FSOM: A glorious ‘British’ sporting summer or is it?

So, the wonderful summer of British sport continues.

Fifty Shades was there on one of the hottest days of the year, proudly sat in just his Union Flag undercrackers, and having to be periodically peeled off the leather sofa with a sound like a lothario’s flies being zipped up after being caught by an irate husband with a bread knife.

As the Aussies grovelled, and the French angrily stubbed out their Gauloises and practiced their lip-curling sneers to any Brits they may meet this summer, Fifty Shades cast his mind back over a summer that so far, has seen us Brits us top dogs in so many sports.

But then, as the new Princeling of the Blood Royal popped out, the tsunami of souvenirs about to swamp the nation set Fifty Shades a-pondering.

That tasteful 12-inch plate, with a picture of a couple almost resembling Will and Kate might be just the thing to grace the top of the telly, but it is hand-crafted by honest, British craftsman?

In the same way, the uncannily lifelike porcelain figurine (‘standing 35cm high, this faithful facsimile of the Royal Couple, individually cast, will be a legacy to hand down to your grandchildren’) will probably not be knocked out by Wedgewood, Worcester or any of Britain’s renowned potteries.

To be honest, most of the Union-flag covered tat that will be thrust upon, and gobbled up by a gullible Brit will not be homemade.

Remember when buying your Royal baby souvenirs that just because something is covered in the Union Flag, it might not have ‘Made in Britain’ stamped underneath.

Unfortunately, that same rule applies to most of Britain’s sporting triumphs this summer.

Don’t think for one moment that our sporting successes have been churned out in a Chinese sweatshop by 12-year-olds paid 14p a week and forced to live in discarded fridges.

But scratch the surface of our golden moments, and you’ll find that the gilt flakes off, and what’s underneath is manufactured overseas.

Chris Froome is a prime example.

We celebrated, as for the second year running; a Brit won the world’s greatest cycle race and stuck it to the French like no time since Henry V’s big away win at Agincourt.

Problem is, Froome is about as British as a Boerwurst on a Braai.

Froome was born in Kenya, brought up in South Africa and has only been competing as a Brit since 2008 thanks to his dad’s and grandfather’s country of birth.

Neither could his Sky team-mates – the domestiques and grunts who got him to the front on Mont Ventoux and up Alpe d’Huez – wrap themselves in the old red-white-and-blue flag as they brought him home down the Champs Elysees arm-in-arm like a bunch of hairdressers returning from a picnic.

Sky’s roster for 2013 read like a United Nations roll call for a crucial vote on the future of the world’s most endangered wildlife species.

The team contains nine Brits, and the other nationalities are Norway (2), USA (3), Italy (2), Austria (1), Australia (3), Colombia (2), Belarus (2), Germany (1), Spain (2).

What about our England cricket team who are rubbing the shackle-draggers’ noses in it?

Well, that would be OK if we didn’t give them an out as they can point and sneer that the England team is hardly pure of blood as it contains as many mercenaries as Oliver’s Army.

Chuck a drowning man a lifebelt and he’ll cling to it and you can bet the Aussies will point to England’s Ashes victory being bolstered by Rainbow Nation rejects Kevin Pietersen (Natal), Matthew Prior (Jo’burg) and Jonathan Trott (Cape Town) who are only playing for the Poms because they couldn’t get a game for the Voortrekkers.

That might be even worse if England thump them in the ODIs with Jade Dernbach and Michael Lumb swelling the ranks.

The British and Irish Lions – now they showed what the men of these Sceptered Isles are made of by beating the Crims on their own patch.

Would that be the British and Irish Lions coached by Warren Gatland – a New Zealander?

And while the Lions might have shown their pedigree on the field, Crufts dog show would have looked down their snouts at a Heinz 57 Varieties mongrel of a squad that included players born or raised in the following nations – Dylan Hartley, Mako Vunipola, Sean Maitland (all New Zealand); Matt Stevens, Ian Evans, Brad Barritt (South Africa), Alex Corbisiero (USA), Toby Faletau (Tonga), Manu Tuilagi (Samoa) and Jamie Heaslip, born in the rugby hotbed of Israel.

As the nation’s first Wimbledon champion since Gone with the Wind was published, Andy Murray was accepted as a victorious Brit, instead of his usual status of Scottish choker.

Oh, how he sent  the matrons of Middle England into the sort of realms of ecstasy they normally only get by sneaking into the utility room and leaning against the washing machine having set it to ‘Spin’ cycle.

But again, Murray’s triumph has grubby foreign hands all over its provenance.

It would be a romantic tale if Murray’s tennis skills were honed in the wake of the tragedy of the Dunblane Massacre on the grey, rain-flecked courts of Scotland, where the Pasty-faced Celt practised his double-handed backhand as the sleet fell horizontally in the teeth of a North Sea gale during a typical Scottish summer.

But no. As soon as Murray snubbed Glasgow Rangers overtures at 15 he went south faster than Sherman to Spain, where his mum Judy (who looks more like Anthony Perkins, who played Psycho villain Norman Bates, with each passing day) enrolled him in the Schiller International School, which left him time to learn his tennis on the sun-blessed, immaculately-maintained clay courts of the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona.

Nope, if you are looking for the Best of British this summer, you need strain your peepers no further than to look at the nation’s football teams.

Wales and Scotland have sunk so far down the FIFA rankings that James Cameron’s bathysphere would bang against the hull of Titanic before he spotted them.

For those for whom the summer is just an annoying warm patch with distractions before the real business of the football season starts, they might want to dwell on what a summer it’s been for England’s teams, and what that says about the state of the national game.

The England senior team have racked up more draws this summer than M&S Lingerie department, starting with the vital one of claiming a brave World Cup qualifying point against the might of Montenegro, before being held by Ireland (yes, they do still have a football team – and it’s managed by an Italian, so they have little room to scoff) and then spurning a chance to set out a bigger marker than a male fox peeing up against a gate post by letting Brazil salvage a draw in the re-modelled Maracana.

Elsewhere, it wasn’t even that good.

England went to the European Under-21 Championship campaign in Israel in a bubble of confidence that was burst with a pin the size of a scaffolding pole. They lost all of their group games – including to the hosts – to leave Stuart Pearce with a face even more like a bulldog licking pee off a nettle, but with the dignity to at least jump off the back of the ship before he was invited to walk the plank.

You would have been forgiven for overlooking the Under-20 World Cup this summer.

After all, everybody else did, especially the FA, whose coverage on their official website was an attempt to brush the embarrassment under the carpet in an almost Stalinist-like revision of history.

For the record, the Lion cubs lost 2-0 to Egypt, and were held 1-1 by Chile, and 2-2 by the football superpower of Iraq.

Put that into perspective. England U20s are supposed to be the holding pen for the next generation of England players, and play for some of the cream clubs in the self-proclaimed Best League in the World.

Or rather they don’t play for the clubs in the Premiership, that is, because their places are invariably blocked by overseas players as clubs are forced by the financial set-up of the Premier League to always look to the short-term of winning trophies (for the few) or survival (for the majority) instead of planning for the long-term.

So perhaps it’s no big surprise that the pampered pups of the Premiership are not battle-hardened enough to overcome a country whose players still don’t know whether their day will end with both legs attached to their bodies enabling them to play again tomorrow.

England’s Under-19s didn’t even qualify for this summer’s European Championships, missing out to Georgia.

Far be it from Fifty Shades to cast aspersions, but has anybody else ever wondered why an England team in possibly its most formative year is left in the charge of Noel Blake?

Blake is a lovely guy, and he’s been a great servant to the game. But as a bruiser of a central defender who had muscles in his spit, are England’s future young stars best served by a man whose greatest achievement while playing for Portsmouth became a quiz question.

The quiz question went something like; “How did Wimbledon only put the ball in the once but score two goals?” and the answer was ‘Noel Blake.’ From the restart after conceding, the ball was played back to Blake, who without looking, knocked the ball back to keeper Alan Knight who was still lying injured, having been clattered by Blake. Laughter all round as the ball trickled past the stricken keeper and over the goal line.

Putting Blake in charge of England’s precious future resources is like placing the Amazonian Rainforest in the care of Jack who has just got his eye in after chopping down the beanstalk.

Of course, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore did his normal holiday camp redcoat comedy act of impersonating an ostrich by sticking his head in a fire bucket filled with sand.

Mr Teflon once again absolved the Cash Cow from all blame by insisting England’s failures could not be blamed on young players having their progress blocked by clubs who don’t give tinker’s cuss for the national team and who prefer to sign ready-made, off-the-shelf overseas stars.

Normally, when men muck things up, we rely on our womenfolk to bail us out, but not this time.

The Lionesses tumbled out of the European Championship without a roar, but resembling pampered Persians purring over a saucer of milk.

Coach Hope Powell’s job looks pretty safe, though, as she looks like Stringer Bell from The Wire and is the only female coach able to deliver a withering stare.

So as you sit down for an evening contemplating which souvenirs to buy to mark the occasion of the royal birth, let Fifty Shades give you a word of advice.

Buy British. Make sure that your souvenirs are not made by foreign hands, but have ‘Made In the UK’ stamped through them.

And if the handle comes apart from the commemorative mug with a pronounced ‘pop’, leaving you with a scalded crotch and a stain on your trousers that attract alternate sniggers and tutting as you get on the bus; or Kate’s head falls off the his-and-her dolls, exposing a marlin spike that takes your child’s eye out and leaves her blinded for life, remember – the best things are made in Britain.

Excuse me. Fifty Shades is just about to take his Union Flag underpants off to check the label before any embarrassing accidents.

By John May

Follow @maisy68