Given happy to escape the madness

WHEN even the stoic Shay Given suddenly feels the need to jump out of the Newcastle United frying pan straight into any old fire, you know for sure that the club has major problems.

The Irish goalkeeper had been a permanent fixture at St James’s Park for a decade.

It has hardly been a stint marked by cohesion and forward thinking among the club’s hierarchy, but even the 32-year-old appears to have viewed the madness currently being allowed to roam free under Joe Kinnear as being a little over the top.

On to Manchester City he goes, then. Things must have been bad.

Perhaps old Joe mispronounced his name too many times.

Or maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back for the former Sunderland stopper was Kinnear’s astonishing hand-waving, kiss-blowing entrance to St James’s Park prior to the Tyne and Wear derby at the weekend, as if he were Tom Cruise buttering up the crowd at a major film premiere rather than a manager struggling to pull clear of the relegation zone.

It made the combined efforts of luvvies Gwynneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Halle Berry seem understated.

On first stepping in to join Newcastle, Kinnear played down his own worth and talked up the need for the club to stabilise.

That swiftly went out of the window and now he comes out with statements like “I have a serious amount of courage”, ignoring the fact that picking a team and talking about it in exchange for wheelbarrows of cash requires nothing of the sort.

Still, it takes a sort of bravery to come out, as Kinnear did, in the post-match interviews following his team’s 1-1 draw with local rivals Sunderland and claim not only that his team deserved the clear non-penalty they were awarded, but also moan about the goal that was demonstrated to have been correctly ruled out for the clearest handball since Maradona out-jumped Peter Shilton.

WHILE many progressive sports like handball have lost out massively due to Olympic funding cuts, the Great Britain rowing team for the London 2012 games will receive funds of £27.4million — higher even than the whole athletics team.

I suppose those private school fees have to be paid for somehow, which also helps explain the £23.4m assigned to the sailing.

Funding decisions have been taken on the basis of medals won, rather than the common sense which tells you that it is easier to get golds in very dull sports for rich people that few countries can be bothered with.

Still, who among us can forget those ‘three blondes in a boat’ trickling home to gold in the Yngling class in Beijing? That’s right — everyone can. They’ve probably even forgotten it themselves.

It is tragic that a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get the entire population energised about mass participation sports is being wasted in favour of a pleasant-looking league table on a piece of paper. But it is also very British.