• All you need to play soccer is 22 willing
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bodies, a ball and some open ground. American football demands rather more organisation.
To knock heads the American way you need a squad the size of an Accrington Stanley crowd (maybe two Accrington Stanley crowds), mountains of helmets, kilometres of strapping tape, legions of cheerleaders and some linebackers built like concrete bunkers.
To get from game to game, a pantechnicon is more suitable than a soccer team's battered old minibus. The Luton Flyers, for example, now travel in a fleet of trucks and cars sponsored by Trimoco. The deal has obviously made life a little easier for Flyers' director Alan Hughes: "This season we have had a lot of help from Trimoco to actually make it to our matches," he says.
• Bad roads are not a new problem. A Roman businessman called Octavius, based near the fort of Vindolanda in Northumbria, was as angry in his day as we are now.
Archeologists have just unearthed his outraged letters, complaining that orders of grain and cattle hides had not arrived because of the state of the roads. He suggested that mules were the best means of transport since those famous Roman roads were unfit for wheeled traffic.
Drivers stuck in an endless jam on the M-XXV (geddit?) may think that Octavius had the right idea.
• lveco Ford assembled over El million-worth of trucks for its recent roadshow. "Roadshow" proved rather an ironical title, when Newcastle-based dealer Pattersons had to fly in its guests by helicopter to avoid roadworks near the hotel entrance. • Lorry drivers could be understandably confused if travelling through Cornwall in the next few months. They might even be forgiven for thinking they have taken a wrong turning on their route, crossed the Channel, and ended up in another country.
Fear not: strange-looking road signs with odd-sounding names are to become an established landmark in Cornwall, now that the Department of Transport has reviewed its policy on the use of Cornish town names on town boundary signs. Yes, those considerate chaps at the DTp have had a rethink and are now allowing town names to be written in Cornish alongside the English equivalent. The Hawk looks forward to seeing London-area signposts in Cockney rhyming slang. .
• Press-release hacks have their flambouyant moments. Pepsi/Suzuki describe their motorcycling star Kevin Schwantz as a "glory-grabbing glamour boy".
Real subject of the piece was team transport manager Kevin Street singing the praises of his Mercedes 1635 rig, which has hauled Schwantz and his cohorts 25,000km through 20 countries in pursuit of Grand Prix glory and glamour.
IN Commercial Motor reader Martin Lee from Yam, Cleveland. has sent us three splendid pictures, of a brace of Scania 142Hs and a Volvo F12 which were hauling powerboats to the World Championship in Guernsey.