Summer of 29 (golds that is)

Como están bitches. Summer may be almost over (not that it ever really began) and for myself and many others the time to begin doing more academic work is nearly upon us once again. But before that depressing thought becomes a reality, why not let us bask on a summer of great sporting action?

In a rare blog, with only two more likely to ever appear, I take a look back at some of the many sporting events which have taken place over the past couple of months. At the heart of this will be the Olympics and later on I have given a few suggestions to how it could be improved for Rio in four years with some sports changed and others introduced.

And, of course, the start of the football season means predictions' time, which means a four-way battle in one house for sporting supremacy…

My sporting summer:

Wow, what to say about an entire summer of sport which began with rain decimating county cricket, Spain retaining the Euros, Nadal and Federer reigning supreme in Paris and London, before the great Olympic Games… and the cricketing calendar ruined by rain.

It would be impossible to truly describe how this summer of sport has kept me entertained, but anyone who has seen the Facebook photo of me watching football on TV and cricket, tennis and rugby on laptops all at the same time would get an idea. On that same day I had already watched two rugby matches and there was another football match in the evening. It was truly one of the great days in sporting TV history.

With the football season upon us once again, here is a little reminder of that summer, where we cheered, groaned, swore at the TV and possibly (although not me) cried at what we were seeing in front of us. Or in the case of Andy Murray, crying at the brilliance of Roger Federer…

The great summer – rain had thwarted all attempts to make it to Trent Bridge to watch Nottinghamshire in action, it prevented me watching any tennis at Edgbaston (although Redbrick Sport got an interview with Laura Robson) and it reduced me to just a couple of overs of a Twenty20 match at Edgbaston.

The IPL had left me drained of fluid due to its great hitting, but like a true armchair champion I re-hydrated and prepared myself for the next round. England v. West Indies was pretty tame stuff, with England proving strong enough and too consistent to triumph. Edgbaston hosted the 3^rd Test which saw the first two days rained off (a recurrent theme with a one-day international against Australia also being abandoned) although it still provided us with a couple of quality moments; Tino Best, a man best known for being sledged by Andrew Flintoff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl1rHQj7P5c) was out five runs short of becoming the first number 11 in Test history to score a century.

Denesh Ramdin provided one of the comedy moments of the summer when he hit his second Test hundred and responded to past criticism from legendary Windies batsman Sir Viv Richards by bringing out a note which read: “Yea Viv talk nah.” It is still unconfirmed whether his 20% fine afterwards was for unsatisfactory conduct or poor spelling. Either way, Ramdin having a go at Viv is like me picking a fight with an Olympic weightlifter.

My first live action came in the Twenty20 international between the two sides where Nottinghamshire youngster Alex Hales hit 99 before being bowled on his home ground with victory all but assured. Having seen what Chris Gayle did in the IPL I was not pleased when he got out cheaply. I always support England, but give me a Gayle century and a box of tissues any day.

As England battled valiantly against South Africa in the rugby, Scotland defeated Australia and New Zealand toyed with Ireland, the Euros began with all the talk about racism in Ukraine. The opening match was between Poland and Greece and proved to be a classic 1-1 before Russia stuffed Czech Republic. Incredibly, Russia didn’t make it through to the quarter-finals and they will still be wondering now what on earth happened.

Spain showed that they had been watching Fraser Kesteven in their tactics if not in their play by having no striker up front. Combine their tactics with England’s play and you get an idea what it’s like playing him on Fifa.

Ireland proved popular to everyone, especially opposition strikers, although Roy Keane was less enamoured. Paddy Power were loving the Irish being at the Euros and Nicklas Bendtner made them even more happy by flashing his underwear which bore their name on it.

France flattered to deceive with Samir Nasri proving about as popular as Spain’s football up until the final. I watched nervously as we got a creditable 1-1 draw against the French, I slowly got drunker by the minute as we came back to beat Sweden, and I shook my head in horror at the performances against Ukraine and Italy.

Ronaldo threatened to be the biggest one man team since, well, Robin van Persie with Arsenal, although that may not be the case next season. Van Persie scored a scorcher for the Dutch, but missed a host of chances as they went crashing out. Ronaldo, meanwhile, in the words of Garry Cook (and Sam Price) “bottled it” by not taking a penalty as the Portuguese were knocked out by the Spanish.

But let’s be honest, the defining moment and image was Mario Balotelli after his second goal in the semi-finals against Germany. It was like him saying, “hey everybody, come and see how good I look.”

And in the final, well things got a bit messy.

ITV may once again re-enforced their reputation as having the worst football coverage in history, but they redeemed themselves a bit by putting on the IPL followed by the French Open. We had Murray injuring himself then making it through to the quarter-finals, Djokovic and Federer coming from two sets behind to win matches at the same time, with the Serb even saving four match points against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who must be the most popular Frenchman around if not ever. After feasting on two weeks of sublime tennis, I was pleased to see Nadal triumph once again, not that he had things go all his way at Wimbledon…

Nobody had heard of Lukas Rosol before that thrilling night when he stunned the Spaniard with some ridiculous serving and hitting, before being dumped out in the next round. Murray came through a tough draw and some even tougher interviews to make it to the final.

Here is a typical Murray interview moments after he has won his match:

Interviewer (normally Garry Richardson): So you won today.

Murray: Yeah I did.

Interviewer: Clearly you played well, I really thought your backhand was in good order.

Murray: Yeah I was pleased with the way I was hitting the ball.

Interviewer: You must be pleased with winning?

Murray: Yes.

Interviewer: Thank you Andy, great to talk to you.

It’s fair to say Australia haven’t had the best summer, with Adam Scott blowing the lead at the Open with four straight bogeys, Australia getting stuffed 4-0 in a one-day international series against England, and then the embarrassment of the Olympics.

This is the same country who had no men (and only one woman) into the second round of Wimbledon since 1938. Their rugby team even lost at home to Scotland this summer! And their cricketers will return to England next summer looking for their first series win here since 2001 and trying to overturn their 3-1 Ashes defeat where they suffered three innings defeats.

During the Olympics, their 4x100m freestyle swimming team, dubbed the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', failed to win a medal despite being world champions. Their cyclists were blitzed in the Velodrome (with their one gold coming in controversial circumstances) and overall they finished 10^th in the medal table, 30 medals and 22 golds behind Team GB. Australia are a proud sporting nation and will get better soon, but for the meantime let’s enjoy their failures.

The Olympics were the pinnacle for me this summer. My Olympic experience began really on the first Saturday, where I camped in my house with one sport on the TV and another on my laptop for a good 12 hours. Every spare moment was feasting on this sporting extravaganza and my only disappointment is that I didn’t have five screens side-by-side to watch as much as possible.

When people talk about Olympic sports they always seem to choose the archery as the one which is deemed the most boring. But I’m telling you now, archery is a great watch. The one-on-one knockout matches, the tension between each shot when the competitors are drawing their arrows, and the drama when it comes down to needing a 10 on the last go to seal the win. Add in Eddie Butler’s great commentary and Lord’s as the setting and you are on to a winner.

Other honourable mentions for fun Olympic sports must go to table tennis and rhythmic gymnastics.

Having applied for a few tickets I was glad that my beach volleyball tickets came through. That meant two quarter-finals between Czech Republic and the USA – starting at 10pm - followed by Brazil against Germany. The evening began with the 100m final being put on the big screen and once we had watched Usain Bolt dominate it was time for the main action to begin. Although positioned fairly high up, there was always a good atmosphere and the sets were really close and exciting. In the end USA and Brazil won and the 85% male-dominated crowd went home happy with what they had seen.

I could go on and on about the achievements of many athletes during the Games, but you can read about that anywhere. All I will say is, whoever put One Direction and Russell Brand in the closing ceremony deserve a slap.

So, after all that great entertainment it looks like things will quieten down now won’t they? Wrong. If Rory McIlroy’s procession at the USPGA wasn’t enough to inspire you, here are a few events in the next month to get you going:

England v. South Africa 3^rd and final Test – August 16

Premier League/Football League – August 18

US Open – August 27

Paralympics – August 29

Final round of County Championship – September 11

T20 World Cup – September 18

Ryder Cup – September 28

And for golf lovers out there, a video which I think you will enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbBu91wQNg&feature=plcp

The climax to the England and South Africa series will be an interesting one. England will probably lose without Kevin Pietersen. Well, according to Kevin Pietersen anyway. The only good thing about the whole saga surrounding his place in the side is watching Piers Morgan get slated by people in the game who know much more than him.

Credit to Stuart Broad though for convincing the ECB that he didn’t know the guy behind the parody KP account despite him being one of his mates. That’s almost on a par as Mike Ashley getting away for downing a pint in the stands which was apparently non-alcoholic. How he pulled that one off I will never know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmiRsRN-jw

Rio 2016 – Olympic watch

As great as the Olympics have been, occasionally some of the sports can get a bit boring. Having spoken to a few people on Twitter and at work, here are a few suggestions which have come up to enliven a certain number of the sports at the Games:

Walking – I’ve always been fascinated by the walking just for the plain reason that I cannot understand how anyone would ever want to complete in it. Everyone wants to say they are the fastest man in the world, or fastest over a certain distance, and some want to prove they have the best stamina. But who wants to say they can walk the quickest? What makes people get into competitive walking? How do you train for this event? And do these people ever miss a train or bus?

To make it a bit more interesting I think they should allow the walkers a 20 minute head-start before letting free some snakes. That way, the viewers can watch the tantalising prospect of the athletes getting slowly caught up over a long period of time and not being able to run because they would get disqualified. I’d definitely tune in to watch that.

Cycling – It seems strange to mess with a sport where we have such dominance considering how rare this is for Britain. But why not make it a bit more interesting for everyone else, just in the interests of fair play you see. As was suggested to me, wouldn’t it be better if cyclists had bananas, oil slicks and turtle shells as on Mario Kart which they could use to fire at their opponents? Navigating hazards would certainly add to the skill level and make the race more unpredictable, but I’m worried that our cyclists would be heavily targeted by everyone else’s. Although at least we wouldn’t have to worry about the French as they would surrender early on.

Swimming – We all know the benefits of a quick start to any race, but I would love to see swimmers begin their race by coming down a large slide before setting off. That would give the slower swimmers a chance to gain a head-start at least.

Canoeing – Canoeists should have to move about in pedalos, but in a new rule change, they should have those massive sticks they used to have in Gladiators which would allow them to knock an opponent overboard, just like in the gameshow where the object was to knock them off the raised platform they were standing on. Again, this would make for a more open competition.

Steeplechase – The hurdles in the steeplechase should be followed by hot coal which the athletes have to run through and the water should have crocodiles in them just to liven things up a bit.

Archery – Instead of a boring circular board to aim at, competitors (who will be dressed like Robin Hood) have a human cut up to target with the face of anyone they choose to attach to it in order to motivate themselves. 10 points would be scored for shots to certain painful areas of the body.

Fencing – Fencing should be based on the film Role Models, where a hit to an arm or leg means that it can no longer be used again in the fight, even if it meant kneeling on the floor. Also, like in the film, each country would have to have their own team name and outfit to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

Modern Pentathlon – Beginning with a sky dive, the athletes would have to walk along a tight-rope, swim across shark-infested waters and then complete a mission on COD in order to finish their race. This could mean the event going on all night if no-one was able to complete the mission.

There are a few Olympic sports, such as walking and dressage, which personally I have little to no interest in. With golf for some reason soon to be in the Games, here a few others sports which I feel should also be included:

Freestyle football/basketball – Basically just a showboating contest where the likes of football freestylers and the Harlem Globetrotters could show off their unbelievable skills in front of a panel including some of the best from their respective sports.

Professional wrestling – None of this Greco/Roman stuff, I want to see the likes of the Rock take part in a contest where the result is clearly fixed and with storylines which are not believable in the slightest. The Olympics have their fair play but it couldn’t hurt to have a bit of showmanship as well.

Pole dancing – Need I say more?

Rocking bull – A very simple one this, it’s just a question of who can stay on the bull for the longest with each country’s competitors clinging on for every precious second in the hunt for gold.

Eating contests – If the Olympics are going to be sponsored by McDonalds then we might as well celebrate those who are not the toned, finely-tuned athletes we see on our screens. There would be categories for the amount of food eaten in pure bulk before a series of tasting challenges which you would see in Man versus Food. To make it fair, like boxing there would be weight categories so that everyone would have a chance of competing.

Hunger Games – Just like the books (and the film) two competitors from each nation would be placed on an island somewhere with gold going to the country for whom the person who survives comes from.

Having come third in this Olympics, if we want to challenge the duopoly of China and the USA, we might want to see the following sports brought in where we would have a good chance of medalling:

Drinking contests – Time to organise a piss up in a brewery. Again, there would be separate categories for speed and endurance, with necking of pints for the former and the number of shots for the latter.

Darts – A chance for Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor to end his career on a high with the possibility of a British 1-2-3.

Tanning – Bring in the cast of TOWIE to take on the Jersey Shore lot and surely we are guaranteed at least a medal, if not the gold.

Chanting – A knock-out competition where fans from each country have to take each other on in a chanting contest which could come from any football ground in the world. Expect Team GB to go a long way in this although a final against Germany could bring about some complications.

Making the best cup of tea – China may have all their fancy oriental teas, but when we unleash Yorkshire’s finest expect the judges to be swayed over immediately.

Books I have read this summer

Geoffrey Boycott autobiography

Fred Trueman autobiography

Some rubbish Hemmingway book

Mike Brearley - The Art of Captaincy

Graeme Swann autobiography

The Times' 100 Greatest Cricketers

Having to go back tor eading dull history books is a horrifying thought right now.

Premier League

In celebration of the return of the Premier League, here is one thing which I predict will happen to each team:

Arsenal – See their season collapse when Per Mertesacker has to play

Aston Villa – Bore everyone to death

Chelsea – Not come close to making a profit

Everton – Tony Hibbert to score in a competitive match

Fulham – The only club to not challenge for Europe or be threatened with relegation

Liverpool – Bore everyone to death… in style

Manchester City – Become the most hated team in the country

Manchester United – Assemble the most expensive strike-force ever, with Javier Hernandez becoming the new Dimitar Berbatov and Berbatov becoming the new Michael Owen

Newcastle – Try and get out of Europe in order to concentrate on the league only to qualify for the same competition again

Norwich – Buy somebody from Leeds

QPR – Be the most hated team outside the top six

Reading – Prove once again that lower league players can adapt well to the Premier League

Southampton – Score a lot of goals and probably end up relegated

Stoke – Buy Nikola Zigic to give them some much needed height up front

Sunderland – Quietly become the new Fulham with a good cup run thrown in

Swansea – Try and be like the Swansea from last season, but just worse

Tottenham – Regret letting Harry Redknapp ever leave

West Brom – Re-assert themselves as the best club in the Midlands (in league position that is)

West Ham – Play four strikers and have another £20 million worth of strikers on the bench

Wigan – Be bottom in January and 11^th at the end of May

Season Predictions:

After that famous draw last year we are back, sticking our necks on the line in the battle for supremacy inside the competitive atmosphere that is our house, where Fifa leads to more arguments than the issue of abortion in American politics. Too topical? Ok, how about more arguments than who is better between Messi and Ronaldo or who would you least like to take on in a fight between Akinfenwa or Elokobi.

Anyway, after some embarrassing shouts last year we have done it all again, this time with more categories to try and determine who really has the great knowledge when it comes to football predictions.

Premier League winners:

Richard Ayling – Manchester City

Fraser Kesteven - Chelsea

Joel Lamy - Manchester City

Sam Travell – Manchester City

Rest of the top four:

RA – Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal

FK – Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal

JL - Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal

ST – Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal

Relegated teams:

RA – Southampton, Swansea, Norwich

FK – Southampton, Reading, Swansea

JL - Southampton, Reading, Swansea

ST – Southampton, Swansea, Aston Villa

Top scorer:

RA – Aguero

FK - Aguero

JL - Aguero

ST – Van Persie

First managerial casualty:

RA - Laudrup

FK- Clarke

JL - Allardyce

ST- Hughton

Championship top two:

RA – Bolton, Leicester

FK – Wolves, Birmingham

JL - Birmingham, Leicester

ST – Bolton, Cardiff

Teams who make play-offs:

RA – Wolves, Blackburn, Leeds, Cardiff

FK – Brighton, Leeds, Cardiff, Leicester

JL - Bolton, Wolves, Cardiff, Charlton

ST – Wolves, Blackburn, Forest, Leicester

Top scorer:

RA – Doyle

FK - Doyle

JL – Fletcher

ST – Fletcher

Relegated teams:

RA – Peterborough, Bristol City, Barnsley

FK – Sheffield Wednesday, Bristol City, Barnsley

JL - Peterborough, Bristol City, Barnsley

ST – Peterborough, Bristol City, Barnsley

Forest position:

RA – 8^th

FK – 9^th

JL - 12^th

ST – 6^th

Forest top scorer:

RA – Blackstock

FK - Blackstock

JL - Blackstock

ST – Cox

League One top two:

RA – Sheffield United, MK Dons

FK – Sheffield United, Coventry

JL - Sheffield United, MK Dons

ST – Notts County, Coventry

League Two top three:

RA – Rotherham, Fleetwood, Southend

FK – Bristol Rovers, Oxford, Rotherham

JL - Rotherham, Southend, Cheltenham

ST – Fleetwood, Torquay, Coventry

Blue Square winner:

RA – Luton

FK - Wrexham

JL - Mansfield

ST – Wrexham

FA Cup winner:

RA – Manchester City

FK - Liverpool

JL - Chelsea

ST – Manchester United

League Cup winner:

RA – Chelsea

FK - Tottenham

JL - Tottenham

ST – Arsenal

Johnstone’s Paint Trophy winner:

RA – Swindon

FK - Doncaster

JL - Notts County

ST - Carlisle

Champions League winner:

RA – Barcelona

FK – Real Madrid

JL - Real Madrid

ST – Barcelona

Europa League winner:

RA – Atletico Madrid

FK - Lazio

JL - Napoli

ST – Tottenham

La Liga winner:

RA – Barcelona

FK - Barcelona

JL - Real Madrid

ST – Barcelona

Who will score more league goals: Messi or Ronaldo?

RA – Messi

FK - Messi

JL - Messi

ST – Ronaldo

Serie A winner:

RA – AC Milan

FK – AC Milan

JL - Juventus

ST – Inter Milan

Bundesliga winner:

RA – Bayern Munich

FK – Borussia Dortmund

JL - Bayern Munich

ST – Borussia Dortmund

Ballon d’Or winner:

RA – Messi

FK - Messi

JL - Messi

ST – Xavi

Dele Adebola league goals:

RA – 4

FK - 5

JL - 9

ST – 6

Fernando Torres league goals:

RA – 13

FK - 11

JL - 14

ST – 17

Which club will RVP be at come the end of August:

RA – Arsenal

FK - Arsenal

JL - Manchester United

ST - Arsenal

In tribute to Sid Waddell, a man who was almost as good to listen to as the sport he was covering himself. Watching darts will never be the same again.