I erroneously thought that last week was Sports Personality of the Year and you can imagine my disappointment when I sat down, with a pint of Ale, to enjoy a catch-up of the year’s top action, to shed a tear for the sporting greats that have departed and to see whether my prediction of Rebecca Adlington to win would have come true.
It has given me a week’s grace to think about who should be given the nod as the as the best representative of 2008 from this sporting isle. I still think it should be Rebecca, not just because she low fived me as I crossed the start line at the Great North Run, but because I personally think her achievements are the most remarkable of an impressive bunch.
But in Britain we have a world champion golfer, who, after dominating the sport in the early to mid naughties, made a comeback to rival that of Ali. I am of course talking of Tim “Ace Man” Davies and I am, of course, talking about October’s Mini-Golf World Championships in Hastings.
Tim has now won 5 (five) world titles and has just brought out a book called “Nutters With Putters”, which I can’t wait to read. It isn’t often that we can claim to have 5 time world champion and it is scandalous that he is not on the BBC’s radar.
Sporting Print
Talking of sporting books and biographies, I haven’t been compelled to spend the hard earned on any sports books this year so I am going to throw open suggestions on the best sporting books ever. For the record, my top 5, in no particular order are:
The Fight by Norman Mailer (1975)
This Sporting Life by David Storey (1960)
It's not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong (2000)
Addicted by Tony Adams with Ian Ridley (1998)
A Lot of Hard Yakka by Simon Hughes (1997)
Be interested to see if you agree but also I want to create the worst 5 as well.
Sporting Perspective
I think that the England cricket team’s return to India is a great example of where sport is secondary and yet it is vital. Had England not gone ahead with the games, and there are many sensible and rational reasons why they shouldn’t, then terror would have won. It reminds me of when England rugby continued to play in Dublin in the late 70s and early 80s, despite threats from IRA. Bodies such as the RFU, the ECB are pretty much on a par when it comes to (lack of) foresight. But in these cases, being bloody minded and making sure that the games continue are the right things to do.
Saturday Predictions
Fulham to win away for the first and possibly last time this season, Chris Hoy to take the BBC prize and England to go 1-0 up in the first test.
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Sports Personality of the Week
One definition of a personality I will quote, comes from dictionary.com:
"a person as an embodiment of a collection of qualities: He is a curious personality."
So with this in mind, and it being BBC's sports personality of the year award this evening I would lke to nominate Roy Keane as my Sports person as an embodiment of a collection of qualities aka he is a curious personality.
Keane brought out emotions in us all that embodies the curious nature of a personality. We wanted him to succeeed. We wanted him to fail. We wanted to see the emotional frailty of the man; we wanted to see the steely strength of a guy that cannot be compartmentalised. Above all, we wanted to see how long he could grow that beard.
So what now for sport in general? Where is next week's personality coming from? Two words...Joe Kinnear.
Lessons to be Learned
Taking stock of the Southern Hemisphere raiding Europe in the recent rugby autumn internationals, isn't it obvious what Europe needs to do? Obviously, it it isn't obvious otherwise we'd be doing it.
By Europe, I generally mean England. English rugby should have continued to be at the pinacle of the game. With a robust professional structure and an apetite for the game around the country, why then have we structured something that is unworkable?
It isn't all rosy in the Southern Hemisphere. They are not perfect - South Africa's internal union is in turmoil, Australia still don't have an effective professional domestic structure and NZ can't match the salaries on offer in Europe.
But England still fudge through. The latest agreement between the elite clubs and the RFU generally is an act of appeasement - stopping all out war. It is no plan to take the game forward, despite the general sounbites coming from Twickenam.
The game needs to be structured so that the season culminates in our tours down under. Yep, sounds radical but until we look at ceating a logical step from national to European to international level, we will always be found wanting when it comes to the crunch.
As in the game, knowing where the goal line is and when to peak is all important.
Tour de Lance
Unless you were transfixed by I'm a Celebrity, you can't have failed to notice that Lance is going to have another crack at the Tour this summer. I won't go into the why's and wherefore's of this decision, nor will I whip up a frenzy around drug testing.
What I am fascinated with is the route. Yes the Pyrennees and the Col du Tormalet. yes the Alpine stages with three arduous days. It is Mont Ventoux in the penultimate stage that makes the hairs stand up in the back of my neck. No easy comeback then.
The Tour have made a bold move to prove it is not the Lance Armstrong show. Lance may have other ideas...
"a person as an embodiment of a collection of qualities: He is a curious personality."
So with this in mind, and it being BBC's sports personality of the year award this evening I would lke to nominate Roy Keane as my Sports person as an embodiment of a collection of qualities aka he is a curious personality.
Keane brought out emotions in us all that embodies the curious nature of a personality. We wanted him to succeeed. We wanted him to fail. We wanted to see the emotional frailty of the man; we wanted to see the steely strength of a guy that cannot be compartmentalised. Above all, we wanted to see how long he could grow that beard.
So what now for sport in general? Where is next week's personality coming from? Two words...Joe Kinnear.
Lessons to be Learned
Taking stock of the Southern Hemisphere raiding Europe in the recent rugby autumn internationals, isn't it obvious what Europe needs to do? Obviously, it it isn't obvious otherwise we'd be doing it.
By Europe, I generally mean England. English rugby should have continued to be at the pinacle of the game. With a robust professional structure and an apetite for the game around the country, why then have we structured something that is unworkable?
It isn't all rosy in the Southern Hemisphere. They are not perfect - South Africa's internal union is in turmoil, Australia still don't have an effective professional domestic structure and NZ can't match the salaries on offer in Europe.
But England still fudge through. The latest agreement between the elite clubs and the RFU generally is an act of appeasement - stopping all out war. It is no plan to take the game forward, despite the general sounbites coming from Twickenam.
The game needs to be structured so that the season culminates in our tours down under. Yep, sounds radical but until we look at ceating a logical step from national to European to international level, we will always be found wanting when it comes to the crunch.
As in the game, knowing where the goal line is and when to peak is all important.
Tour de Lance
Unless you were transfixed by I'm a Celebrity, you can't have failed to notice that Lance is going to have another crack at the Tour this summer. I won't go into the why's and wherefore's of this decision, nor will I whip up a frenzy around drug testing.
What I am fascinated with is the route. Yes the Pyrennees and the Col du Tormalet. yes the Alpine stages with three arduous days. It is Mont Ventoux in the penultimate stage that makes the hairs stand up in the back of my neck. No easy comeback then.
The Tour have made a bold move to prove it is not the Lance Armstrong show. Lance may have other ideas...
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