The Greatest British Sportspeople 10-1

Here we go then. The last 10. Maybe with a little controversy, but not much.

The notable shortage of female sportspeople in the upper reaches is to be noted. How best to explain that? Sport is striving for equality, and our perception of sport may strive for equality, but it's not there yet.

In sports like Track and Field, the achievements of a great women's 400m are just the equal of a great men's 400m runner (incidentally, yesterday has pushed Christine Ohuruogu a good 15-20 places up the list, if not more) because they have the same prestige, they have the same historical background, the same talent pool, the same circuit and opportunities.

The same cannot be said yet in, say, cricket. It is still a sport searching for identity. Women play nowhere near as many matches, their skills are not equivalently developed, there is simply not the same opportunity for greatness.

There is, at this stage, more top class men's sport, and through the last century that has been even more pointedly so. The rewards are greater, the cultural path is easier, far more men see a career path in trying to be top class sportspeople than women. The gap is narrowing, but that is what a list like this has to select from.

And part of me wonders if I should have weighted the list more heavily to the mass participation sports, the sports that more often consume the British nation. Have I paid too much lip service to minor sports and sports which have a limited participant base? I think I've got that balance about right, though perhaps there are too many car drivers, too highly placed. At the end of the day, Britain has just not had that many globally great footballers, or even cricketers.

So, the top 10 ...

10. Nick Faldo (Golf, 1970s-1990s)

Golf. Golf, golf, golf. I do have problems with golf. The fact it's almost universally played by rich people. The fact you don't have to run, or look your opponent in the eye. The fact that a guy like Tom Watson can almost win the Open when he's 58 - what does that say about the peak physical position you have to be in? The fact that when a guy finally came along who treated it like an athletic pursuit (Tiger Woods), he demolished all opposition and only then did professional golfers cotton on to the fact that they had to be really fit to play it. The fact that it self-mythologises and thinks it's above other sports. Golf, as I've said before, I put on a par with snooker. I do love snooker. And I kind of love golf.
At university, I knew a lot of people who loved golf, and golf chat could be so-so. I know golf to know that it is very hard to be very good at it, and all those podgy right-wing corporate Americans who earn millions of dollars a year playing it do deserve a modicum of respect.
So Nick Faldo makes the top 10 as Britain's greatest ever golfer and one of the greatest golfers of all time. In the last 35 years no one except Tiger Woods has won more Majors. Faldo won six, and they were three of the biggest two, the Masters and the Open. He also has the most points of anyone at the Ryder Cup, which is the outsider's favourite golf event, and was World Number 1 for some considerable time.
He was a single-minded misfit, but at his best he had a machine-like excellence. And I loved him when I was growing up, though I seemed to be the only one who did.
It's pretty rare that a Brit rises so comprehensively to the top of a global sport. Well done him.

9. Chrissy Wellington (Iron Man Triathlon, 2000s)

 Often this is a name that comes when people complain about the Sports Personality list not being conclusive, inclusive and well-informed enough. And you kind of go ... yeah yeah. And then you look up the achievements of Chrissie Wellington.
Iron Man Triathlon is obviously not a TV friendly sport - it lasts for hours and hours and just goes on. One can imagine there are sometimes almost no dramatic moments whatsoever in a race.
But it is a fast-growing participation sport, and an amazing, admirable sport. These people are some of the greatest athletes in the world. Also, I love an athlon, a sport where someone has to show a variety of skills.
Wellington was only a pro for a few years but basically decimated and rewrote the sport. She won the World Championship four times and broke previous World Records by inconceivable times.
A true great sporting pioneer.

8. Bobby Moore (Football, 1950s-1970s)

  You may recognise this picture. There's not that much needs saying to justify this, except that Bobby Moore wasn't just the captain who won the 1966 World Cup and winner of 108 caps, he is widely, globally, regarded as one of the greatest defenders there ever was. Pele thought the best. Footage backs this up. There's just no argument, really.

7. Sydney Barnes (Cricket, 1890s-1920s)

Donald Bradman is the greatest batsman who ever lived and, I would argue with full certainty, the best player of any sport there has ever been, but Sydney Barnes is is the closest there is to a bowling Don Bradman.
He only played 27 tests, but that is enough to be clear. He took 189 wickets in those tests at an average of 16. Hey, let Geoff Boycott explain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NJGLkiioiQ
His statistics are transcendent, he dwarfed his era and all eras to come.

6. Bradley Wiggins (Cycling, 1990s-2000s)

 Chris Froome won this year's Tour de France, a feat which definitely places him far higher on this list than I initially had him, and Froome may win the Tour again, but I do believe that even if Froome wins the Tour three times Bradley Wiggins' achievement will still be greater.
Because he didn't belong there. He is a track cyclist, not a natural climber, who got himself there by sheer force of will. He is not just the first British winner of the Tour de France, a feat that seemed utterly impossible for a century, he is a great Olympian, winner of four golds and other medals. He is a machine, a snide, funny, mod machine.
And here's a myth about Wiggins that should be dispelled, that it was the Sky machine that got him there. I say this. Sky needed Wiggins more than vice versa. Wiggins made British road cycling viable just as much as Dave Brailsford.
How many times has Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France? Once, of course. Are you sure? In the 2009 Tour, not riding for sky but for the unfancied (with an unrivalled anti-doping program) Garmin team, and not even starting the race as their team leader, Bradley cycled with unforeseen toughness to end up 4th. 4th has since become 3rd, as Lance Armstrong was 3rd. And who were 1st and 2nd? Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck. So when did Bradley Wiggins first win the Tour de France?
And, of course, there's the rest with Bradley. He's awesome. He gives one of the most believable denials of doping there could possibly be
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2012/jul/13/bradley-wiggins-dope-drugs?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

He's almost certainly past his best now, but he is a true great.

5. Bobby Charlton (Football, 1950s-1970s)

Universally deemed Britain's finest player of the world's biggest sport, again there's not much room for argument here. Where Charlton rises above the likes of Best, Edwards, Dalglish, whoever, is the totality of his achievement.
European Footballer of the Year, European Cup winner, multiple league title winner, World Cup winner, record goalscorer for country, there is no gap, none whatsoever, in his CV. There is no what might have been. Not for him.
Of course there is for the team he was in. Which makes him all the more heroic. To have done all that after the 1958 Munich disaster shows the extraordinary character.
So why is he not higher than 5? I guess because he is not one of the 5 best footballers ever. One of the 20 best, almost certainly, but not one of the 5 best. And because he didn't score in the 1966 World Cup Final.

4. Sebastian Coe (Athletics, 1970s-1980s)

 What a picture! It's funny to think now, but Seb Coe was a real anti-establishment angry young man. He was part of a great rivalry, but came out way on top. He was the 800m world record holder for a couple of decades, though his Olympic triumphs were in the 1500m. A double Olympic champion and double Olympic silver medallist, he set 8 World Records.
Then there's the stuff he did afterwards. Judo with William Hague. And the rest. He did the Olympics. He gets points for that.
Mo Farah is pretty close to going past him as Britain's greatest ever runner, but not yet. Records and another Olympics will do it.

3. Fred Perry (Tennis, Table Tennis, 1920s-1950s)

Put Fred Perry into google and pictures of Paul Weller and Bradley Wiggins come up. That's how super he is. He was world table tennis champion in 1929.
He was the first man to win all four Majors. He won 8 Grand Slams, including 3 Wimbledons, and was world Number 1 for 4 years. He turned pro (thus making himself ineligible for further Slams) in his prime, otherwise there'd have been countless more. He helped Britain win the Davis Cup four years in a row and they haven't won it since.
He grew up in Ealing. Hell yeah.

2. Daley Thompson (Athletics, 1970s-1980s)

Just a fantastic, incredible one-off, it's interesting how many of those high on this list are real anti-establishment iconoclasts. Some of them in a slightly lame, boring way (talking about you Botham) but Daley Thompson was so completely hilarious, he had the kind of talent and charisma that could never be surpassed.
What are the details?
As I've already stated, I do not hold to the view that the decathlon is for the jack-of-all-trades, for me its for the master sportsman, an incredible achievement of character and stamina.
He could have been a professional footballer, indeed he did play a bit of league football after he retired from athletics - he probably could have been anything.
He didn't lose for almost a decade, he won two Olympic titles, the world title, broke the World Record four times, he whistled during the National Anthem. What fun it must all have been!
Watch this? It's a terrible picture, but it's all completely amazing. I've tried to keep my critical faculties intact to the end of this list, but I'm reduced to looking on in wonder at some of those at the top.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sSF1a2dww0

1. Jonny Wilkinson (Rugby, 1990s-2010s)

 So here we go. After all that, it's this guy. Disappointed? This cleancut Englander in a posh boy's sport, this posterboy, glory boy. Is this the best I can do?
Yes, the best. I don't think the rugby folk, the Stuart Barneses, would agree with this, but sometimes it takes a non-rugby person to see the wood for the trees. Why Jonny Wilkinson not Martin Johnson? Because Johnson is definitely of and about rugby, a mean tough straight up leader, Wilkinson transcends rugby. He's better than rugby
Why Wilkinson rather than Bobby Moore or Bobby Charlton? Good question. First of all, I see the 2003 Rugby World Cup triumph as of equal standing as the 1966 World Cup triumph. Yes, football was and will always be a bigger global sport, but actually the rugby tournament had 20 teams to the football tournament's 16, about the same number of viable contenders, and to add to that, England won the football world cup at home, the rugby tournament in the heartland of the enemy on the other side of the world.
And it was England/Geoff Hurst that won the Football World Cup, but it was Jonny Wilkinson, the man with all the pressure, all the press, all the madness in his head, who won the 2003 Rugby World Cup, in the most momentous, perfect way possible. Of course he kicked it, but he also delivered the pass from which Jason Robinson scored England's only try of the final.
To me, in some ways, the 2007 World Cup is an even greater sign of Wilkinson's greatness. After 2003, he was basically injured for four years - injury after injury, setback after setback. He returned just in time for the 2007 Six Nations, then was injured again at the start of the 2007 World Cup. And England were rubbish then. So far from the all-conquering team of four years previously. They lost 36-0 to South Africa without Wilkinson. Then he returned. Now, the other guys of the team would have it that the ensuing resurgence was down to "a lot of guys saying some hard words, being honest, taking responsibility". Yadayada. It was cos of the Wilkinson effect. Not even at his best, he guided the no-hopers to the final, again vs South Africa. Could he make England 36 points better. Not quite. 14-6 defeat, though it could have been closer.
One of his two major failures was the 2011 World Cup. He kicked inexplicably badly, and England's campaign is seen as a controversial disaster. Having said that, their only defeat was by 7 points to the team that lost the final by 1 point. Anyway.
Some rugby people say Wilkinson's not all that, not a patch on Dan Carter, or Barry John, not a true playmaker. Well, do they remember England in the early 2000s, scoring try after try after try? In his day, Wilkinson could create with the best of them. Injury may have reduced that side of his play, but his conservatism has always been overstated.
See what they think of him in France, or down under.
France, where he has enjoyed one more magnificent triumph, winning the Heineken Cup (basically rugby's Champions League) and being named European Player of the Year 10 years after his World Cup triumph.
He never won a Lions series, and that is a shame, because they definitely should have won in 2001.
He is England's record points scorer, and second on the all time list behind the magnificent Dan Carter, who most see as Wilkinson's superior. Perhaps, but where was Carter in the 2011 World Cup final. Where's his defining moment?
Wilkinson's career has everything. And, without gushing too much, he achieved all this with such a total lack of macho, of bravura, of grandstanding, with such introverted oddness and analytical intelligence, with such bravery and intelligence, it is hard to believe.
There was never any doubt in my head that he would top this list.
I have cause to dislike rugby intensely. It is a sport rife with violence and hypocrisy. I also have cause to dislike the English rugby culture. But Jonny Wilkinson rose so far above all that, it simply could not be any other way.