JARROW Arrow Steve Cram made a golden gaffe when he put down his home town during last night’s Olympic coverage.
BBC presenter Gabby Logan asked the former world champion runner what Jarrow would think about equestrian event dressage – only for him to say folk in the town wouldn’t even be able to spell it.
Gareth Anderson, 30, from Jarrow, made his feelings clear when he staged a protest this morning beside the iconic Jarrow March statue.
The warehouse operative said: “He’s a local hero in Jarrow. I’m disappointed with him – you cannot say things like that about your home town on national TV.
Jarrow local historian and author Paul Perry said he was “disappointed” by Steve Cram’s off-the-cuff comment.
He said: “I think Steve Cram is forgetting where he is from – Jarrow made him what he is.”
Cram’s cheeky quip also had people jumping on to social networking site Twitter to defend the town.
Gemma Thompson wrote: “Bit of a low blow from Steve Cram saying people from Jarrow couldn’t spell dressage!”
Karan Turnbull said Cram was ‘stuck up’ and tweeted: “Steve Cram dissing his hometown of Jarrow!”
KFrampton posted: “Please ask Steve Cram to apologise to the nice folk in Jarrow. How offensive!”
Tracey Davey said: “Cheers for that, Steve Cram dissing Jarrow.
“Never was that struck on him even when I was a runner.”
And Richard Law said: “People in Jarrow can’t spell ... that’s according to their own Steve Cram!”
Cram, who carried the Olympic Torch on its leg of the relay through Whitburn in June, was the first man to run the 1500m in under three minutes and 30 seconds and went on to win a gold medal at the 1983 World Championships and a silver at the 1984 Olympic Games.
He was appearing on last night’s Olympic Tonight show alongside Olympic cycling champion Chris Boardman, as the group discussed the day’s events at London 2012.
Talking about dressage, Logan asked Cram: “Do much of that in Jarrow when you were growing up?”
He replied: “I don’t think they know how to spell it actually, to be fair.” Logan gasped, and said: “Oh, Steve Cram. I’ll put you in touch with the people who are no doubt e-mailing furiously as you speak.”
But not everyone was offended.
PeterMediaPR said: “Steve Cram says people from Jarrow can’t spell dressage. They should complain by marching down to London.”
A user named Lauren posted: “Just because they can’t speak properly, there was no need for Steve Cram to say that the people of Jarrow can’t spell either.”
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