HAMILTON AND McILROY : CHILDREN, NOT MEN.

Why are young British sportsmen often so puerile ?

In the last few days, Lewis Hamilton, undoubtedly a very good driver, has shown the petulance one might expect from a 10 year old. His appalling behaviour during the 4 days of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend showed that this spoilt child has no grace or sportsmanship. Whether or not his teammate, Nico Rosberg, deliberately ran off of the circuit in qualifying, Hamilton's subsequent show of sullenness and irritability was childish in the extreme. This man needs to grow up.

Over at Wentworth, another young man did rather better but still demonstrated a lack of maturity. Rory McIlroy had apparently been planning marriage to his girlfriend of a couple of years, Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, nad the couple had even sent out wedding invitations. Suddenly, McIlroy, who is hardly a child at 25, decided that he "was not ready for marriage", this after he and Wozniacki had been together for close to 3 years. How is it that living together for 3 years had not prepared him for marriage ? Clearly and in common with much of today's youth, he has no understanding or desire for commitment or responsibility and prefers to be footloose and fancy free, a state much more suited to a selfish child or teenager than a man in his mid-twenties.

While McIlroy put his issues behind him and won the Wentworth golf tournament, Wozniacki seems to be devastated and was considering pulling out of the French Open Tennis tournament; it appears that she's changed her mind on this score but I don't give much for her chances of success.

The behaviour of Hamilton and McIlroy shows just how low modern youth has sunk. These spoilt kids, like far too many of their British contemporaries, never grow up. Until they do, they will never be true world beaters, just selfish, sulky children.

DANIEL LEVY : TOTTENHAM'S NEMESIS.

Clive Allen, a former player and coach for Tottenham Hotspur FC, is quoted today as saying that the club's chairman, Daniel Levy, is an "incredible" businessman but is "not a football man". I've seen similar comments elsewhere.

Sadly, I think Mr Allen has got it wrong. Not only is Levy "not a football man", he's an appalling businessman. Tottenham are not a poor club and they have the backing of a reclusive billionaire owner, Joe Lewis, whose 'ENIC' investment company bought a majority shareholding in 2001, when Levy replaced Alan Sugar as Chairman. Since then, the club has had a succession of managers, both 'permanent' and 'temporary', and has won nothing of real note; it's one League Cup victory in 2008 can hardly be called major silverware.

The sad truth is that Levy's understanding of football is poor and his understanding of its management even poorer. Within a month of taking control, Levy sacked the then manager, George Graham and has since appointed and sacked 7 more; additionally, the team has had to endure 3 spells of acting managership, 2 with David Pleat and one with Clive Allen. With the ludicrous sacking of Tim Sherwood after only 5 months in post, Tottenham face yet another management upheaval in advance of next season.

At the same time that he's been busy sacking managers, Levy's also been busy making sure that those same managers lost their best players and were given unsatisfactory replacements. Carrick, Modric, Berbatov and Bale all exited, admittedly for large amounts of cash, but the cash has then been squandered on a mish-mash of players who have almost all failed to make the grade. In the last year, Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela were bought for a combined total of around £60m, neither proving much use to the team. Etienne Capoue and Nacer Chadli have hardly played and Paulinho has faded somewhat after a bright start. Only Christian Eriksen has really been a success although Vlad Chiriches has certainly had his moments. The final result is that a team full of expensive foreign stars, and peppered with some excellent home-grown talent too, has been slaughtered by the top sides and has struggled to beat the minnows.

Given the length of time he's been in the job, one would have thought that Levy would, by now, understand that managers need time to build their own sides; a few months or even a couple of years are simply not enough to mould success from a disparate group. Sadly, he has not learnt this and his shameful treatment of the hapless Sherwood is just the latest in a long line of appalling acts.

That he does not understand football is a given. If changing manager every year or 2, selling your best players and buying others for whom the manager has no desire is good business, then he's a good businessman. I see it as wasting vast amounts of money on paying off a succession of managers, selling off the family jewels and wasting the proceeds on buying into speculative ventures that usually fail. Looked at in these terms, Levy has been an abysmal failure as a businessman. He has ruined a great club and it's time he went.

BBC SPORTS' COVERAGE - IS THERE ANY, EXCEPT FOOTBALL ?

The BBC seems to believe that 'sport' = football.

Today's 'sports' slot on the Radio 4 programme 'Today' at 8:30ish gave several minutes to a discussion about the expected omission of one Ashley Cole from England's world cup football squad and gave very little attention to anything else. A few seconds were devoted to telling listeners that Lewis Hamilton had won a grand prix and Martin Kaymer a golf tournament. The only other item was the utterly pointless racing tips, though with no mention of any racing results.

Our national summer sport, cricket, was not mentioned even though the latest round of county championship matches started yesterday. Nothing was said regarding other performers behind Hamilton and Kaymer in their respective events, and nothing was said about tennis, in which there had been a significant final played on Sunday. There was no coverage of the rugby union play-off matches, nor of the rugby league 'Super league'; the UK athletic championships. Cycling, in which there is a major event taking place, was ignored.

Once upon a time, the BBC covered a wide variety of sports in excellent fashion. Today, they seem to have given up covering most sports and even given up reporting on all but football, unless, of course, a British competitor happens to be doing well. How Martin Kaymer, a German, managed to get a mention is a bit of a mystery though he is a citizen of the EU, so perhaps this helped to shoe-horn him in.

Apart from events which they cover in detail, fewer and fewer every year, the BBC gives no coverage worth the name to any sport except football. Cricket is almost forgotten even though it is our national sport. The replacement for the old 'teletext' is so poor in its coverage of most sports as to be useless - it is updated rarely and, again, devotes almost all of its energies to football.

It really is time for this once great organisation to be switched off or, at least, to have to fight for viewers as its competitors do. The licence fee has to go, even if the BBC does not.

MARK SELBY - WORTHY CHAMPION.

In an absorbing final, Mark Selby fought his way back from a 5 frame deficit to beat defending champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan 18-14. Early on, O'Sullivan seemed likely to run away with the crown for a third successive year as a weary looking Selby proved unable to construct any meaningful breaks. Somehow, Selby did cling on and even won the last 2 frames of the first day to trail by only 7-10 overnight.

On day 2, Selby was a different man and it was O'Sullivan who appeared on the edge. Selby won the first 4 frames of the day for a run of 6 altogether and a lead of 11-10. Although O'Sullivan drew level again, some uncharacteristic misses allowed Selby to pull away again as he grew in authority with every passing frame. In the end, it was almost a comfortable victory.

Selby is a worthy champion and also regained the top spot in the world rankings. Now all he has to do is to retain the title next year, something which no one has ever done at the Crucible following their first win there. I wouldn't bet against him.

ELENA BALTACHA TAKEN BEFORE HER TIME.

The death of Elena Baltacha makes this a sad day indeed.

Baltacha was a fine tennis player who battled ill health for most of her career. Despite this, she became British number 1 and rose to gain a place amongst the world's top 50 women players. While she was no world beater, her powerful style of play caused many upsets and she was always an exciting player to watch.

Ill health finally ground her down and she retired from competition in 2013 to concentrate on her tennis academy and family life. Sadly, she was destined to enjoy neither for very long and the liver cancer with which she was only diagnosed a few weeks ago has claimed her life at the tender age of 30.

The world of tennis, indeed the world itself, is much poorer for her passing.