The Return of the Baby-Faced Assassin

Hola amigos!
Finally the board of directors at Manchester United grew a pair and got shot of Jose Mourinho!  It's not that I think he's a poor manager, it's just that he's a poor manager, that's all!  Nothing personal Jose!
And in Jose's stead we have a United old boy from the wonder days; Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is back, albeit on an interim basis to begin with!  And after his first half in charge ManU are 3-1 up at Cardiff and looking good for the win! 
I said the other day that, in fairness to Jose Sourpuss, that the United players need to shoulder a large part of the blame for this horrible start to the season.  United has the largest payroll in the Premier League, their players earning on average half a mill more than their nearest rivals (pay wise) per annum!  I dunno 'bout you, but for me that's a whole lotta wonga, and as such United fans should be well within their rights to expect, nay demand, a level of committment commensurate with that sort of dinero! And the frank and disappointing truth is, that this season, that committment to the shirt has just not been apparent on the pitch!
To me a large part of todays modern manager's role is instilling confidence in his players.  At the top level I would suggest that there is not much difference in the quality of players and that those who perform consistently well do so largely as a result of supreme levels of self confidence.  And it's infectious!  It can spread through a team like a contagion, in much the same way as a lack of confidence can bring even the best teams to their knees for no apparent reason at all.  Witness Germany at the last World Cup! And Jose Mourinho, for whatever reason, has lost that ability to inspire his men. In the past I would argue he had it, but during his last year at (his second spell at) Chelsea and since being at United that ability to inspire, to get the best out of his teams, has eluded him.  Maybe it's just a dry spell; time will tell!
But at United, I would suggest that it was much more than just a dry spell. He was a bad fit from the outset.  Mourinho's teams have never played expansive, attractive, attacking football and a leopard cannot change his tactical spots no matter how many millions you pump into his bank account! 
Again nothing personal mate, but....good riddance!
So what of Solskjaer?  It is, we are told, an interim appointment; the hot favourite to get the job a permenant basis being current Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino who, I think, would be a cracking choice!  He sets his teams up to play the right kind of footabll, has a history of encouraging youth and would, I'm sure, be the right man to encourage a few big names to join a brand new Red revolution (possibly even a certain Mr H. Kane!  Wish, wish!).  The big fly in the ointment being that I cannot see him leaving Spurs!  Why would he?  But I keep my fingers crossed that it all works out!
Whilst I have been writing this and listening on BBC radio 5live to the match, Lingard has knocked in a 4th and the boys seem to be kicking it out of the park!
Come on United!!
Okay, now it's 5-1...a Lingard brace brings on, what will be United's biggest win of the year!
Go go United!
 

Sports Personality of the Year n' all that jazz!

Hiya!
As usual for us UK sports fans the end of the year highlight is always the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year awards.  A slightly different format from Auntie this year saw Geraint Thomas win the major award ahead of his rivals on the night, Lewis Hamilton, Harry Kane, Dina Asher-Smith, Jimmy Anderson and Lizzie Yarnold!  For me there were several highlights during the programme including Geraint's faltering but charming speech that saw him tell how 'he'd worked under Dave B (Brailsford) for many years' before immediately saying, 'oh, that sounds a bit dodgy, dun'it?' and the Helen Rollason award winner Billy Monger whose courage, determination and positivity in the face of extreme adversity is nothing less than mind blowing!

All in all I thought it was a lovely evening and it's inspired me to rattle off my own (slightly more limited) sporting highlights of 2018.

So, here we go......first up Cycling

British tour cycling had literally the perfect year!  Three Grand Tours saw three British winners!  It doesn't get any better than that, and as a mega cycling fan and horribly wobbly cyclist myself I truly appreciate the dedication, bravery, stamina and sheer bloody mindedness it must take to win any grand tour!  My best bits begin at the Giro, perhaps in British eyes the lesser of the three tours simply by virtue of a distinct lack of TV coverage on mainstream channels (Hint!  Hint!  Wake up ITV!), but the reality is surely very different!  I think the Giro is always the least predictable of the tours so perhaps it was inevitable that it would throw up its usual glut of surprises.  Simon Yates stormed into the lead and until the final few days looked every inch the runaway winner with the big pre-race favourite, Chris Froome, seeming to struggle in his wake.  That was until stage 19 which saw Froomey turn the race completely on its head with (I think) the single best sporting performance of the year, bar none, when he went balls deep with a solo breakaway some 70kms and 3 mountain climbs from the finish that saw him break the entire field, Simon Yates included, to go from 5th to 1st in a monumental day that I will never, ever forget!  Chapeau Froomey!  More of the same next year please!

At the Tour, as we know, Cardiff boy Geraint took the honours winning several stages along the way including the monster - 'Whoa!  Alpe D'Huez, man' - with an overall performance of supreme consistency that saw him crowned Tour Champion for the first time!  Fantastic performance boyo!

And finally at the Vuelta a Espagna Simon Yates, well rested and wiser by a country mile after his efforts at the Giro, came out on top and was, for my money, head and shoulders above than all his rivals and never looked seriously troubled at any point!

And all this British success has left me salivating at the prospects for next years tours where surely more British champs beckon.  But who?  And where will they clash?  Throwing Tom Dumoulin, a hopefully fully fit Thibaut Pineau and Primoz Roglic into the mix, along with the explosive talents of Julian Alaphilippe and Peter Sagan, I think 2019 could well be a year to savour!

At the World Champs success eluded the Brits with the road race going to 38 year old Alejandro Valverde - maybe its just me, but I've never warmed to the guy despite many bravura performances over the years largely because (and alright yes, I know cycling has had its fair share of problems on the drugs front, including some Brits!) he has never really shown any remorse for being caught out!  That said at 38 to win the Worlds is something else!

The TT saw Aussie Rohan Denis take the rainbow jersey and well deserved too!

On the track there were too many highlights too mention but for me the return of Laura Kenny and husband Jason after having their first child was right up there!

The saddest note of the year was the horrific injury suffered by German sprinter extraordinaire Kristina Vogel when she was left paralysed following a collision with a car whilst out training.  Once again the courage and fortitude she demonstrated in interviews afterwards was astounding and I wish her all the very best as she continues to recover.

In Formula One the plaudits go to Lewis Hamilton after yet another stand out year.  He was the best of the top drivers once again despite being in what was not the best car!  Five World Championships and his desire and competitive edge seem as sharp and as honed now as it was when he won his first title in 2008!  Here's to number 6 Lewis!

My enjoyment of the tennis year was blunted slightly by Andy Murray's hip injury which I hope is a thing of the past now as we look forward to seeing him back in action in January down under!  As a little aside I had a dream the other night where I was walking into the stadium in Melbourne with Andy - we were best buds or something! - for the final of the Aussie Open!!  Do I have prescient tendencies?  We shall see soon enough!  But I like to think so!

However, it was an absolute joy to the oldies swinging back into action again as Rog, Rafa and Novak once again dominated!  But the next generation are arriving like a high speed train so I think they'll all need to be looking over their shoulders in 2019!

In the womens game it was another unpredictable, topsy turvy year that saw no one woman (in Serena's absence) dominating which made it for me one of the most exciting in a long time!  To top that next year I would just love to see our Jo Konta stepping up again and playing with much more consistency and confidence to get herself back in the top 10 again! The key to Jo's success is her wicked serve which, when it's operating well, is a fearsome weapon.  This year it has been largely unused and as her serve stuttered to threaten the rest of her game dropped in its intensity and her ranking plumetted as a result!  We need you back at your awesome best Jo!  You can do it!  We believe in you!

As a Man United fan the football year has had its highs and its lows!  The highest being without doubt England's wonderful World Cup journey which reunited the fans with the national team in a way that (as a very old man) I can never recall!  It was momentous, staggering, stupendous.....and I want more!!!  Gareth Southgate is a magician!  I am just too young to remember 1966 (I was only 5) and so for me this is the first time I have seen an England team playing to the best of their ability and not wilting beneath the weight of pulling on an England shirt!!  And that I believe is a wholly a consequence of Southgate's positivity and meticulous planning!  Judging by results since the World Cup things are only going to get better as well!  I just hope and pray that one day soon (and before I hear the final whistle!) that I witness an England team winning a tournament!  That's not too much to ask, is it?

But at United things go from average to below average and then down once again!  Sorry guys, but Jose was never the right man for the job and he must go before United join the realms of the also rans and see their great heritage disappear off down the street never to be seen again!  The board need to be more adventurous in their choice of manager - my choice was Unai Emery but that was before Jose and before Arsenal - and really push the boat out to bring the good times back!  It's dismal to see Alex Ferguson's thrilling legacy being squandered by Mourinho who has clearly past his sell by date and by players who seem happy to take the money without fully committing to the shirt!  Come on United!  Sort it out!

The swimming year was a relatively quiet one and more a stepping stone on the road to Tokyo!  That said, there were still many amazing performances at the Euros with, as always, the stand out being a world record by a (below par??) Adam Peaty!  My word, that guy is a world beater and no mistake!  Looking forward to the next corner stone in their Olympic preparations being cemented into place at next years Worlds!  Come on team GB!!!

And finally in athletics it was also a quiet-ish year as well.  The highlights being Mo Farah's debut marathon win at Boston in a UK record and lovely Dina's wins at the Euros!  She is infectious in her enthusiasm for her running and, after some bad injury problems, its wonderful to see her develop into the world class sprinter we've always known she could be!

Again there were many outstanding performances at the Euros, such as Laura Muir, but the real test for Dina and the rest will come at next years Worlds and I can't wait!

So, there you have it!  In brief, a little run through of my sporting highlights!  Bring on 2019 because I've got a feeling.........!

The Sadness of being a British Cycling fan....

Victoria Pendleton said her 'heart sank' when she read the Parliamentary report latest revelations about goings on at Team Sky .  I understand exactly how she feels.  I am an enthusiastic cyclist myself and a huge fan of the sport, and have been for more than 30 years now.  I think professional cyclists are the hardiest bunch of sports people out there, especially the Tour riders and the Classics specialists.  Their bravery is only matched by their incredible resilience and I have the utmost respect for them all.  The grand tours are spectacles unlike anything else in world sport and I still desperately want to believe in what I'm seeing.

The thing about most sports fans is that we can put up with an awful lot and my love for cycling will carry on undiminished; of that I have no doubt, and that is because I have to, I must believe that the majority of the peleton is not living in the grey, murky areas frequented by those that would destroy the sport.  I need to continue to believe in the dignity of cycling, that there is still honour in the peleton because without that belief it all comes crashing down.

That said, it is precisely that respect I have for these amazing men and women, that makes this whole episode hurt so much.  I am a Brit and the past decade of cycling excellence on both the roads and the track have filled me with pride.  When I'm out on my bike, suffering on a mountain or being blown to a standstill in the face of a biting head wind, my thoughts invariably turn to my heroes for inspiration and if those heroes happen to be Brits then it is oh! so much better!  With renewed energy and vigor, my cleats straining as I depress my pedals, inspired by thoughts of 'if they can do it, then so can I,' I fight on, work through the pain and it feels good.  It feels right.

However, in dark times like these my thoughts and feelings return to the halcyon days of Lance Armstrong, a previous hero of mine; a majorly flawed hero as it turned out, and I remember how I defended him, almost unto the last; 'it cannot be true!  This is Lance Armstrong!'  And then I recall how I felt, as if I'd been kicked in the nuts when the house of cards Lance built came tumbling down.  I can only describe it as 'mourning.'  I was in mourning for the loss of someone who had been with me through so much, even though I'd never met the man, he'd been with me, egging me on, telling me to fight and persist on so many occasions that when it all fell apart I felt as if I'd lost a training partner.  I was sad, for myself, for all the others who felt like me, sad for the sport, and sad for him that he felt the need to lie and cheat above that of telling the truth and winning (or losing) with honour.

Then came our Brad, a man who I have written about on my blog here, describing him as, in my opinion, the greatest British sportsman ever.  His achievements are unparalleled across so many disciplines in cycling that I felt we should never see his like again.  So many of his later successes gained, in part, through the guidance and leadership of Dave Brailsford, the cycling guru who revived British cycling, breathing new life into it's comatose form.  And these successes, under the flag of Team Sky's sponsorship, were achieved in the wake of the Armstrong debacle and after much fanfare about the teams high minded ethics and clean, drug free competition that it championed, were a revelation.  My heroes were reborn, this time under a cloud free sky, and what was more, they were British.

As Brad's time ended, the Froome era began.  A period of unrivalled success in the Tour and then last year in the Vuelta.  I was on cloud 9.  Then came the adverse test results, the samples taken as it happens, two days after Froome and the Vuelta had passed through the village in Spain where I live!  I still had my Team Sky, 'Come on Froomey' banner flying in my garden when it all came to light!

And now, after the jiffy bag scandal, comes the latest bad news about Wiggins, Brailsford and Team Sky.

I was watching Paris-Nice yesterday and it felt like I was once again watching a funeral cortege pass me by.  I was numb.  There was no enjoyment to be had.

Okay, I understand that the cases against Froome, Wiggins, Team Sky and Brailsford are , as yet, unproven, but really, is that the point?  The sense of being let-down by my cycling heroes, yet again, is palpable.  Right or wrong, for me the point is that they have risked so much.  Their reputations.  The reputations of their team mates, their friends, their families.  The reputation of British cycling and British sport as a whole.  It wouldn't feel so bad if they hadn't held held themselves up as paragons of drug-free virtue.  But they did!  And because of that they should have made sure that, in a sport as tainted as cycling is by its history, they were spotless all the way down the line.  Did they really think that just because they said they were clean that the doping agencies would go look elsewhere?  No, their high idealistic stance invited close scrutiny and they should have been cleaner than clean as a consequence.

It seems they were not.

Regardless of how things turn out now, I can never feel the same about any of them.  In my head, as in everyone else's I'm sure, there will always be the questions if they go onto further success.  Once again I'm burying my heroes down deep and my ride today will be all the lonelier for that.  And I'm sad it has come this.  I know how you feel Vickie Pendleton.  I understand completely.

My Vuelta banner has now been cremated and another happy memory has become ash.


PS.  The UCI must, I believe share a portion of the blame.  As to how much...it is not for me to say.  They need to set and enforce a much stricter set of rules, such as, basic medical standards and record keeping for all team riders.  These should be, within reason, made available to us, the fans, who can then scrutinise and pick apart the way cyclists do the amazing things they do.  Transparency is surely the only way to go.  Cut out the grey areas, tighten the rules, cut off the rough edges and let's take cycling forward in a clean, honest and moral way.  If that mens that standards suffer for a perios, then so be it, it is a price worth paying.

Cycling must change if it is to survive as an international sport.  Every sport is nothing without the fans and the fans will be leaving cycling in droves if the negative revelations continue.