The boy from Copacabana made us believe before crashing to earth and joining his ilk. But oh how we smiled along the way!
And it was a very fun run, was it not? Matt “Wilko” Wilkinson, the boy with stringy brown hair and amusing wetsuits. The boy with a crooked tooth’d easy smile. The boy who cracked under pressure in Trump-like fashion and suggested one of his detractors, the esteemed Fred Pawle, “deserved a flogging” for calling him a yobbo. Or maybe it was because Mr. Pawle also said that Wilkinson “isn’t pretty.”
But he isn’t and that is his joy! He is not cut from granite or from a hunk of Krypton like our dear Kelly Slater. He is cobbled together with mud and clay and little bits of discarded straw like the rest of us.
Having him sit atop the Jeep Leaderboard (look Joe Turpel! Your dull hammer is working! Jeep Jeep Jeep leaderboard!) for all these many months and through all these many events has been… well, it has been an inspiration.
And now a rightful champion, Medina or John John, will go and wrest the yellow jersey from Wilko’s imperfect hand but what will he do?
Will he cling to his precious like a Gollum, crouched in a corner, baring his teeth to all who come near? Will he relinquish easily and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that he can go back to being a light-hearted clown prince once again?
Will he realize that being a clown prince is not his stock anymore and emerge from his yobbo cocoon to strike a blow for the rest of us?
Can Matt Wilkinson win it all at the end?
For us?
(no, but fun to think anyhow!)
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beat me to the trump comparison. Fuck.
Sometimes I think you are awful, Chas, and then you write things like “cobbled together with mud and clay and little bits of discarded straw” and then I like you very much again.
Cool working class story bro – except Fred Pawle never called him a yobbo in the first place. As Derek Reilly pointed out it was a sub-editor at the paper who wrote the headline.
ah Fred Pawle , and Australian redneck , calling Wilko a yobbo , now there’s a turn up !
Wilko has made this years Tour an entertaining one , isn’t that what its about entertaining surfings Yobbos , because we could all be part yobbo , but try and hide the fact by , being a cool surfie type??
Did you see Wilkos post on Instagram shortly after losing, rubbing salt into his wounds by drinking a bottle of piss – or Corona as it’s also known? There is something beautiful about having Wilko at the top of the Jeep leaderboard, now I can’t be sure but I can’t think of a bloke less likely to be reduced to tears at the loss of the ratings lead!
If Wilko wins, who would we need to have win next year to compete for the weirdest three year run of champions since ’99-’01 when we got Occy-Sunny-CJ?… Tim Boal?
P.S. “He is cobbled together with mud and clay and little bits of discarded straw like the rest of us.” Speak for yourself, Chazzy Boner! I am composed of exquisitely cut Hambergite!