Memories of 2006.......Sporting Memories

For me the year was summed up by two moments where a ball traveled just under thirty yards and changed sporting history in an instant.

The first occasion was at the millennium Stadium, Cardiff in May. three minutes into added time, with West Ham leading Liverpool 3-2 in what was already rapidly becoming the best football match I'd ever seen, Stevie G hit the ball on its sweetspot and you knew it was Liverpool's day.

The second occasion was a smaller ball that traveled approximately the same distance as that which flew past Shaka Hislop into the West Ham goal and with equally disastrous short term results. It was Steve Harmison's opening delivery at Brisbane in the first ashes test, if I was Ricky Ponting watching from the home dressing room I would probably have turned to the rest of my team and said something like "Jeez, don't these Poms want to hold onto the ashes?"

England went from bad to worse, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne (as we speak), was like watching men against boys - but sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say, "we were beaten by the best," - usually you wait till the series is over though. Australia won back the Ashes to show that 2005 was a fluke and that it's not really that long until 2026 when we might just win them back again.

In Rugby League and Rugby Union respectively, the Great Britain and England teams both flattered to deceive, England going on an autumn run of defeats that seemed to turn the clock back to the late seventies, early eighties and the period before and after Beaumont but pre Carling - we were crap. At least the French, Irish and Welsh showed how RU can be played, even Italy looked good this year.

The "Golden Generation", "The Best Squad Ever," call them what you want, England in the 2006 World Cup were a disgrace - our hopes relied on a half fit Scouser, a Giraffe and a schoolboy - such was the level of our success in Germany that by the time the qualifcations for Euro 2008 began we had changed the captain and the manager. The World Cup was its usual mix of highs and lows, for Zinedine Zidane they occurred in the same match, unfortunately it was the final and the low was his forehead into Marco Matterazi's chest.

When the 4th choice for the job post-Sven did take over we didn't get any better - unless you count wins against Andorran postmen as a success. Paul Robinson made the sort of mistake against Croatia that in any other profession would get you the sack - but football lives by its own rules, which is why it looks consistently stupid. As if to underline the surreal nature of his airshot, the advert for Borat played on relentlessly visible through the goal net, meanwhile the new England manager addressed the problem by writing out his shopping list.

Chelsea repeated their Premiership title win but they will need to overcome a rejuvenated Man.Utd if they are to complete what the Americans call a threepeat. Jose Mourinho made two of those strange decisions that all great managers make, he signed Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, seemingly forgetting that you still only get three points for a win however many England internationals (Bridge, Cole(J), Wright-Phillips) you leave on the bench. Xabi Alonso scored from inside his own half against Luton in January and just to prove it wasn't a fluke he did it again against Newcastle in October. Barcelona won the biggest prize in club football on a glorious night in Paris and Inter Milan won Serie A after all the teams above them admitted their parts in the biggest bribery scandal to hit Italian football this year.

Away from balls of various sizes, the biggest(?) disappointments were the positive drug tests for Justin Gatlin and Floyd Landis - I mean how stupid or arrogant do you have to be in the 21st Century to think you can get away with cheating. Well, in Britain we obviously believe that when you've done your time we can forget everything, so Linford 'Drug Cheat' Christie was allowed near our 2012 hopefuls and Dwain Chambers was allowed to set foot on a track again - I mean if paedophiles can't work with kids should drug cheats be allowed near sportsman? There was a light at the end of the tunnel for those of us who believe life ban means life ban and that came with the news that Chambers is going to have to retire so that he can get a proper job to pay back all his drug enhanced winnings. See, there is justice if you wait long enough.

The ICC showed that the game of cricket is still run by Gentlemen rather than professionals when they allowed the emotional outbursts of a Pakistani captain, who has a history of problems with authority, to dictate that the career of an umpire, who was after all doing what we expect umpires to do, should be over. Oh and just to make sure that Pakistan didn't go off on another sulk, the drug charges against Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were dropped.

Michael Schumacher, Alan Shearer, Zinedine Zidane, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and that Aussie swimming legend the Thorpedo announced their retirements - Ferenc Puskas died and Charlton had four managers in the same year.

Just when you thought the wacky world of sport couldn't get any stranger Zara Philips was BBC Sports Personality of the year and showed just how crucial it is that us peasants never get to breed with the blue bloods. Her acceptance speech consisted of the word "amazing," repeated four times in thirty seconds in the sort of way a young woman with too much time on her hands would respond to the suggestion of colonic irrigation with a McDonalds bendy straw. She reminded me of the Emma Thompson character in the University Challenge episode of The Young Ones back in 1984 whose contribution to the quiz was to say to quizmaster Griff Rhys Jones, "Daddy sends hugs," - it really was that underwhelming.

I don't know what 2007 will bring, there's no World Cup, no Euro's, no Olympics, no Ashes - there is the cricket World Cup but Australia will win that surely?