The Badger: Summer 2017

The Badger goes into hibernation for the summer, but isn’t looking forward to it.Ah yes, the great sporting summer is here, where your average punter has absolutely nothing to look forward to. There’s ‘’no football’’ around because the Premier League wraps up in May (the Badger weeps for the League of Ireland) and most GAA fans will switch off the television until August time.Sure the entertainment is already finished for the year as the unstoppable Dubs were stopped and their fans proved just how petty they were, blaming everything from the ref to the weather conditions for their defeat. You stay classy.But what’s actually on? The Lions tour? Oh, Warren Gatland’s favourite fifteen getting their arses handed to them by the All-Blacks on their own turf.It’s just as well it’s to New Zealand, otherwise Ireland’s South Africa’s CJ Stander would have to come up against the side that he wasn’t good enough to play on. The Badger loves that about rugby. If you’re not good enough for the place you were born, just move somewhere else. Imagine if that happened in other sports.Roy Keane isn’t good enough for Cobh Ramblers, emigrates to Walsall, plays for England. Gooch Cooper can’t get into the Dr Crokes, so he crosses the border and the greatest forward of all time instead plays for Limerick. Oh hang on – Cooper actually could’ve done that!With all the hype about the Lions, the Irish public and media seem to have forgotten about the World Cup happening in this very college later this year. How bad is it that we have to be told it’s the “Women’s World Cup”. I look forward to the next Men’s World Cup in Japan in a couple of years.On the advice of one of the rats in the set, The Badger decided to take a peek at the award-winning Student Newspaper of the Year: the College Tribune. You know, the paper edited by the guy who believed Yik Yak last year. Anyway, the Badger flicked to the back pages and found a report on the Colours match between UCD and Trinity last weekend. Match. Singular. Just the men’s match, despite the women playing two hours prior. Because equality!Even more stunning was the Tribune’s ability to report on a match they weren’t at.The Badger was sniffing about at the UCD Bowl the day after the rugby for the UCD AFC game against Athlone Town. Nuzzled comfortably in the corner of the press box, the Badger recognised the two people sat alongside him. One was reporting for the national press, one for a football website. No sign of any other reporter, and yet a report appeared in the Tribune. The editor even admitted on a radio show that he had no knowledge of the UCD Waves, the senior ladies side here in Belfield.Let the countdown to the great sporting winter begin…