Taking sport too seriously

Hmm, rugby. 10 best moments in my sporting life, I said, didn't I? That's proved pretty hard to make varied and interesting. I've searched my back catalogue and I revisit so much joy playing cricket, wonderful moments playing football, great satisfaction  inrunning, but what then ... there are other bits and bobs, racquets and what not, but I've had to face up to that other sport I played extensively in an organised structure, had to see if there was anything positive in there I could use. Hello again, my rugby playing days. I tried so hard to forget you. I can think of good rugby moments, actually. About three. One was a lovely game of touch rugby on a summer House Party. I just remember it was grat, everyone was throwing it around, dodging and weaving, it was beautiful. Another was a try I scored as a 10 year old against my previous school which won the game. I grubber-kicked it all the way down the pitch and dived on it in the corner. People were pretty happy abo...

If I've gained your trust at all as an amateur sports historian, and if you trust your own eyes and your own instincts, you're likely to agree with me that the last, say, 10 years of Men's Tennis is the greatest era in any sport we've ever seen. We're truly lucky to have witnessed it. This is not to put down any other sport or previous tennis generations - the men's game and the women's game have both known great eras - arguably the women's game from 1995-2005, with the Williamses, Hingis, Graf, Capriati, Davenport, Henin, Clijsters, Seles, Mauresmo etc, had a far higher level of accomplishment, prestige, excitement and competition than the men's for the equivalent period. But that all changed. It changed with the coming of Federer. Men's tennis was really in a bit of a rut around the turn of the century - Sampras and Agassi were coming to an end, and though Sampras had been magnificent at Wimbledon, a lot of people hadn't warmed to him a...

Despite my almost unlimited passive-aggressive ego, I'm finding this segment, where I regale you with tales of my own sporting derring-do and try to afford it meaning above and beyond fond self-recollection, rather tricky to complete. I do have sporting moments I look back on with great fondness and not a little pride, but, often, the best of them are much of a muchness. My best, favourite and most played sports growing up were football and cricket - hence, I could give you "the time I scored that goal" or "the time I took some wickets" several times over and we'd all be suitably bored. How can I mix it up? Pretend I was a great freestyle skier? Tell you about the time I just failed to earn my 10 metre badge at Gurnell Swimming Pool? It's all up my sleeve if I need it, but, sorry, kids, for now I'm going back to cricket, because cricket is best. Cricket is a game of infinite statistics, and statistics really do tell the tale most often. But cer...

I love the Tour de France. I've loved it since 1987 when Stephen Roche of Ireland won it, and there were half hour shows on Channel 4 at 6.30 with Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Gary Imlach. I've loved it pretty much every year since then, through the LeMond years and the Indurain years, the Armstrong years and the Contador years. I loved tough men like Sean Kelly, climbers and time trialists like Miguel Indurain, sprinters like Djamolodine Abdoujaparov, The Tashkent Terror. It's the most spectated sporting event in the world and, for me, is the most taxing, most glorious, most storied. So, they all took drugs. When I say all, I don't mean all, because that's not true and I really don't know - but, it's relatively safe to estimate that for the first 20 years that I was watching it, it was probably, at any one time, somewhere between 50 and 98% of the top cyclists who were using illegal methods to sustain their extraordinary performances. But still I love...

This entry is a bit of a misnomer. It's about sport I participated in rather than just observed. I hadn't thought to include it, but when, a few blogs back, I mentioned the surreality of playing football against Prince William, instantly this other incident came into my head. Football, eh? Did I once referee a football match in front of 1000s of people? I did, didn't I? When I was 18. How odd. Still, was this really worthy of its own entry, I wondered? But the more I thought about it, and all the memories came back and my mind started overlapping itself, I realised that if I got to the heart of this tale, I'd be saying more interesting things about sport and its role in our lives than I'd yet managed to do. I expect I won't manage, but I still think this one's worth writing. Right, so,  as I was saying, when I was 18 I refereed a football match in front of 1000s of people. Not multiple thousands, you know, maybe a couple of thousand. A lot of adults and ...

As I write, I'm watching the recording of last night's French Rugby final between Toulon and Castres, wherein the left-footer used his right foot to kick one last defining drop-goal. Perfect. A little TV moment all of its own, just like last week's second successive Heineken Cup triumph, the perfect ending to what may be rugby's greatest ever career. His rival for the accolade of being the greatest Northern Hemisphere professional rugby player (who I've already written a little about ) finished yesterday too, with a win in a final, but, unsatisfactorily, limped off with injury after 9 minutes. And I don't think, looking back, people will be able to claim Brian O'Driscoll achieved more in rugby than Jonny Wilkinson. Similar in their tally of Heinekens, even not too far apart when in comes to the Six Nations, you look for a memorable BOD moment in the World Cup and, sadly, your memory will be empty. Let that not detract more than a little from the greatness ...