It really is Duncan disorderly when the former coach of the England cricket team waits a good seven months to say something he should have said at the time.

In what can only be described as a ‘late cut’ attack on Andrew Flintoff, Duncan Fletcher - the Zimbabwean who masterminded England to an astonishing Ashes win in 2005 - claimed the Lancashire all-rounder "let him down" with his drinking antics.

Yes, Flintoff had been warned about his drinking during the next Ashes series, the result of which is too painful to type here, and then came the famous 'Fredalo' incident in the World Cup, after which he was stripped of the vice-captaincy and fined for a late-night drinking session.

'This is yet another example of how the PR luvvies are driving sport and frankly, the whole thing stinks'


Fletcher’s autobiography, Behind The Shades, is released in time for Christmas (amazing coincidence) and in an interview with the Daily Mail, he let rip: "I've supported a lot of players and I supported Andrew but then he drank again at the World Cup after what had happened in Australia while I was taking a pasting. If he does ring me when he sees what I have written, I will say, 'At the end of the day, Fred, you let me down in an area that you had real control over'."

I said it at the time and I say it again now, Fletcher should have humiliated Flintoff and sent him back to England on the spot. But of course England were still in with a remote chance of doing something in the Caribbean, and as has been the case with English cricket over the past God knows how many years, no matter who does what off the pitch, as long as there is a chance of success, the gutless toffs who run the game will put up with anything.

For Fletcher to come along now and state the bleedin’ obvious serves only one purpose - to sell more copies of his book, get some media attention, and drift off into the wilderness hoping some county or cruddy second-string Southern Hemisphere state side will pick the phone up.

But of course, had Fletcher and the England management dealt with Flintoff on the post in the way they should, there would not have been a story for the book launch to hit the Christmas shelves.

This is yet another example of how the PR luvvies are driving sport and frankly, the whole thing stinks. Every piece of sports ‘news’, other than match reports, is controlled by blokes in designer glasses stuffing their goatee-bearded faces with lattes and croissants before frantically leaking a bit of gossip to a sports editor desperate for some tittle-tattle to splash across the back pages.

So instead of Fletcher’s insight as to how he tamed the Aussie Behemoth in 2005, the book will be remembered for his attack on Flintoff. And of course, Flintoff’s PR machine (probably the same gang of goatee beards) will respond and the media will be full of it all.

It’s time for an amnesty and for sports-media outlets to demand that the PR companies, agents, advisors and the rest of the peripheral trendies hand in their knives and stop creating a media hysteria over sporting issues. Oh, and it’s also time for the Fletchers of this world to stand up and be counted when their top player goes out on a drinking binge the night before a World Cup game and send the moron home to think about the consequences of his actions.

Do you agree with Mark - should Fletcher have sent Flintoff home on the first plane? Post your comments below - or submit an article to Sportingo if you prefer.