Taking sport too seriously

Look, I love Roger Federer. There's really nothing wrong with him except a very occasional slight smugness, he seems a fine person, he's obviously the most graceful sportsman ever, a pure joy to watch, he took his sport to a new level, he deserves to bask in the acclaim of his vast vast army of fans (albeit his mild smugness seems to reflect on them and magnify thirty-fold, such as every oleaginous SW19 We Love You Roger slightly lessens my affection for the man himself), 17 Grand Slams, even if that's all he gets, will probably never be beaten. Hell, he's even a big cricket fan. What's not to love? There may well be a strong argument for suggesting he's the greatest sportsman of the modern era, if not of all time. Yet, he's not, is he? Not by the measure of pure fierce indomitable will-to-win, of besting the best, of staring into the abyss and coming out stronger, of draining every last drop from his talent. There are a few, not damning, but pertinent fac...

It's not like there hasn't been loads to be depressed about in sport lately, I think that's why I haven't posted anything for a couple of months. Jeez, the nearest thing to a post I wrote was entitled 'Reconciling to Chelsea' ... no, I can't. But Chelsea's stroll to the Premier League and the fact that I couldn't object to it or feel that miffed about it is just one of the sporting events to be depressed about recently. As this Guardian article coherently suggests, this may just be  the most boring time in the history of football . Only little Mr Messi is elevating it, and the Real Madrid fans' horrendous treatment of Gareth Bale is another spirit-crusher. I'll win you the Copa del Rey and the Champions' League, I'll score a goal every couple of games, and then you can start booing me for not passing to Ronaldo enough. No wonder the poor guy's spirit was crushed and his form nosedived. Get the fuck out of there, dude, that's...

It hasn't been a great Cricket World Cup, has it? It can still be redeemed by a couple of good semi-finals and a great final, but it's fallen into all the usual traps of meaningless games, one-sided processions, hyperbole and, above all, dragging on and on. Cricket pundits en masse have shown their rank hypocrisy by suddenly proclaiming the ludicrousness of the competition's reduction to 10 teams in 2019, when for years and years they've all been advocating just that and saying the presence of the associate minnows was a waste of time. Jonathan Agnew is the only one I've heard who has at least admitted that he's changed his mind, rather than just hoping people have no memory. It is always to cricket's detriment that it is full of, at the same time, small-minded conservatism and knee-jerk reactions. Ad to that mix, over the last decade or so, gross cupidity and self-aggrandisement and it can all look rather ugly. English cricket is, of course, its own u...

As England's World Cup comes to a miserable end, I feel compelled to consider the case of one of the players people are suggesting should be consigned to England's ODI past as soon as possible to make way for the bright new technique-free talents out there. Ian Bell's the England player of the last 10 years I've most wished well for and whose successes I've enjoyed the most. I came across him on a cricket tour to the Midlands when I was about 15 and he'd have been about 11. I don't think I played in the game, I think I was just scorer, so I was able to hear the opposition players talk about this tiny kid with high regard. He'd apparently scored 200 the week before. This game was an Under-18 game and he was about half the size of some of the players, but he easily, calmly made 30* and I thought I'd look out for him in future. It was no surprise when his name started to come up as a future star in his late teens, he made his England test debut vs W...

Since it's going on right now, let's try this. I'm just going back to the start of the Six Nations in 2000, and I've set a rule that there has to be at least one from every team - to be honest, that helped make a couple of trickier decisions. Also, subs really are integral to modern rugby, so I've included 8 subs too . I'm not a massive rugby expert - I played it when I was young but, even then, I was a back and didn't fully understand forward play, and, of course, the game has moved on light years since then. Still, I've watched most of the Six Nations, within which I have various allegiances, so will probably be reasonably unbiased. It's mainly been a four team tournament - France have won it the most, just ahead of England and Wales, Ireland are usually contenders, England just about have the best game-on-game record. Logic dictates there ought to be more France players in the team I choose, but,  somehow, that didn't quite sit right, so t...

One of the questions I'm asked most often (by myself) is "What is the Greatest All Time West Indies XI"? To me, it is the great unsolvable riddle. There is no right answer, only wrong answers. It is impossible to pick a balanced side while picking the best players or anywhere near it, it's impossible to pick a captain, it's impossible to decide based on average or an number of runs or on any of that stuff. West Indies have had 15-20 All Time Great cricketers, a lot of whom have very similar records - it really is hard to know where to start. Well, you start with Sobers, obviously, but then anything can happen. West Indies cricket is a riddle in many respects. It is, for those that are interested, one of the great tales of the last century, a tale of determination, self-determination, post-colonialism, unity, pride, power, defiance, arrogance, dominance, fear, invincibility, flamboyance, leadership, dignity, grace, brilliance, partnership, all those things on t...

I read or watch something. I have an idea. That idea begets a new one. Often then, I confuse myself, stall myself because the interlocking ideas become too big for me, see the flaw in my idea, give up. I was watching the Kazahstani middleweight Gennady Golovkin batter Martin Murray (the 2nd or 3rd best middleweight in the world) last week, and it was suddenly clear to me that, though it might not yet be true on acclaim, wealth, status, achievement, Golovkin was, right now, one of the very very best sportspeople in the world. He was at a level of highly skilled, effective, brave but brutal utter dominance in his realm which few achieve. There is not, right now, a cat in hell's chance of another middleweight boxer beating him. So, I, being who I be, naturally thought "I can do a list of who, right now, are the best sportspeople in the world. I've compared across sports before, that's ok. I'm going to really try to focus on the now, rather than legacy or years of ...