Martin Smith: Stirling Moss was 'genuine sporting and motor racing hero'

A man so much a part of British life that his fame gave sarky speed cops chance to inquire of over-enthusiastic motorists: “Who do you think you are? Stirling Moss?”

The man himself was stopped for speeding once and asked that very question by a disbelieving policeman.

Moss won 16 of 66 races in an F1 career that spanned 14 years from 1948 but he raced competitively until he was 81 winning 212 races in all.

Moss died at the weekend aged 90. Mind how you go sir.

*Last week this column railed against Health Secretary Matt Hancock who is trying to cope with the deluge of death that the Coronavirus is bringing to these shores. He had called for footballers to ‘make a contribution, take a pay cut and play their part’ in the fight against the disease.

In response to my blatherings @MyrtleKnits rightly tweeted that the initial call for a footballers pay cut was not to help the NHS but to aid lower-paid football club staff who may have to be laid off. This point got lost in my rant and Myrtle, if that is her actual name, is right.

However I hope she might agree that the point I made on footballers being an easy and lazy target for a Tory minister to have a go at, still stands.

Former banker Mr Hancock is senior member of a party some of whose members clapped and cheered in 2017 when the House Of Commons voted to continue austerity and NOT award nurses and other NHS workers a pay rise after a seven year freeze. Then he voted against more investment in public health and the reform of social care again last month.

He and his party are implicated in this country’s having the second highest Coronavirus death rate per infection in the world - below only Italy. Might a lack of investment in vital equipment - including equipment to protect the staff who are saving lives - be part of the problem that is wreaking tragedy on families across the land?

Footballers have since stepped up - led admirably by Sheffield’s Harry Maguire who is co-ordinating the Players Together NHS fund and personally funding food parcel deliveries to the elderly and vulnerable in his home town of Mosborough. Deflective fussing over footballer’s salaries should be way down Matt Hancock’s priorities.