own home when it was too late to take any retaliatory action. Because the actions of the opponent in golf are made in isolation – there's no tackle to be made or evaded, no backhand volley to be returned – it all boils down to mental jousting. Subversive ideas are sown like malign seeds and left to grow and do their dirty work in their own time.

I was once asked how long, in seconds, it took for my club to descend from the top of the backswing to the point of impact. This was not something to which I'd given much thought and I couldn't give an answer. Of course, I wasn't expected to. What was expected was that I'd now start to give it some thought and that is exactly what I did, to the extent that by the time the end hove in sight, I was a wreck who'd hardly hit a shot since the fourth hole, the point at which the knife had been inserted.

That's the difference between golfing abuse and the coarser varieties. Whereas the mad bawling of the football field, in effect, merely adds to the general uproar, the golfing equivalent, while unobtrusive and often unnoticed, hits the mark, poisons and lingers.

I recently played with an old acquaintance who, after a few holes, reminded me that during our previous round, some time ago, I had told him of a golfer who had asked me if I held my breath while swinging and how just thinking about this had more or less paralysed me.

"Now and again," said my acquaintance, "I remember that and have bad days." This, I feel, says it all: a malign seed – second-hand at that – still doing its evil work.