{"id":9797,"date":"2022-03-19T03:41:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T03:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=9797"},"modified":"2022-03-19T03:41:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T03:41:41","slug":"matt-dohertys-renaissance-at-spurs-and-the-weeks-best-sportswriting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=9797","title":{"rendered":"Matt Doherty’s renaissance at Spurs and the week’s best sportswriting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Davy Russell.<\/p>\n

Source: PA<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Davy Russell\u00a0was never not coming back. Not when he broke his neck. Not when the shock from his fall in the 2020 Munster National shot down his arm and out through his finger and thumb with such a bang that it felt like a firework had gone off in his hand. Not when he was in traction, which is the fancy name given to lying on the flat of his back with bolts drilled into his head and bags of water hanging off them.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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If he was ever going to consider retirement, it would have been then. When the hours would pass and all he could do was stare at the ceiling and wait for the nurse to come and add more water to the bags, elongating his spine that extra bit more. Or, as he puts it: \u201cLike the last scene in Braveheart where they have William Wallace tied up and they\u2019re stretching him away.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But no. Even then, it never occurred to him to end his riding career. Not even when the surgeon explained to him how fortunate he had been, how 90 per cent of people with his injury end up paralysed for life. How, when he was speared head-first into the ground, it was only a matter of millimetres that saved him.<\/em><\/p>\n

Malachy Clerkin of the Irish Times discusses the retirement question with Davy Russell two years after his horrifying injury<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Roy didn\u2019t fake it. He didn\u2019t confect imaginary adrenaline.\u00a0He said that United\u2019s players basically gave up, and not much more. And by the end it felt like a moment to ask: are the great days of people saying Manchester United are bad already gone? People saying that Manchester United are bad was a glorious thing. We will always have those sunlit memories, back when people saying Manchester United are bad was fresh and new. But you have to say, we expect a bare minimum of effort, of cinematic rage and tweetable clips. Perhaps we need to dig deep and look at the whole structure of people saying Manchester United are bad.<\/em><\/p>\n