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58 The person in charge of Cricket Australia’s Twitter feed
The Australian governing body have gone for social media in a big way, but not
always smoothly. In July, after Ian Bell was given not out at Lord’s, they
tweeted: “That decision sucked ass #bullshit”, which they later claimed was
the work of a hacker. But there was no excuse for the casually racist photo
they published earlier this month at Adelaide, featuring four Sikh guys
dressed as Teletubbies and the caption “Will the real Monty Panesar please
stand up?”
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57 Troy Deeney turned it around
The Watford striker began last season in jail for kicking a student’s head in.
He ended it at Wembley, with 20 goals to his name and Tottenham rumoured to
be interested in signing him. Talk about a lags-to-riches story.
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56 George Groves unlucky not to win
Did any sportsman make a bigger statement than Groves did in putting Carl
Froch on the floor in round one of their world title fight in November?
Groves was booed into the ring, but left it to cheers, after being
controversially stopped in the ninth round of a bout he was winning.
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55 Paolo Di Canio hated ketchup
It was one of the great headlines of the year: “Sunderland manager bans
mobiles, ketchup, mayonnaise, ice in Coke and singing”. Mobile phones,
clearly, are an irritant. Ketchup and mayonnaise are bad for the heart. Ice
in Coke causes indigestion. Singing in the showers was claimed to disturb
concentration. And yet during his disastrous reign, Di Canio could be
accused of having exactly the same effects.
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54 Frankie Dettori came back from the brink
Banned for cocaine use, Dettori began the year not only in disgrace, but
worse: on Celebrity Big Brother. But after returning in June with a victory
at Sandown, he promptly signed as the new lead rider for Sheikh Joaan Al
Thani. The final challenge in his illustrious career may well be topping
Godolphin and Coolmore from their perch.
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53 Cristiano Ronaldo was astonishingly good
Sixty-eight goals in the year. Four of them to get Portugal to the World Cup
almost single-handedly. A new contract worth around £288,000 a week. And the
only man who can demand a grovelling apology from Sepp Blatter. It’s been
another good year for *holds nose* CR7.
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52 Rafael Nadal returned to the top
As Nadal limped to defeat against Steve Darcis in the first round at
Wimbledon, everyone basically assumed his season was over. But he
surprised us all by turning out in Montreal in early August. From there, he
went on an astonishing 22-match winning streak, including his second US Open
title, securing the No1 world ranking at the end of the year. A decade into
his career, Nadal continues to astonish.
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51 Zlatan Ibrahimovic, because he said so
OK, so Messi and Ronaldo did all right this year. But did they write a proper
badass book? Zlatan did, although it’s a matter of some debate whether he
actually wrote it, or whether he simply scared the ink onto the page and
ordered the printer to print it.
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50 Ashton Agar came so close
One of the freakiest sporting occurrences of the year. Australia were 117/9
when left-arm spinner Agar strode in for his Test debut. Less than three
hours later, back he went, having come within two runs of becoming the first
ever No11 to score a Test century. Almost more arresting as his rise was his
fall – within two Tests he was dropped, his international career very
probably over at the age of 19.
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49 Charlie Morgan received no Hazard warning
Also known as the Swansea ball-boy kicked by Eden Hazard. The son of
multi-millionaire director Martin Morgan, Charlie gained a small measure of
global renown for essentially being a bit of an idiot on television and then
bragging about it on Twitter, where he still has over 55,000 followers
(roughly the same as Bayer Leverkusen). Now at university, for his sins.
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48 Tiger Woods took on the interwebs
Won five events, including WGC Championships and the Players, earning over
£5.2 million in prize money alone, and yet still seemed preoccupied with
using his immense power to hound a TV analyst out of his job for a blog he
wrote. Woods took extreme exception to Brandel Chamblee’s suggestion that he
was a little “cavalier with the rules”, proving beyond doubt that while he
is still a fabulous golfer, he remains completely and utterly nuts.
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47 Ben Watson won the Cup
It is perhaps a sign of the FA Cup’s diminished status that Watson is not
further up the list. Watson’s injury-time header to win the Cup for Wigan
against Manchester City put him up with the likes of Lawrie Sanchez, Keith
Houchen and Ian Porterfield as one of Wembley’s ultimate underdog heroes. If
only he had done it a generation earlier. What a moment, though.
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46 The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission didn’t do much
We thought about leaving this space blank in tribute to the Jadco board, who
resigned en masse following the news that they carried out just one
out-of-competition test in the five months before London 2012. Asafa Powell,
Veronica Campbell-Brown and many others have all failed tests this year. As
a result, athletics has never been held in lower regard in the nation that
breathed new life into it. Is there a more useless sporting body on earth?
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45 Phil Taylor got in double trouble
Like Tiger, Taylor underwent his own cheating storm, when he threw a double-12
that missed but was still called good. Taylor kept schtum, only to offer to
forfeit the match once the true scale of the furore had become apparent.
Instead, he responded in the only way Taylor knows how – by winning an
obscene number of darts tournaments. His semi-final against Lewis (see No89)
was one of the highlights of the year.
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44 Pippa Middleton explained cricket
“In my experience, it’s safer not to pretend to know the rules,” our dear
Pippa informed Vanity Fair readers in a widely-ridiculed magazine feature in
August. The thing is, you try explaining cricket to an American without
sounding like you’re talking to a slightly thick child. If she won a few
more converts to our summer game, then all the better, and her analysis of
the game remains light-years ahead of Nick Knight.’s
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43 Jim and John Harbaugh kept it in the family
The first pair of brothers to serve as head coaches in NFL history, it was
fate that John’s Baltimore Ravens and Jim’s San Francisco 49ers should have
met at Super Bowl XLVII in February, although there was a disappointing lack
of needle between them. “There’s no greater competitor than Jim Harbaugh,”
John said after the Ravens triumphed 34-31, to which we can only hope Jim
responded by giving his brother a massive Chinese burn.
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42 Mark Cavendish
Became the Tour de France’s greatest ever sprinter this summer by winning his
24th and 25th stages. Won five stages and the points jersey at the Giro
d’Italia, as well as winning an actual real-life stage race in Qatar in
February. And after all that, everyone still reckoned he’d had a pretty
rubbish year. Those are the standards we expect of him these days.
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41 Yelena Isinbayeva, face of the World Championships
“Against all forms of discrimination”, you understand – she said so
herself. Just try not to disrespect Russia by being gay all over her lovely
country. The pole vaulter claimed her homophobic remarks had been
misunderstood. Perhaps next time she should wear a T-shirt saying “I
HATE GAYS”, for the avoidance of doubt.
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Numbers 100-81: 100-81
Numbers 80-61: 80-61
Thursday 40-21
Friday 20-1