Rob Burrow (1982 - 2024)

"In a world full of adversity, we must dare to dream". 

So says the mural painted on the side of Leeds Metropolitan University that bears the face of Rob Burrow. 

If anyone knew the meaning of adversity in a professional and personal sense, it's Rob. 

At 5'5" and under 11 stones in weight, professional rugby league player probably wasn't top of the list if you were asked to guess what he did for a living. What he may have lacked in height or weight though, he more than made up for in attitude and ability.  

A 16-year professional career that took in over 500 games for Leeds, Yorkshire, England and Great Britain with eight Grand Final wins and a catalogue of incredible individual performances wasn't enough to bring him notoriety outside the rugby league community, such is the sport's position in the UK media. 

 In typical Rob Burrow style, he signed off his playing career in 2017 with a Grand Final win at Old Trafford, his own personal theatre of dream-like moments. Sadly, it took personal rather than professional adversity to bring him that wider recognition. 

In December 2019, he was diagnosed with the currently incurable and life-limiting Motor Neurone Disease This was always an opponent that no amount of dazzling footwork or wholehearted defending was going to defeat. 

MND is a remorseless, rapacious condition. It strips away who you are from the inside out. It takes your ability to move, to speak, to do anything without assistance and it will not stop until it takes your last breath with it. 

It would have been easy after his diagnosis for Rob to hide away, to sulk or mourn his fate and that of his family. It sums him up as a player and a person that he did no such thing.

Shortly after his diagnosis, Rob took the field in his own testimonial game. It was obvious even at this point that the disease was starting to impact his speech and co-ordination, but nobody who saw it will ever forget the outpouring of emotion on and off the pitch that day.

As with every challenge, Rob faced his declining health with grit, intensity and humour. He devoted his time to being the best possible advocate for MND fundraising and research in the media for as long as possible.

Leeds now has the Rob Burrow Marathon. Leeds Hospitals Charity is fundraising for a new MND centre to be built, which will bear Rob's name, as does the player of the match award in the Super League Grand Final. 

In the face of personal adversity, his dreams may have changed but his desire to realise them burned just as brightly as the flames that seemed to shoot from his jet-heeled boots.

Rest well, Rob. You won't be forgotten.

Made of Steel - The Greatest Game within the Greatest Game

 I sat down over the weekend to watch the latest in BBC Two's excellent "Storyville" series of documentaries with more than a passing interest.

As a lifelong fan of rugby league and parasport (think of me as a British, less funny version of Adam Hills), the look behind the scenes at the rivalry between England and France both on the wheelchair rugby league pitch and off it during last year's World Cup promised to be excellent viewing.

What I didn't expect was for it to be so thought provoking about disability, the role sport plays in social inclusion and life in general.

For those who aren't aware, wheelchair rugby league is to all intents and purposes rugby league, just played on a smaller pitch, indoors, five-a-side and with everyone strapped into a wheelchair. The collisions can be brutal, the skill sublime and the drama every bit as intense as any other form of the game. It's a wheelchair-accessible version of the Physical Disability rugby league (PDRL) that Adam Hills produced his own documentary about for Channel 4,

Where wheelchair rugby league differs from many other parasports however, is that you don't need to have a recognised disability to play it. In its nearest Paralympic equivalents (such as wheelchair rugby - a very different game more akin to the Murderball you might have played as a kid - or wheelchair basketball) participants are graded on the basis of their disability and those gradings determine which players you can have on court at any one time.

In rugby league on wheels however, you don't need to have any degree of disability. To quote former England player and current Leeds Rhinos coach James Simpson (who lost both legs above the knee to an IED while serving in Afghanistan), "the chair is the leveller". Teams are restricted to two non-disabled players on the pitch at any one time. It truly is a game that anyone can play.

The origins of the game however lie very much in parasport. It was developed in France as a game purely for people with disabilities, but it has evolved into a sport for all, much to their chagrin. The French view the introduction of able-bodied players into the sport as being a safety risk and something that will deter those with more significant disabilities from taking up the game.

"The chair is the leveller" though, right? Well, not entirely say the French. Players without disabilities have better chair control and can generate greater speed and force into collisions as well as being more evasive. The documentary showed the effect of that evolution on players like veteran England international Wayne Boardman. A T4 paraplegic (essentially paralysed from the nipples down), Boardman found his time on the pitch at the World Cup severely limited, as without lower body and core function his chair mobility isn't as good as others in the modern game with a less severe (or no) degree of disability.

While Boardman himself is phlegmatic about the way the game has changed, the French see that as unacceptable and excluding disabled athletes. On a number of occasions during the tournament, France coach Sylvain Crismanovich expressed those concerns loudly and at length in media interviews.

To the English however, this comes across as an element of sour grapes. France had won the previous two World Cups and their domination of the sport was coming under threat from an England side featuring superstars of the wheelchair game such as Jack Brown.

Brown's story illustrates the quandary. His brother Harry lost both legs as an infant and grew up as a wheelchair user. When Harry initially took up wheelchair basketball, Jack was coaxed from the sidelines to give it a go alongside him and the pair went on to be part of the fledgling England rugby league team. Harry eventually moved on to play wheelchair basketball professionally and has won a Paralympic medal with Team GB - a route Jack couldn't have taken as a non-disabled player. Within wheelchair rugby league, Jack Brown is an instantly recognisable icon. A winner of the Golden Boot as the world's best player in 2020, his speed and chair control allied to his flamboyant nature make him compulsive viewing.

Does the sport want to lose players like Brown, or England captain Tom Halliwell whose foot injury as a teenager left him a temporary wheelchair user and who fell in love with the game during that period? If it were to become "disabled only", who determines the degree of disability that is permissible? Is England's Nathan Collins - who has dwarfism, but had played the running game growing up - sufficiently disabled to meet the criteria the French want to reimpose? Or should it only be those who are forced to use a wheelchair in their day to day life?

These are questions with no easy answers for administrators. The speed, impacts and skill of wheelchair rugby league are what make it compulsive viewing for live and television audiences. The final of the World Cup in Manchester last year drew a crowd some lower league professional football teams would be happy with and interest is growing through excellent coverage both on the BBC and Sky Sports.

Setting aside the inclusion argument, the documentary also showed the role that the sport can have in helping individuals cope with life-changing injuries. Ironically given the arguments above, probably best exemplified by wheelchair rugby pioneer and French international Giles Clausell.

Now aged 60, Clausell was a highly-rated rugby union player in France when he lost his left leg above the knee in a road accident. He spoke movingly of waking up in hospital and considering throwing himself out of the window, thinking his chances of a top-level sporting career were over, and what being able to play wheelchair rugby league has done for him in terms of his life post-accident. A similarly emotional story emerged from England's Seb Bechara, another lower-leg amputee as a result of a road traffic accident at the age of 18 who has gone on to win a World Cup, win the 2022 Golden Boot, be a professional musician and was one of the media stars of England's campaign, even appearing on Greg James's Radio 1 show.

Growing up in France having moved there as a child, Bechara found a mentor in the older Clausells when the youngster first joined the Catalans Dragons wheelchair team. The emotional bond the two share was clear in the scenes after the hooter in the World Cup final.

Neither Clausells nor Bechara are full-time wheelchair users, but wheelchair rugby league has played a huge part in both their lives. It has enabled both of them to play rugby league to the very highest level as well as becoming highly visible examples to others who may be facing up to a recently-acquired disability that it is possible to still be involved in the sport. It would be a shame if stories like those two, Jack Brown, James Simpson and others were to be lost to factionalism when the sport is finally breaking into the mainstream.

Made Of Steel remains available on BBC iPlayer. Even if you have no interest in sport, I'd recommend you give it a watch.

2017 Wet Wipe - the year in review

After a 2016 in which we'd mourned many of our favourite celebrities, voted to leave the EU and seen the US elect a semi-sentient Cheeto as President, we were glad to see the back of it.

How did that turn out?

January

Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the USA, in the biggest success story for gaslighting since Victorian London. He then spent the next few days arguing the inauguration was bigger than it actually was, something he's had decades of practice at.

February

The Queen became the first UK monarch to celebrate her Sapphire Jubilee, marking 65 years in the job. She would have retired, but she still doesn't have enough national insurance to get a full state pension.

March

The UK government sends its Article 50 notification to the European Union. It's found three weeks later behind the bins, having been delivered by Yodel. 

A Suffolk man is arrested after having sex with 450 tractors. He misunderstood after being told to get inside it and do some ploughing.

April

The University Boat Race provides the UK with a fine metaphor for Brexit, as sixteen posh white men take things backwards as fast as possible. 

North Korea launches a missile that fails to get out of the country, making it similar to most Americans.

May

Buckingham Palace announces that the Duke of Edinburgh is retiring from public life, after passing the racially insensitive comedy baton to Boris Johnson. 

Nigel Farage keeps up his proud record of electoral success by backing Marine Le Pen to beat Emmanuel Macron.

June

Police investigate a cyber attack at the Houses of Parliament, which turns out to have been someone trying to get at Damian Green's porn stash. 

Jeremy Corbyn sacks some of the Labour front bench for voting against the party leadership. Irony hands in its resignation.

July

The UK government introduces mandatory registration for drones, despite complaints by Piers Morgan. 

Michael Gove attends the Great Yorkshire Show, figuring if you're going to spend all day talking bullshit you may as well go stand in it.

August

After being sacked from The White House, Steve Bannon vows to "go medieval". Although he already looks like he's got the bubonic plague, so that's a start. 

Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn admits talks with Russia over "simple things". Presumably his code name for Trump.

September

The Titanic Hotel opens in Belfast. First visitors were said to be impressed by the massive sink. 

Twenty clowns turned up to a protest about their portrayal in the new movie "IT". All got out of the same car.

October

Michael Gove claims the UK could export pigs ears to China, starting with every policy he ever made. 

US Vice President Mike Pence says he wants to see boots on the moon. Bit of a trek to pick up a prescription.

November

A rule change on Viagra allows the pharmacist to give you one over the counter. Although he might need to take a Viagra first. 

Twitter gives its users twice as many characters, immediately halving the number of tweets in every Seth Abrahamson thread.

December

Plans are set out for drunk tanks to reduce strain on the NHS. Although how having armoured vehicles weaving around the streets late at night is going to help I don't know.

Storm Dylan brings (mumbles), high (garbled) and what sounds like "macaroni furniture" across the UK.

SS

Overdrawn - The Autumn Statement

We've all been there.

The bank statement arrives and fills you with dread. You know it's not good, so you can't bring yourself to open it. Spare a thought then for Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.

He's had to stand up today in the House of Commons and not only open the bank statement, but read it out to the entire country. And as you might expect, it's not great news.

Turns out that rather than fixing the roof while the sun was shining, we've actually spent the last six years of austerity living in a tent in the garden during the coldest winter on record.

We used to not have a pot to piss in. We're now so broke we don't even have floorboards to put the pot on. It's no wonder Hammond - who is now second on my list of Hammonds I never want to hear again, between Richard and organ - delivered the news with all the enthusiasm of a lame horse addressing a conference of glue manufacturers.

Tradition in the case of delivering bad economic news is of course to blame the last government, which Hammond did. Or at least, the last Labour government. Would have been awkward otherwise, what with half the last Tory government being sat at the side of him.

Course there's also a new kid on the blame block - Brexit. Turns out that estimating the economic impact of leaving the EU is a bit tricky though, when you don't actually know what Brexit means apart from Brexit. The Office of Budget Responsibility asked the Treasury to do it, and they declined.

Now to me, that means one of two things. Either they genuinely don't know - which is scary enough, given it's their job - or they do know, but the number is so bowel-clenchingly horrific that they don't want to share it.

At least we've "taken back control". The Brexit Bunch have got the Ford Anglia back that the EU stole from them in 1973, albeit the seats have been taken out, the engine doesn't run and it's on fire. Still, they've got their hands back on the steering wheel.

Pity whoever loses the game of rock, paper, scissors at Tory Central Office and ends up having to go defend this shambles on Newsnight. Hammond hasn't so much rearranged the deckchairs on the Titanic as given everyone in steerage a towel and told them not to panic.

It's not so much a statement, as an economic suicide note.

The Lord's Prayer (The Sun version)

Our Rupert, who art in hiding

Haggard be thy face

Thy kingdom's Sun

Its work be scum

Online, as it is on newsprint

Give us this day more teenage breasts

And push unto us more hatred

As we hate those who phone hack against us

Lead us not to information

But to ignorance made glory

For thine is the bigotry

The bile and the misogyny

Forever and ever

Arseholes

An Ode To Twitter - for World Poetry Day

Ten years have passed of Twitter
Hope you don't think me bitter
For laughing at poor David Cam
Making sweet love to a ham

Through absurdity and scandals
People with ever changing handles
Accounts who steal your best material
May they get a disease venereal

Let Facebook have get rich quick schemes
Twitter's more for silly memes
Polls with ridiculous votes
And fake inspirational quotes

So be it Bounce or Lanyard, Balustrade
Ron with porn bills he never paid
Boris flattening a helpless child
Or girl with bubbles running wild

Think of all the times you've laughed
At folk on Twitter being daft
Let's do our best to keep it silly
Please don't DM pics of your willy

Conquering The Cowboys - Keys To A Leeds Victory

The first two games in the 2016 World Club Series have resulted in convincing, chastening defeats for the Super League sides against last year's NRL minor premiers and Grand Final runners-up. So how do an injury hit and evolving Leeds Rhinos stop the rot and restore some pride to the northern hemisphere tonight against the North Queensland Cowboys?

Here are four key points they need to focus on.

Start Fast, Stay In The Game

In both games so far this year, the home side has been almost out of it inside half an hour. Against the well drilled Cowboys defence, Leeds aren't likely to post a bunch of points in a hurry so can't afford to get behind early in the game and be forced to play catch-up.

A good start also helps to keep what is likely to be a vociferous home crowd involved. Langtree Park and the DW Stadium were almost funereal in atmosphere during the second halves on Friday and Saturday. The Kiwi players involved in last October's warm-up game will tell you what a special atmosphere Headingley can generate on big nights under lights, and it's important the Rhinos give their fans something to stay with as they did on that occasion.

Disciplines

If the Rhinos lose the penalty count (and they don't have the greatest of historical relationships with tonight's man in the middle Richard Silverwood), the error count or the missed tackle count, they're not going to win. They need at least an even share of both possession and field position to be in the contest, which means not turning the ball over close to their own line or early in the tackle count. They have shown the ability to get into arm wrestles in big games, grind their way through and come up with the win. Tonight is going to demand that again.

They also can't afford to lose their defensive structure as often as Wigan and Saints did by having players flying out trying to make speculative reads and leaving massive holes. NRL sides structure their attack in such a way that they put a lot of runners at the ball carrier's disposal, and defenders need to remember that the ball is the danger. There's no point haring out to close down a runner if it leaves a big gap on your inside shoulder for someone else to stroll through. 

Doing the simple things well under pressure is what separates the two competitions, and to be successful Leeds will have to match the Cowboys at that both with and without the ball.

Use The Underdog Card

It's not often the Rhinos have gone into a big game as such huge underdogs, in some places as big as 5-1 to win the game. There's a host of good reasons the odds are so long as well - the transition after losing three big players including two massive leaders, the injuries to half a dozen potential starters, the young half-back pairing playing only its second game together at this level. Pulling off a win would rank right up there in the great nights of the club's recent history.

So they need to use the fact that everyone is writing them off to their advantage. There are players coming into this game with points to prove, whether they are established veterans looking to show they can still do it, players who should be at the peak of their careers but have yet to crack it at representative level or youngsters wanting to find out whether they can live with the very best in the world.

So use the fact that many pundits expect you to get a hammering to your advantage, by making it your motivation to run that little bit faster and hit that little bit harder.

Get Thurston

You don't win a Grand Final by being a one man team, in either hemisphere. Having spent so long witnessing at first hand what Kevin Sinfield could do to carry his Leeds Rhinos team to wins in big games though, the home side tonight will know more than most how important it can be to target the opposition's key man.

Thurston makes this Cowboys side tick. He's their leader, both in terms of game management and emotionally. If he's allowed to play the game with a tuxedo on because he's given too much awe and respect, he's a good enough player to carve Leeds to pieces.

I'm not advocating trying to take his head off with the first play of the game, but if he wants to play close to the line don't be afraid to put a shot on him just as he passes the ball. When he kicks, take him to ground afterwards. Don't let him lead the chase and put everyone else onside. This is Thurston's first competitive game of the season, so test how much petrol he has in the tank by having him make twenty tackles in the game as well as pick himself up off the floor continually.

He's very much the battery which powers this North Queensland side, so let's see how he and they respond when those energy levels get low.

Leeds are going to need to produce the performance of an era to win this game in the face of a whole host of reasons why they shouldn't. If they can do these four things though, it will go a long way towards providing what could be a magical night for the club and a shot in the arm for Super League.

An Open Poem To Kanye West

Kanye, oh Kanye

You said don't text till Monday

But now that Monday's gone we need to talk

You've been tweeting across the ocean

Full of raw emotion

You and me, let's take a little walk

See that woman with her brood

Queueing up for food

They can't afford to buy from a shop

You really think they care

That you're a debt millionaire

Or about your little Twitter strop

Over there's a refugee

Scared and forced to flee

Leaving everyone and thing they had 

So don't be such a clown

Shut the fuck up and sit down

Look at those who really have it bad

So now it turns out that you're broke

And begging from that Facebook bloke

Face your situation with some class

Show deportment, show some carriage

The last thing that your marriage

Needs is another massive ass

Sexuality Sells, And We're All Buying

This morning's Victoria Derbyshire Show on the BBC made quite a big deal over the fact that a British Olympic hopeful had decided to come out to the nation as gay. Such a big deal in fact, that they teased the story on social media, but kept the name of the athlete concerned as an "exclusive" for the show itself.

It turns out that athlete is race walker Tom Bosworth. No, me neither. The fact that a major broadcaster still considered his sexuality a matter of such utmost importance that it needed to not only be revealed to the nation live during the show, but trailed in advance just to whet our salacious appetites raises a couple of questions.

Firstly, is it news? Well, no. Not in the wider definition of the word as something of interest going on in the world that we need to know about. It's probably news to Tom's family, his training partners, teammates and friends - assuming many of them didn't already know - but not particularly news to the rest of us. I suspect the reaction of the nation will have been one of "meh" and get on with your day.

Secondly, why does a major media outlet consider it to be news, if most of us know that it isn't? Well you would have to ask the producers of the show that. Without wishing to answer on their behalf, I suspect they've looked at what seems to be work for daytime TV formats and decided that a story about someone's little sexual secret fits right in with the Jeremy Kyle/Loose Women style that  ITV peddle.

In short, they are using Tom Bosworth's willingness to reveal his sexuality to a widely disinterested nation for a bit of cheap, titillating television. Are we still really at that stage of our social development as a culture? Did Back to the Future just happen and all of a sudden we're in the 1970s again?

"But things like this help other gay people to find the confidence to speak out".

Do they really? Does the fact an athlete who nobody outside those with an interest in race walking has ever heard of has come out really provide that much comfort and security to a young person that they can feel safe about revealing their own sexuality?

I don't think it does. This isn't an age where being gay or lesbian (or anywhere between) is still punishable by prison or something that needs to be kept hidden away in a metaphorical closet. There are high profile, openly gay figures in sport, entertainment and politics who are showing that being honest about your sexuality is no handicap to having a fulfilling and successful life.

More damaging is the approach taken by the media that being anything other than heterosexual is something still to be considered surprising or news-worthy. That doesn't provide any kind of comfort or solace to anyone on the verge of coming out, whether they are in public life or not. It portrays non-heterosexual love as something so out of the ordinary or unusual that a major broadcaster has to devote time to discussing it.

In short the attitude of the media towards gay, lesbian and bisexual people in public life needs to change. It informs and supports prejudice, and creates an atmosphere which prevents people being who they really are. It contributes to potential mental health issues caused by the fear of revealing your sexuality. Enough is, as the song says, enough.

For National Poetry Day

Writing poems about poets
It really is quite hard
That's why it's sometimes easier
To call Shakespeare "The Bard"

Writing poems about poets
The tantrums and commotion
When you can't think of anything
For Andrew bloody Motion

Writing poems about poets
You're a hero or a villain
Depends on whether you leave out
That nice Ian McMillan

Writing poems about poets
To stick up on your fridge
Even ones with quite long names
Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Writing poems about poets
One of my pet hates
Is when you discover
That Keats doesn't rhyme with Yeats

Writing poems about poets
The travails and the despairs
Have finally convinced me
That I'll never be Pam Ayres