Taking sport too seriously

... is what I have a tendency to do. Oh why oh why does no one listen to me, he cries. So, Steven Gerrard. I've already talked a bit about Steven Gerrard, but I'm going to do so again, but hopefully in a more interesting way, which touches on the way we think, the way I think, the fact we're all doomed. Of all the controversy caused by what appear to be a series of perfectly measured, intelligent and reasonable extracts from Sir Alex Ferguson's new book, a lot of the outrage and fury turned to something close to ridicule when Ferguson suggested that Gerrard was not a "top, top" player, not out of the very highest class. How dare he suggest that about our Captain Marvel? Especially when he tried to sign him three times? Well, the fact he tried to sign him clearly shows this was not a dismissive comment on Gerrard but an attempt at an accurate assessment. And, obviously, not everyone Ferguson signed was a "top, top" player. In fact, hardly any

My music blog also has a little post about a recent list What does the NME say? . Thanks, respective respected publications, for giving me food for thought. The tone will be a little different. Whereas I was very appreciative of the NME's Top 500 Albums of All Time, Wisden's Greatest Ever Test XI, to mark their 150th year, represents an awful lot that is bad about cricket journalism and cricket historians. While the NME sometimes might be accused of being a little too focused on the present, some sports historians, particularly cricket and boxing, are the opposite. Their XI is Jack Hobbs WG Grace Don Bradman Sachin Tendulkar Viv Richards Gary Sobers Alan Knott Wasim Akram Shane Warne Malcolm Marshall Sydney Barnes A quick guide for those not too well-versed. There are 4 English, 3 West Indians, 2 Aussies, 1 Indian, 1 Pakistani 2 who've played in the last 10 years 3 whose era is something like 83-2003 2 who are a bit like 60-80 (ish) 3 who are 1900-1

The weekend before last, I watched a sporting event which could have been magnificently awesome, was still a bit awesome, but also pretty awful. You may have heard of Orlando Cruz,  a talented Puerto Rican featherweight contender who is also the first professional boxer ever to officially come out during his career. Like football (see Justin Fashanu) boxing does not have good previous on accepting homosexuality. The great Emile Griffith (who never, as such, came out) was taunted for his sexuality by his rival Benny Paret. The awful result in that less regulated age - Griffith, enraged, beat Paret to death in the ring. So Orlando Cruz was going pretty boldly into an intimidating place when he came out last year. Officially, the response was excellent, warm respect etc Great stuff. And he won a couple of fights, and got a world title fight. His opponent, Orlando Salido, a card-carrying badass who has walked through some of the promising young fighters in the world, a real world c

1. The World Cup taking place in Qatar 2. The IPL 3. Rugby taking the moral high ground over football 4. Any people from other sports taking the moral high ground over football 5. The grandiose music that they use over golf coverage, which exemplifies golf's matchless pomp and self-regard 6. Boxing having so many governing bodies 7. The underlying tacit homophobia throughout nearly all male sport. The blatant homophobia is somehow far easier to deal with 8. The idea that Tiger Woods is one of the greatest sportsmen of all time 9. America still not quite getting that football is bigger than all their sports put together 10. Institutionalised doping. Individual doping seems, again, far less of a problem. Some will try, some will fail, so be it, it's when you know a country, a squad, a team is doing it as standard and getting away with it ... 11. People disliking Andy Murray for any reason 12. Jonathan Agnew's weak facile wrong-headed opinion pieces. How can such a