Taking sport too seriously

OK, pretty basic, quite a fun idea and I'll undoubtedly produce another list which is the exact opposite. Let's say it's since about 1990 - no Hoddle, none of those 70s guys like Stan Bowles. In recent times, a lot of people have won a lot of England caps, and some have not won enough. Paul Robinson - if he could have just played one more game, England would have made Euro2008 Ashley Cole-should have gone to the World Cup, because when it comes to playing top class teams, you need pure defenders. Rio Ferdinand-only appeared in two Major tournaments, for a combination of reasons. Des Walker - seemed to stop being world-class too quickly Lee Dixon- best of an average lot at right-back, I suppose, but I never really understood why he wasn't an England regular John Barnes - could have been one of the world's best Paul Gascoigne - obviously Paul Scholes -  obviously Steve McManaman - the idea that he underperformed for England is pure nonsense. They should ...

I quite like this as an idea because they haven't been going as a test nation for very long so there's not a massive base, they've had some absolute stars of the game but they've never quite had a full coherent test team so the question was, if you picked from everyone, would there be enough top class players to fill it in every role or would there have to be one or two plodders? The fact Dilhara Fernando is a very realistic option says it all really ... no problem with the quality of the batting line-up though ... the questions are - does Sangakkara bat and keep (considering how much better his average is when he only bats)? Is Angelo Matthews capable of being the 3rd seamer? Should Ranatunga be brought in to captain? If not, then who? The more accumulative Atapattu vs the explosive Dilshan? Sanath Jayasuriya Tillekeratne Dilshan Aravinda da Silva Kumar Sangakkara  (wkt) Mahela Jayawardene Thilan Samaraweera Angelo Matthews (captain) Chaminda Vaas Rangana He...

OK, so in the sport blog I'm just going to rattle out some lists for a while. Can't think of anything better or more coherent to do. Here's the first one. Best Spurs XI since I've been a Spurs fan (1985) Hugo Lloris Chris Hughton Ledley King Gary Mabbutt Kyle Walker Chris  Waddle Glen Hoddle Paul Gascoigne Gareth Bale Robbie Keane Gary Lineker Subs: Thorsvedt Berbatov Modric Klinsmann Dawson Lennon

I'm just going to have a bit of fun with the blogs for now- at least I hope so. I'll try to avoid the need to think too deeply or give myself the task of coming up with anything definitive. This is not "The Definitive List of the Most Overrated Sportspeople of a Set Era in a Set Place with Set Definitions Thereof", it's just some sportspeople who've, at some point, for a crucial moment or for a whole career, by one person with a chequebook who ought to have known better or by the whole sporting world, been vastly overrated. I think I've spent too much of my life trying to persuade people that Stephen Gerrard is overrated, so I'll give him a break ... except I've just mentioned him, oh well. This can't really be anything but subjective - no doubt some other fool's list would have David Beckham, Ian Bell, Andy Murray, Ryan Giggs, Bradley Wiggins, Muhammad Ali, Amir Khan, Joe Calzaghe, Andrew Flintoff, Jonny Wilkinson, all sportspeople I lo...

This is the very last post in this whole strand. I could have polished it off in one evening but it's ended up taking six months and many thousands of words. I started with the simple notion of my favourite moments watching sport in the last 30 years, and have ended up with something far more expansive and confusing. On the other themes, there were times when I admit I struggled for varied and interesting topics. But this is the easiest one. This is the one that could go on and on. This is just me rifling through the sport I've loved watched on TV ... and I've watched (and loved) a lot of sport on TV. I've had time to think about the way I watch different sports, what is the most thrilling and involving, what serves as mere relaxation, what I've little interest in, what consistently delivers and what relies on outstanding performance or unusual incident to thrill. My favourite sports to watch, consistently, are, I suppose, cricket, boxing, football and athleti...

Golf, really? Perhaps it's been too long. I was a little reticent to accept golf's place as a worldwide global sport - I'd still rather it was an enjoyable, esoteric pastime, as it deserves to be. But the rich Americans got hold of it, so we're meant to not find it ridiculous that pudgy charisma-free chumps in sponsored caps and garish polo shirts can earn $5 million for what actually amounts to about 8 minutes of athletic activity over a 4 day period. Though I love golf, don't get me wrong. All my life, it's had the capacity to utterly grip me, whether it's the Open, the Masters or, of course, the Ryder Cup, one of the most beautifully honed sporting contests in the world. But if I was going to talk about a moment in golf that is a Defining Moment in Sport over the last 30 years, it'd be utterly faulty for it not to be about Tiger Woods, and, damn, I've tried hard not to see Tiger Woods as one of the world's great sportspeople. He's cert...

I've kept putting this post off, as I've been waiting for the conclusion of a certain trial, but I can't really wait any longer, and in any case, whether one judge finds Oscar Pistorius guilty of premeditated murder isn't really key to what I'm going to write. It would have only been a pertinent fact when writing about being in the Olympic Stadium on a beautiful early September evening for the last night of athletics in the 2012 Paralympics. The weather in 2012 was shocking, if you recall. It was shocking for approximately 48 weeks of the year. But  the 4 weeks for which it was glorious were the weeks of the Olympics and then the Paralympics. I went to the three Olympic events - football, swimming and boxing, at pretty high but worthwhile prices, and had also, at Juliette's prompting, booked three or four Paralympic tickets, at fantastically low prices. If they kept it low to make sure the Londoners turned up, it worked in abundance. Packed arenas, the atmosph...