Our bards have a solemn duty to galvanise and praise the nation’s First XI, argues lewis jones
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The secret weapon of the victorious England cricket team, its coach has revealed in his account of the Ashes series, was an American poem about self-reliance: "The man in the glass [mirror] says you're only a bum/ If you can't look him straight in the eye."
The Man in the Glass has long been a favourite in Alcoholics Anonymous, whose members no doubt appreciate the unintended pun on "glass", as in "drinking vessel". AA legend has it that the poem was scrawled on the walls of death row in San Quentin prison by a nameless author. It is actually the work of Peter "Dale" Winbrow Sr (1895-1954), who published it in 1934.
The date is significant for the poem, though American, is clearly indebted to the golden age of British imperial verse, exemplified by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
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| The poem harks back to Kipling and Newbolt: ‘There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight’ |
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and Henry Newbolt (1862-1938). Newbolt was an inspiration to earlier generations of England cricketers, above all his Vitai Lampada:
"There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight/ Ten to make and the match to win."
It would not do today -"The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead/ And the regiment blind with dust and smoke" - warfare is no longer regarded as a glorious game. World War I put an end to all that.
It's refreshing to see such stirring retro stuff wheeled out to such triumphant effect but rather sad that the coach could find nothing more modern to galvanise his players. Harold Pinter is fond of cricket but his recent lines about George W. Bush's penis would hardly meet the case. If he wants to earn his ration of sherry then the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, (a passable cricketer himself at school) should play up and play the game. 
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 24
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