Well, now that Catriona Matthew has agreed to become the first professional captain of a Curtis Cup team, there’s a real treat in store for GB and I’s top women amateurs.  They’ll be learning from one of the best, a woman who won the Women’s British Amateur in 1993, the Women’s Open in 2009 and even more pertinently, led Europe to victory in the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles in 2019 and at Inverness Club, in Ohio, in 2021.

Elaine Ratcliffe, Catriona’s esteemed immediate predecessor, did play on the tour for several years but was reinstated as an amateur well before she became captain.  It’s no easy task, even at home, when the matches tend to be closer than the recent batterings away in the United States.  Only four countries to call on, not the whole of Europe and players, however good, still mostly at the early learning stage.

The Scot from North Berwick, who played in three Curtis Cup matches in the early 1990s (one loss, one win, one draw, a real rarity), trained on to become the epitome of a model professional, one of Europe’s best for many years, nine times a Solheim Cup player and a mother of two daughters to boot, with husband and oft-time caddy Graeme.  You don’t do all that without an immense amount of help, organisation and determination, not forgetting talent.

Team Matthew, Graeme and Catriona, celebrate another Solheim Cup triumph [Tris Jones, LET]

“As a captain it is my job to navigate the players through these situations and to help them believe what is possible.

“Through the Solheim Cup I have gained experience in building a high-performing and successful team, including bringing together individual athletes from different countries and recognising whose strengths will combine well to create successful pairings.

“My goal is to channel all my playing and captaining skills into this Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup team to optimise their performance.”

It’s an exciting prospect and Catriona has enlisted Kathryn Imrie and Karen Stupples as her trusted lieutenants.  I for one will be busting a gut (it’ll probably be even bigger next year than it is now) to be at Sunningdale, one of the world’s best venues, for the week of the match (Friday 30th August – Sunday 1st September).  Put it in your diary, it’ll be a wonderful occasion.

A reminder of some of GB and I’s finest moments: Prairie Dunes in 1986 and Hoylake in 1992.  Unforgettable.

Now the whispers are that the Walker Cup could go pro too, with Padraig Harrington mooted as a possible captain for the 2024 match at Cypress Point.  Start saving now, whoever the captain is.  Cypress Point is a beautiful place and it’s not on the normal tourist route, so where better to watch some of the world’s best amateurs stretch their skills and nerves to the limit and beyond.

Happy memories:  it seems like a long time ago – because it was a long time ago. Two Irishmen on the team, I seem to remember (Ronan Rafferty and Philip Walton) and Peter McEvoy, who later agreed to be Dai’s and my best man.

Away from golf and with Totspurs off duty because of the international break (giving us all time to absorb our manager’s rant about selfish players and so on), I went to my first women’s football match and what a joy it was.  For one thing, it was close to home, at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium and it was a (Women’s) FA Cup quarter-final between Aston Villa Women and Manchester City Women.

What a joy it was.  The players were skilful, fast, fit and just got on with things.  The lack of moaning, rolling around in agony and arguing with the referee was a revelation, so refreshing; it made me realise just what pampered plonkers the men are, allowed to get away with behaviour that should be beyond the pale.  What’s more, the fans were intermingled, sitting next to each other, not segregated at all and I don’t think I saw a single, solitary police person.

Shirley (left), Helena and I enjoying a terrific game. Helena’s scarf was at Villa’s European Cup final victory against Bayern Munich in Rotterdam in 1982.  Peter Withe scored the only goal, from a cross by Tony Morley.

Villa won 2-1 aet (after extra time for the non footie fans) and will play Chelsea, the holders, at Villa Park, in the semi-finals on Sunday 16th April.  Manchester United, who beat Lewes, play Brighton.

Villa and Man City in full flow.  All the fans were in the stand I was taking the snap from, stanchion notwithstanding.

The only downside was the loos, sez she who is used to up-to-date luxury at Spurs – off the pitch if not on.  There were two of them, woefully inadequate and not (wo)manned, so it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience.  The stadium opened in 1990, so perhaps they didn’t expect many women to go to matches, let alone be playing there in front of lots of women and children.  Thirty-three years is a long time in football…

Mustn’t forget to congratulate the amazing Ireland rugby team, who won the Grand Slam in Dublin on Saturday, beating a stubborn 14-man England 29-16.  Ireland were just ahead, 10-6, when England full back Freddie Steward was sent off just before half-time and an independent disciplinary committee has since decided that it should have been a yellow card not a red.  Oops.

Tickets to everything but the rugby!

After the rugby it was off to listen to the City of Lichfield Concert Band and the wonderful Everybody Sings choir, under the direction of Helen Williams, with Clare Butterriss at the piano.  The perfect end to a perfect day.

Couldn’t sing in the choir because of the rugby (sighs of relief all round said Mo) but it was a terrific evening.

Thursday is blog day, so I used to try not to schedule anything else for that day – even though it would extend far in to the night and then the early morning, no matter how long I had to write.  Did I start immediately after breakfast?  No, of course not.  After lunch?  Well, eventually.  After dinner?  Of course, because when it comes to the bit, needs must.

Once a prevaricator….oops, better check the trusty Chambers; ah, no, not quite, it has to be procrastinator, deferring action, putting off what has to be done immediately.  Prevaricating is a bit different:  to avoid stating the truth or coming directly to the point; to quibble; to deviate (obs); to shift about from side to side (obs)….And it used to be, at Cambridge University, that a prevaricator was “a satirical orator at the ceremony of Commencement”.

Is that another way of saying smart Alick/Aleck/Alec/alec?  Just asking;  as a smart Alick etc manque (still haven’t mastered the acute accent, so not so smart after all).

Anyway, it turns out that lots of good things happen on a Thursday and who can bring themselves to turn down a good thing?  Carpe diem and all that.

It’s all going on at the MAC

Last week it was Crufts and this week it was Grayson’s Art Club:  The Exhibition, at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC).  In all the years I’ve lived in and around Birmingham, I’ve never been to the wonderful venue that is the MAC, pretty well in Cannon Hill Park and just across the road from Edgbaston, one of cricket’s most famous grounds.  Wow, what a place.

MAC is now 61 years old and Deborah Kermode, the CEO and artistic director, explained its raison d’être in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue:  “Our job is to provide arts for all, with the mission to make art an important part of people’s lives…We specialise in contemporary work, offering a busy programme of theatre, dance, independent cinema, art exhibitions and special events.  What characterises our work is the wealth of practical classes and workshops we offer in all aspects of creativity.  We are part arts centre and part arts school and we want people to get involved!

“MAC has specialist arts studios set up for ceramics, textiles, silversmithing, dance, painting and drawing, for the public to use from 9am to 10pm daily…we do it all, with the aspiration that creativity is at the heart of learning, bringing people together to make friends and learn new skills to support their health and wellbeing…”

Just in case you don’t know what Grayson and Philippa look like…although Grayson does have an alter ego called Claire, so he may be in a dress next time you see him.

It’s the perfect spot to display the wide variety of works sent in to the art club devised by Grayson Perry and his wife Philippa (and Channel 4) to get us through the pandemic and lockdown.  It was quite brilliant and showed how amazingly imaginative and creative people are.  As a woman of limited imagination and creativity, I am in awe.

Margaret Seaman’s “Knitted Sandringham”  is at the MAC and it’s awesome.  It took two years to make and as someone whose own mother begged her to put down her knitting needles at the age of seven, I find it beyond mind boggling, jaw dropping…The skill, the patience, the imagination.

One view of the Sandringham spectacular, all knitted or crocheted.

It really is huge.

Beyond imagining for somebody who could only manage a holey dishcloth on chunky needles.

I couldn’t choose a favourite piece but here’s a selection of things that caught my eye.

Stuart Hutcheon’s Manchester Women, inspired by photos of Manchester and Salford in the 1960s and 1970s, created for a Mothers’ Day window display.

The sainted Alice, who has just made her first visit to a children’s hospice to help cheer everybody up, didn’t come to the exhibition but Pugsley, Janene Elise Pike’s assistance dog, was there, on the wall, in all his glory (digital mixed media on canvas).  Janene, who has cerebal palsy, called the piece, “My Canine Hero, Pugsley”.

Pugsley is from the charity Canine Partners and helps Janene with lots of different tasks.

And because I get teased mercilessly for being a rather ineffective eco warrior, railer against plastic and rinser of the recycling, how could I resist Alice Rhubarb’s “The Face of Waste”?  It’s made up of all sorts of junk that won’t degrade and usually gets chucked into landfill not turned in to art.

Alice says: “I think the human race needs to wake up about this sort of thing.”

For those of you who need a fix of golf, albeit a little below the elite level, here’s the Friday Frolic for today:  “THE MULTIPILIER”.  I feel we should have Arnold Schwarzenegger (correct spelling first go, incredible!) and The Terminator on hand because, weather permitting (who’s praying for sleet and snow?), this could be carnage.

Brace yourselves, here we go – and I quote verbatim:  “Best two Stableford scores [out of three] used in multiplier….lowest score is first number, second best score is used as second number…eg.  Team’s individual gross on hole one are 5, 4, 7.  4/5 used making 45 pts.  (if having to use 0 that goes as second number)  eg your team score 3, 0, 0, your score is 30 points.  Pair with highest pts score wins…”

My immediate reaction was “Aaaaagh” but I was reassured by our esteemed organiser:  “Stay in a darkened room overnight Patricia, you’ll be fine.”

My darkened room awaits but I’m not convinced.

Happy St Patrick’s Day everybody and here’s to Ireland’s Grand Slam (fingers crossed).

A cherished card from a friend in America who never forgets the occasion.

It’s been very gratifying to get messages from so many of you asking when I’m going to reacquaint myself with the keyboard and get blogging again.  Mind you, it’s going to be very hard to keep pace with the sister who is pulling in record-breaking numbers.  There are obviously plenty of folk out there who relish the challenge of following her ramblings.  It keeps the brain active, that’s for sure.

Well, I ‘m not going to be up to speed with a weekly offering for a while yet, but I thought I’d dip in and out and I’ve had such a wonderful week that I wanted to share it with you.  Firstly, I finished a rather unpleasant, very strong course of medication that has (I am assured) seen off the very pesky, rare, amoebic parasite that has apparently being lying dormant in my gut for decades.  Said nasty piece of work mounted a vigorous attack on my liver, which has now been pronounced clear.  It was quite a battle.  I won at the nineteenth.

Also, this week saw my first solo road trip for sixteen months – a much anticipated journey up to Muirfield for the annual playing of the Madill Trophy (photo above).  First played in 1995, we are homing in on our 30th anniversary of a great match against the men members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (HCEG).

The night before the match and the planning meeting is in full swing. From left to right: Chris Langford, Gill Stewart, Ali Gray, Mo, Pam Chugg, Jane Connachan and Katie Tebbet. Pat Smillie took the photo.

I was doing my captaining from the sidelines this year and am happy to report that the girls recorded their first victory since 2016.  We have eight a side and play four foursomes, morning and afternoon.  Despite dire weather predictions we got our 36 holes in, avoiding the rain, but I do have to confess it was a tad windy!  And chilly!

The near zero temps were more than offset by the warmth of the hospitality – a staple of the last three decades – and I was proud to introduce Carys Irvine to our team, the first member of either side to be born post 2000!  For goodness sake, we were even calling Heather Macrae a youngster, which pleased her enormously.  Just goes to show how the game can embrace the generations as well as the genders.

Two matches-all at lunchtime, I more or less abandoned my duties as team captain and enquired as to where I could watch the Scotland/Ireland rugby match.  Former Scotland captain P. C. Brown declared that he would stay and watch the match with me instead of heading home to watch.  It was all rather surreal – a little like Jack Nicklaus saying he’d sit down and watch the Masters with you!  Things went well for me, both on the screen and on the course.  Scotland didn’t score in the second half and we didn’t lose a match in the afternoon, evidence of how destructive my presence on the course had been in the morning.

Watching the Six Nations with rugby royalty, PC Brown. Thanks to Sue Penman for the photo.

Talking of the Masters, hubby and I will be heading out there on Thursday 6th April, the first day of the tournament and I will be working for the Americans over the weekend.  Why go on Thursday and why just the weekend, I hear you cry.  Well, there’s the small matter of my stepson’s wedding on the Wednesday.  Shows you how much sway I have in this family…..and how much interest there is in golf!

I’m apparently not the only one in this boat.  Alison White, a longtime friend and lifelong golfer whose resume includes stints working for the PGA, the LGU and the R&A  and who is well known to many readers of this blog, also has a family wedding during the men’s first major.  Her only daughter, Victoria, is getting married on Masters Saturday!  Ah well, can’t have everything.

I have a strong suspicion that might be where my next blog comes from – Augusta, not the wedding!  It’ll be minus pictures, unfortunately, as you are only allowed to take those on practice days.

So, life’s not perfect (is it ever?) but it’s getting closer.

This picture really made me laugh!  It was sent to me on Monday morning by Stuart McEwen, the secretary of the HCEG, with the caption, “Where’s the trophy gone……..? Something is missing from the middle shelf this morning!”

I made my first visit to Crufts yesterday, dog-tired, appropriately enough,  after a long, fruitless football trek to north London to watch the tottering Totspurs go out of Europe with barely a whimper.  It was the perfect antidote, seeing all the top dogs strutting their stuff, groomed to the nth degree, wagging their tails and enjoying life.

The happiest of dogs, a flat coat retriever (foreground) and a waggy working lab (not the sainted Alice – she was at home).  These two were in the beginners’ section.

The Welsh springers on their best behaviour for the group photo.

There were lots of bright eyes and bushy tails on show at the NEC, Birmingham but I was a bit bleary-eyed because I’d got home at half two in the morning, via foot, tube, train and car.  The cars in the car park at Birmingham International were covered in snow but luckily, the main roads home were clear and after a shower and a mug of hot water, I fell into bed at about 0330.

It was cold but the snow was soft and easily cleared and the roads home were only wet and not busy.

Such is the schedule of the travelling football fan.  Spurs supporters got off the train at Milton Keynes Central, Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham, perhaps even Wolverhampton (don’t mention Wolves!)  Are we all eejits, stark raving bonkers or just ever hopeful?

The atmosphere before the game on Wednesday night was brilliant, loud, raucous and optimistic (surely we could dig deep and produce one of our better nights).  A friend in Ireland called it a season-defining match, saying “they’ll either make us proud or capitulate….but I’ve a good feeling about it.”  You see, ever hopeful despite having no clue which Spurs would turn up.

Sadly, we were turgid, lacking any semblance of vim, vigour, nous or forward momentum.  In truth, A.C. Milan, I Rossoneri (The Red and Blacks), resplendent in their famous red and black stripes, rarely looked ruffled as they managed their way to a  nil-all draw, to win 1-0 on aggregate and send their supporters into such raptures that they concentrated on their singing and saluting their players and stopped making rude gestures at the few home fans who were still in the stadium.

No words needed. Viva Milano.

Near the end, when we were down to 10 men after our World Cup winner Romero was sent off for a brainless challenge, the remaining players stood where they were, separately, making no effort to gee each other up or show any belief that we could score once, let alone twice.  As Milan attacked, a fan behind me yelled, “Go on, score, put us out of our misery.”

I, as ever ever hopeful, urged us on to one last effort and their goalie made a great save, low down to his right.  Then I realised that a goal for us would mean extra time, possibly penalties (ever optimistic) and no train home that night….

My friend in Ireland messaged:  “Oh God, that was an awful watch.”

“At least you weren’t there!”

“So true…and I’ll be in bed in 10 mins…”

That was timed at 2212!!!

Ah well, there’s nothing like live sport…

Now I’ve got an apology to make, on the subject of tampons as useful for stemming nose bleeds.  The DWD (dog-walking dermatologist) is pretty sure she did not advise such a thing and that I should issue an errata (or erratum cos it’ll be singular), which I’m happy to do, quoting her in full:-

“I’m pretty sure I was talking about using them for other leaks of a motoring kind, cos I was talking about the Mongolia Rally.

“Anyway, if you shove a tampon up your nose, you’d need to cover it in Vaseline otherwise it can damage the lining of your nose and worsen the bleeding.

“Wouldn’t want you to cause harm to your readers and get myself a terrible reputation!!!”

You’ll be glad to know that far from signing any sort of non-disclosure agreement, I let the DWD know that I’d be using her denial and wise advisory words in full.  Also, there will be no pictures to accompany this element of the blog.  At least, none with any connection to the subject.

This murmuration is another McKenna special, one of a series, and I had a hard time choosing my favourite.

This one’s really dark and dramatic.

Finally, mulling over small fields (nerd alert, this is golf), no cut, shedloads of dosh and suchlike, I came across “Shark Attack! Greg Norman’s guide to aggressive golf.”  It was written with George Peper and published in 1988 and Jack Nicklaus wrote the introduction, which included the phrase:  “…there are certain things that no one could ever teach Greg Norman – his courage, his charisma, his determination and his unparalleled belief in himself…”

So here’s a bit of Greg we could all emulate – if we put our minds and our backs to it.  It’s the short putts that he would work on “to hone not my touch or my stroke but my nerves…

“The idea is simple.  You try to make 25 short putts in a row.  Start with 2-footers.  That may sound easy but try it.  Note when you get to the last few balls, how tense you become.  If you have no trouble with the 2-footers, go to 3-footers.  I bet you don’t make 25 of them in a row on your first try.  In fact, you may be there quite a while….”

Good luck.

Greg, by Harold Riley, from Beyond The Fairways by Dai and me.