Taking sport too seriously

Another British heavyweight, a different story. While I wrote pretty dispassionately about Lennox Lewis, which rather reflects the way the British public felt about him, it's a bit different with Frank Bruno. I didn't watch Lewis vs Tyson live. In fact I'm not sure I watched a single Lennox Lewis fight live. I didn't have Sky and most of them took place in the middle of the night - they'd often show them on terrestrial TV a day or week later, but I already knew the result by then, so I enjoyed the fights and supported him, but my heart never beat like a train for Lennox Lewis. Whereas, like a lot of Brits, I watched a lot of Bruno fights. And I didn't just watch Bruno fighting. I saw and heard Frank Bruno everywhere. He was a beloved and comical national treasure while still in his 20s. There's something very complex and possibly disturbing about Frank Bruno's place in the British national consciousness, in a country moving away from overt racism to ...

There are a few options if you want to pinpoint the moment the myth of Mike Tyson, the baddest man on the planet, the most famous boxer in the world, died. Some would argue with good reason it ended as soon as Buster Douglas shockingly stopped him in Tokyo in February 1990. But the myth lived on in some minds well beyond then. Some would point to his imprisonment for rape in 1992. But when he emerged from prison, many still believed he would sweep all before him. Surely it deserved to end when Evander Holyfield outfought and stopped him in their first bout in 1996, but many still thought Tyson would win the rematch. The rematch somehow served to enhance the myth, despite the fact that it's clear in retrospect that Tyson biting Holyfield's ear was an act of desperation from a beaten man. Yes, in retrospect that Tyson was well, well finished by then, but somehow, five years later, his fight with Lennox Lewis seemed like it mattered. It still seemed possible that Mike Tyson mi...

If you, like me, grew up a sports fan in England in the 1980s, there were a lot of great sportspeople to support. As you grow older, less innocent, more cynical, you might have learnt to say "I wouldn't use the term heroes, they were just people I supported", but, in truth, when you're young, they were "heroes", you looked up to them, you cared about them, you imagined them coming to your birthday party (surely not just me ...). Who were those sporting greats? My favourite, of course, was David Gower, then there was Ian Botham, Nick Faldo, Frank Bruno, Rory Underwood, Rob Andrew, Steve Davis and, of course, the great Seb Coe. And what do nearly all these heroes have in common (besides sporting excellence), either explicitly stated or probably (I apologise to Underwood and Andrew if I slander them)? They're bleedin' Tories, that's what! Aaaargh ... There are other heroes of the age - Linford Christie, Daley Thompson, Paul Gascoigne, Gary Linek...

Perhaps the title of this blog has grabbed your attention and given you the impression I'm a far, far better golfer than I am or ever was. I was a useless golfer, I never got an official handicap, but, it is true, I did once play the first 9 holes at St Andrews in 39 ... ... let me explain. In my day, 15 or so years ago, there were 6 public golf courses at St Andrews. There are now even more, I believe. There was the Old Course, which is the home of golf and one of the most famous sporting venues in the world and, even if you're generally immune to golf's charms, a think of great beauty and wonder (which my bedroom in 1st year at University looked out onto); the New Course, another championship course, which my golfing friends used to tell me was actually harder than the Old Course; the Jubilee, another serious course, the Eden, likewise, and then there was the Strathtyrum, a beginner's 18 hole course with a par of 65, and the Balgove, basically a 9-hole pitch and put...

As if it wasn't bad enough that I revealed the extent to which I'm a secret Manchester United fan, I have an even graver confession to make as a Spurs fan. I have enjoyed Arsenal. I have cheered Arsenal. Just the once, but it happened. I've never been a regular on-the-terraces football fan. I became a Spurs fan when I was 7. My brother was, my dad was, it made sense. They were in London - at that point I didn't grasp quite how far Tottenham was from Ealing. They were also pretty good and pretty fun then - Hoddle, Ardiles, Waddle, Clive Allen etc. 86-87 was a particularly exciting, albeit eventually crushing, season to be a Spurs fan. They could conceivably have had a treble, but ended with nothing. But White Hart Lane was a long way from Ealing. It was never going to be possible to go regularly. In particular, by the time I was 10, I was playing sport on an awful lot of Saturdays, and by the time I was 13, almost every Saturday. The geographical thing bothered me,...

I never had much doubt what the greatest moment in my sporting life was. The Under-11 School Sports Day 1500m, I won in 5 minutes 26 seconds, which was officially ratified as a school record by ten seconds. A real written down record, I broke one. A real official record, of sorts. I'm pretty certain that's the only time that happened. 5 minutes 26 seconds isn't mindblowing for a 10 year old to run, but it's pretty decent. I beat my long standing friend and rival John Willan, all legs and asthma, conclusively, with my red face and my bowl haircut, and I was a runner. I did run faster than 5 minutes 26 - I ran 5.18 next year and 5.23 the year after. 5.23 when you're 12 isn't so impressive as 5.26 when you're 10. And John  wasn't in the race - he'd moved to the 800m so we could share the spoils. By that stage, this was probably a lucky escape for me. Jeez, I loved running then. Loved it precociously and fiercely. Anything from 400m up, i was pretty ...