U is for… Unlikely sporting heroes

Everyone loves to see the superstars of sport perform at the peak of their powers, but perhaps even more thrilling is when an unlikely sporting hero arrives; someone who comes out of nowhere to grab the sporting limelight for a brief period of time. Let’s celebrate a few of these heroes and their achievements.

Gary Pratt

In cricket, substitute fielders are supposed to be used to provide cover for injured players. England’s use of substitute fielders in the 2005 Ashes series proved to be controversial, with the Australian team claiming England were using substitutes to rest their bowlers between spells, and were picking specialist fielders for the job. 

Gary Pratt gets mobbed by the England team

Gary Pratt was an unremarkable cricketer, who at the time was contracted to Durham, but failed to play a first class game that year. He was however a good fielder, and was chosen by England to be a substitute fielder in the fourth match of the series at Trent Bridge. During that match England’s fast bowler, Simon Jones, suffered an ankle injury, and Gary Pratt came on to take his place in the field. 

At the time Ricky Ponting, Australia’s captain and star batsman, was in the middle with Damien Martyn. Pratt was fielding at short cover when Martyn tapped the ball in his direction, looking to run for a quick single. Pratt ran quickly towards the ball, picking it up cleanly and throwing down the stumps in one motion. He’d managed to run out Ricky Ponting, the thorn in England’s side for so many years! Ponting fumed as he trudged off the field, angrily shouting towards the England balcony at their use of substitute fielders. 

The moment proved to be a key turning point in the series, with England pressing home their advantage and winning the match, claiming a 2-1 lead in the series, which they managed to hold on to. Pratt briefly became a national hero as England reclaimed the Ashes for the first time in 16 years, and he joined the rest of the team in an open-bus ride around London in celebration. 

Steven Bradbury

Steven Bradbury wasn’t expect to be a challenger in the speed skating 1000 metres at the 2002 Salk Lake City Winter Olympics, but a series of remarkable events led to him claiming the most unlikely of gold medals and becoming one of the heroes of the Games. After winning his first heat convincingly, Bradbury was given a nightmare draw in the quarter final, being up against the world champion, Marc Gagnon, and the American favourite and 1500 metres gold medallist, Apolo Anton Ohno. Only the top 2 finishers were due to advance to the semi-finals, and after finishing 3^rd Bradbury thought he was eliminated. However a review showed that Gagnon had obstructed another racer and he was disqualified, with Bradbury being promoted to second in his place.

Steven Bradbury celebrates a remarkable gold medal

In the semi-finals Bradbury was expected to be well off the pace, and unsurprisingly found himself in last place heading into the final bend. However one of the other racers slipped at he turned round the last corner, colliding into another racer and leaving both of them on their backsides. Bradbury skated through to finish in second place and qualified for the final. 

Bradbury was once again well off the pace in the final, with all 4 other racers competing for the medals on the last lap. Then, once more heading into the final corner, one of the racers slipped, leaving only 3 guys ahead of his going into the final straight. Remarkably the other three competitors then collided, leaving Bradbury with the simple task of gliding round the final turn to claim perhaps the most unbelievable gold medal in Olympic history. 

Jimmy Glass

Jimmy Glass was a journeyman goalkeeper who found himself at Swindon in 1999. However, after falling out with the Swindon manager, Jimmy Quinn, he found himself on the outer at the club, and engineered a loan move to Carlisle after the Cumbrian club found themselves with no fit goalkeepers and three games left of the season to play.

Carlisle were struggling to stay in the football league in the 1998/1999 football season, and found themselves at the foot of the third division going into the final game of the season, with relegation to the football conference beckoning. On the final day of the season the equation was simple, they needed to better Scarborough’s result to avoid a heartbreaking relegation out of the football league.

Jimmy Glass etches his name into football folklore

The match at Scarborough finished 10 minutes before the match at Carlisle, and with Scarborough achieving a 1-1 draw against Peterborough Carlisle knew that a victory against Plymouth was the only result that could keep them up. The score at Carlisle was also 1-1 heading deep into injury time, when Carlisle won a corner. Knowing that it was now or never, Glass left his goal to join his teammates in the opposition area. The corner came in and a Carlisle player got a header at goal, which the keeper could only parry in to Glass’ path. Instinctively Glass lashed the ball home, saving his new team from relegation in only his third match for the club. 

Jimmy Glass never played football for Carlisle again, and retired from professional football two years later at the age of 27. However his goal ensured that he’ll never be forgotten in one of football’s greatest fairytale finishes to a season.

T is for… Test cricket

There are three forms of international cricket; test cricket, one-day cricket and 20-20 cricket. Whilst the latter has exploded in popularity in recent years, for many people test cricket remains the truest and most compelling form of the game. There are currently 10 test playing nations, each of them playing the other nations over a six-year cycle. Test cricket is usually played as a series of matches, each of which can last for up to five days. The first test match of cricket took place in 1877 between England and Australia, with Australia winning the match by 45 runs.

Why test cricket is so great

Sachin Tendulkar - one of the greats

Test match cricket is an appropriate name, as it really does test the character of the players involved. It’s a real challenge of patience, determination and concentration for each individual involved. The batsmen need to keep their focus for every ball they face, judging each delivery on its merits and deciding when to attack and when to defend. The bowlers need to decide whether to attack the stumps or whether to try to lure the batsmen into playing a rash shot, and need to keep patient as they stick with their plans of attack. The fielders also to keep their focus, sometimes going long periods of time without touching the ball, but having to stay alert all the time.

A good test match is like a good story. There are moments of high drama, when the match moves quickly with a flurry of wickets or a batsmen attacking. Then there are moments when the match is bubbling under, when both teams are trying to wrestle control of the action. The momentum will swing in a good match, both teams will have periods where they’re on top and times when they’re chasing the game.

The Ashes

After Australia became the first team to defeat England on an English ground in 1882, The Sporting Times wrote a mock obituary stating that English cricket had died, and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.” England’s next tour to Australia became “a quest to return the Ashes”, and during that tour a small terracotta urn containing the ashes of a cricket bail was presented to the English team. The two nations now meet biennially to compete for the Ashes; with the winning nation claiming the Ashes and a drawn series meaning that the country already holding the Ashes retains them. Each Ashes series now consists of five test matches, and sixty-six series have been played, with Australia winning 31 and England 30.

Ian Botham at his swashbuckling best

Several great players have made their name in an Ashes series, with Ian Botham stamping his mark on the 1981 series after producing outstanding performances with both the bat and the ball. Shane Warne burst on to the cricket scene with his first ball in an Ashes series after producing the “ball of the century” to dismiss Mike Gatting in the 1993 Ashes series. Andrew Flintoff also produced his finest moments in the Ashes contests, particularly in the 2005 series, where England regained the Ashes for the first time in 16 years after a long period of Australian dominance.

Test match cricket provides so many memorable moments that make it one of my favourite sports. It’s unique blend of narrative and ebb & flow are unmatched in sport, and will continue to give delights to its fans for many years to come. As the 10CC song goes; I don't like cricket, I love it!

S is for… Sumo

I’m spending a few days in Tokyo next month, and as my trip coincides with one of the three sumo tournaments held in the capital each year, I thought it’d be a good chance to check out one of the world’s oldest sports.

The rules of sumo

Sumo bouts take place in a (dohyō) ring, which measures 4.55 metres in diameter. The two wrestlers position themselves behind white lines on either side of the ring, and the bout begins when both wrestlers jump up from a crouching position after simultaneously touching the surface of the ring with both of their fists. The winner of a sumo bout is either:

• The first wrestler to force his opponent to step out of the ring.

• The first wrestler to force his opponent to touch the ground with any part of his body other than the bottom of his feet.

Two wrestlers get ready to compete

The matches are usually over in a matter of seconds, however on occasion they can last for several minutes.

Professional sumo

The Japan Sumo Association runs professional sumo, and there are six divisions in sumo containing approximately 700 wrestlers at any one time. The top ranked makuuchi division gathers the most attention, with wrestlers in the makuuchi division ranked according to past performances. At the very top of the ranking system is the yokozuna, who are expected to compete for and regularly win tournaments. There have been 69 yokozuna in history, with the promotion criteria to that level being very strict.

There are six Grand Sumo tournaments held each year, with three held in Toyko, and one held in each of Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Each tournament lasts for 15 days, with the wrestlers in the top two divisions having one match per day. The wrestler who wins the most bouts over the fifteen days wins the tournament championship for his division, with a play-off deciding the winner if two or more wrestlers are tied.


I'm genuinely excited about getting the chance to see my first sumo competition next month, and hope that it lives up to my expectations. I'll be providing some further thoughts on the sport after I've had the opportunity to experience it first-hand.

R is for... Referees

Who want to be a referee? It’s a question I think most sports fans have asked at one point or another. Referees or umpires get little praise when they do their job well, whereas every questionable decision is scrutinised to a high degree. In many sports they receive regular vocal abuse from the crowds, and on occasions have even received death threats after performing their job.

The human element

In an ideal world officials would never affect the outcome of the sporting contest they were presiding over, even if every decision they make isn’t perfect. However we all know that this doesn’t always happen; sometimes genuinely bad decisions are made which can have big consequences.

Many of the decisions referees make in sports are genuinely difficult. The laws of our sports can be interpreted in different ways, and many factors need to be weighed up in a short amount of time. For example, whilst an offside decision in football will usually be straight-forward, a mistimed tackle may be more difficult to judge; how much intent was there in the foul, was it dangerous, did it cause any damage, and did it deny a goal-scoring opportunity? All this needs to be weighed up quickly as the referee makes their decision in real-time.

As fans, we need to accept that referees aren’t perfect and sometimes will make decisions we disagree with. We have to believe that these officials are trying their best to be impartial at all times and are making the best decision given the information they have in all moments. As long as we have faith that they’re trying to do a good job, then that’s good enough for me.

Home bias

In 2007, a study of 5000 English Premier League games revealed that referees instinctively favour the home team in sports, to the extent that for every 10,000 extra people in the crowd the home team has the equivalent of a 0.1 goal advantage. This news didn’t come as much of a surprise to sports fans, with many believing that the study actually underestimated this effect. Further studies have also proved that decisions are affected by crowd noise, with officials more willing to give contentious decisions when the crowd is louder.

It’s my firm belief that this bias isn’t intentional in any way, but is purely created by crowd pressure. Outside forces clearly have an unfortunate influence on some decisions. As much as they’d like to believe they’re not affected by it, umpires don’t like to receive abuse from thousands of people in a crowd, so subconsciously this might swing a lineball decision one way in an umpire's mind. This is clearly represented in interstate matches in the AFL where many close calls are made by the umpires, and where the free kick count is often heavily weighted towards the home team.

The technological debate

The use of technology in sport to assist officials has become more widespread in the past decade; however some sports have embraced the use of technology more than others. Tennis and cricket have perhaps had the biggest changes, with both sports implementing review systems where the players are given a couple of reviews to challenge decisions they’re unhappy with. In both sports I’d say the change has been a success, although perhaps more so in tennis than cricket where there’s less grey area with the decisions. The review systems have also shown how consistently good the umpires in both sports are, with the majority of decisions challenged staying with the umpire’s call.

Football (soccer) has been particularly reluctant to use technology, however a series of high profile referee errors that could’ve been easily been overturned have led FIFA to look closely at how technology could help their officials make the right calls. Personally, I think the simplest and best solution is to use video replays. It’s relatively inexpensive, wouldn’t take too much time, and in nearly all cases the correct decision will be reached.

In general, I think the officials do a really good job in our sports and should be praised more often than they are. I understand why fans get frustrated when they feel decisions don’t go their way, but we have to hope questionable decisions are balanced out in the long term and give the officials some leniency. As for technology, I think that anything that can help ensure the correct decision is reached more often is a good thing, provided it doesn’t take up too much time and affect the flow of the sport.

Q is for... quitting

One of the hardest things in life is to keep going when all logical reason is telling you to stop. When your mind or body is screaming out telling you give up. However many great champions in sport and life are simply people who can resist that urge, who just don’t know when they’re beat. Here are some of my favourite quotes about quitting:

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."
Muhammed Ali

A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
Napoleon Hill

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
Lance Armstrong

It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired - you quit when the gorilla is tired.
Robert Strauss

It's always too early to quit.
Norman Vincent Peale

Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don't quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don't quit until you reach it. Never quit.

Bear Bryant

Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.
Ross Perot

P is for… Practise makes perfect

In his book Outsiders: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell theorises that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practise to really master a subject area or skill. Whilst there are some obvious exceptions to this rule, in most cases it seems to hold true. Even the most talented of individuals usually have to put in thousands of hours of practise to make the most of their abilities.

Beckham practicing his skills

When I think of the above, my mind often turns to sport. On his way to becoming one of the best dead ball specialists in football, David Beckham was reported to have practiced 500 free kicks a day whilst growing up, And for all their physical traits, the Williams sisters also played tennis for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week to hone their skills with the racquet. To become the best you also need to work phenomenally hard, that much is without doubt.

However getting to the top is one thing, and staying there is another. The truly great champions of our sports, those who we’ll enjoy telling our grandchildren about, continue to work hard and push themselves to new heights even when they’re at the top of their games.

As an example, Gary Ablett Jr could have rested on his laurels in his mid-20s after a stellar few years in the AFL. He’d been voted the AFL MVP for a record 3 successive seasons, had picked up 2 Premierships with his childhood team, and he’d captured the game’s highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal. However instead of being satisfied with his lot, he challenged himself by moving to a new start-up team, becoming their inaugural captain. He’s started this season in phenomenal form, picking up 127 possessions and kicking 6 goals in just 3 games. It seems improbable that he’ll carry on in this vein for too long, but if anyone can, this future AFL legend is certainly capable of doing so.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite sporting stories. Daley Thompson is one of Britain’s greatest ever athletes, winning gold medals in the decathlon in both the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics. However his success didn’t come easily, he also worked phenomenally hard to fulfill his potential. Always looking to get an advantage over his opponents, Daley would even train on Christmas Day. However, knowing that his rivals might also be training on that day, he’d make sure he did 2 or 3 hard sessions each December 25, believing that might just give him the edge over his rivals. That sort of dedication is why he became an Olympic champion, and should serve as a reminder to us all.

O is for… the Olympic Games

The Olympics is unarguably the greatest sporting show on Earth, hosting two weeks of spectacular sporting action and drama every four years. However the Games are not without their faults, coming under regular criticism for a variety of reasons. So how could they be improved?

Throw out the undeserving sports

Should tennis really be an Olympic sport?

The Olympics should be the pinnacle of all 35 sports represented under its umbrella. However whilst this is true for most of these 35 sports, for a number of them it isn't. Tennis doesn’t need to be represented at the Olympics; it’s a high profile sport in its own right, and the four Grand Slam tournaments are the true pinnacle of the sport. Similarly, the addition of golf to the Olympic roster in 2016 is farcical. Ask any golfer which event they’d rather win, and any of the four majors would be picked well before the Olympics.

Football is a slightly different case, as I can see no reason for the inclusion of the men’s tournament, but believe the women’s tournament should remain in place. On the men’s side, the tournament is an under-23 tournament, with 3 'overage' players bizarrely allowed to be included in each squad. It’s far from the pinnacle of the sport, with both club tournaments and other major international tournaments seen as significantly more important around the world. On the women’s side however, the competition has no age restrictions, and along with the World Cup is clearly the top priority for all international players. 

Get even tougher on drugs

Sharron Davies - cheated out of Olympic gold

I’ve already touched on drugs in a previous a-z post, so I’ll try to keep things simple here. The IOC needs to rigorously test every medalist in every sport. Also, as new drugs often go unfound by testing methods, the blood of every medalist needs to be kept and tested routinely over a period of time following the event (say every 5 years over 20 years). 

Athletes should be promoted into medal positions if drug cheats are caught at any period of time, not just during the Games. It’s baffling that the claims of some athletes who should’ve won gold medals – such as the British swimmer Sharron Davies – should be ignored by the IOC, when they were clearly cheated out of medals by other athletes who have since admitted to using banned substances.

Try to ensure all judging is fair

A number of Olympic events, including gymnastics and diving, are still decided by a panel of judges. Whilst this produces the correct result in most instances, dodgy decisions still occur and need to be fully investigated. In the last two Olympic Games controversies have dogged the gymnastics competitions, with one of the Chinese athletes winning a medal in the vault competition in Beijing despite landing on her knees. Whilst there is no perfect way to measure gymnastics scores (which is why we need judges), suspicions still remain that politics play their part in deciding where some medals head.

Roy Jones Jr loses despite clearly dominating

Amateur boxing has had even bigger problems with its scoring system, with suspicious results and questionable scoring occurring at nearly every Olympic Games. At the last Olympic Games a gold medal bout went the way of a Chinese fighter (Zhang Xiaoping) to give the country their first boxing gold, despite his opponent having seemingly got the better of the contest. Hometown decisions aren’t unusual in boxing terms, but it’s extremely disappointing to see them in the Olympics. One of the most infamous Olympic moments occurred in this manner in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, with a South Korean boxer winning gold despite clearly being beaten by his opponent, Roy Jones Jr. This amazing article from the Guardian covers that decision in full detail.

Despite these minor quibbles, I do think things are slowly improving at the Olympic Games. We seem to be gradually moving away from the heyday of drug-taking in sports of the late 1980s, and dubious decisions and scoring controversies have become less frequent in recent years. However I do feel this process could be quickened, and hope that the IOC is stronger than ever with their actions this summer