My highlights of 2013

Judging by my 2013 ticket collection (below), I possibly wasted a bit too much time watching sport this year. Anyway, I thought I might as well pick out a couple of highlights and try to relive the glory… In chronological order:

January 20: Leicester 9-5 Toulouse, Heineken Cup

Because who doesn’t love watching sport in the snow?

Tigers officials clear snow from the Welford Road pitch

February 9: France 6-16 Wales, Six Nations

A terrible game, but it got Wales’s victorious Six Nations campaign off and running.

France 6-16 Wales, Stade de France

March 16: Wales 30-3 England, Six Nations

Goes without saying. What a performance!

Wales lift the Six Nations trophy after successfully defending their title

June 22: Royal Ascot

My first time at the races, and all three of us who went finished up. Nice.

Royal Ascot 2013

August 16: Mo Farah wins the 5,000m, World Athletics Championships, Moscow

A stunning “double double” for Mo. Made all the sweeter by the disappointment of a Frenchman sitting behind us who had spent the whole race telling us how badly Farah had misjudged the race.

Mo Farah wins his second gold of the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow

September 29: Pittsburgh Steelers 27-34 Minnesota Vikings, NFL, Wembley

One of the best NFL International Series matches there’s been.

Wembley for Steelers @ Vikings

October 5: Cardiff City 1-2 Newcastle United, Premier League

Exciting game – my first football match for ages – and great seats. Thanks Chris!

Newcastle win at Cardiff City Stadium

December 28: Ebbw Vale 45-0 RGC 1404, Championship

Sport-wise, where it all started for me. Good to finish the year watching the Steelmen dominate yet again.

Ebbw Vale v RGC 1404

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Some others:

London Welsh v Sale

Harlequins v Munster

Euroleague basketball, O2 Arena

Leicester Tigers v Harlequins

Northampton v Leicester

Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh

Northampton v Ospreys

 

…and here are those tickets. I love sport.

My collection of tickets from 2013 sports events

World Athletics Championships: Moscow 2013

Two weeks ago today I was in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, for the first of four days at the World Athletics Championships.

The championships were criticised for poor attendances, and on the Thursday and the Friday (for Mo Farah’s second glorious gold) the home of the 1980 Olympics was a bit empty.

Mo Farah wins gold in the 5,000m

 

Mo Farah hears the national anthem from the top of the podium for the second time in the week

But Saturday and Sunday saw good turn-outs, with the atmosphere for Russia’s gold in the women’s 4x400m relay absolutely electric. Other highlights were Usain Bolt, of course, and French triple jumper Teddy Tamgho, who became only the third person to jump further than 18 metres.

The only downer? We weren’t there for Christine Ohuruogu’s incredible win in the 400m…

An annoying section of Ukraine fans say thanks to their Russian hosts on the final day

 

World Athletics Championships: Moscow 2013

This time next week I’ll be in Moscow to catch the last four days of the World Athletics Championships, which start on Saturday.

The Luzhniki Stadium, home to the 2013 World Athletics Championships. Picture: Ekaterina Lokteva, Flickr

It’s the most important athletics event this year, and second only to the Olympics in terms of prestige. Britain only had five athletics medallists at London 2012 – Mo Farah, the injured Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford, Christine Ohuruogu and Robbie Grabarz – so I’m not necessarily expecting a huge amount in terms of God Save the Queen singing.

I’ll also be missing some of my favourite international athletes, with David Rudisha, Kirani James and Valerie Adams all either absent or competing before I arrive, but I can hardly complain.

What will be interesting will be to see how unenthused the Moscow public is by the championships. Ticket sales have been poor, even after officials at the stadium which hosted the 1980 Olympics decided to cover more than half of them with giant banners.

The Olympiastadion, Berlin, during the 2009 World Athletics Championships – on the night Usain Bolt got the 100m world record which still stands

It will be a huge contrast with London 2012, and even with the three days of Anniversary Games last month, when Britain again got very much behind athletes of all nations.

Daegu in 2011 was also relatively poorly attended, and the Olympiastadion in Berlin two years prior to that was marginally fuller – although I still managed to get a ticket to one evening session the same day.

The World Championships in 2015 will be held in Beijing’s Birds’ Nest Olympic Stadium, but perhaps it won’t be until 2017, and their return to London, that the Championships are a sell-out.

London Anniversary Games: a fitting tribute

I was lucky enough to get my hands on tickets for the third day of the London Anniversary Games on Sunday (the International Para Challenge).

The Anniversary Games

It was brilliant to be back inside the Olympic Stadium for the first time in nearly 10 months, and to see some great performances – particularly the legendary Richard Whitehead (with his trademark late surge – see below), the dominant Hannah Cockroft and the sprint king Alan Oliveira.

The fact the British public have again embraced the athletics, with about 60,000 (the capacity for the weekend) there on each of the three days speaks volumes about how much London 2012 – both the Olympics and Paralympics – did to inspire people. The weekend was a fitting tribute to what last summer meant.

In some ways it was sad to see the park as it is today: the Aquatics Centre clipped of its wings, the Water Polo Arena and Basketball Arena now just mud.

But even so, it gave you a thrill just to be back at the scene of the greatest instalment of the greatest sporting show.

And, after all, the 2017 World Athletics Championships are not too far away (providing West Ham haven’t ruined the stadium too much by then).

My view of David Weir’s win in the T54 1500m at London 2012

What is football coming to?

It’s not as if I am the first person to ask this, but what is happening to football? Why does it insist on shooting itself in the foot every week?

John Brooks, the linesman who told Manchester City players to go and applaud fans who had forked out the preposterous sum of £62 for a single ticket to the Emirates Stadium as City visited Arsenal on Sunday, was dropped from yesterday’s FA Cup replay he had been due to officiate in.

The incident has highlighted football’s abysmal efforts at public relations. It is a sport still reeling from a whole series of unsavoury episodes which have put a whole host of fans off it (well, me, at least).

It has also brought the issue of ticket prices to further prominence. Is there a football league ground which an adult can attend for less than £20? Not that it’s just football. Try and get tickets for the Millennium Stadium or Twickenham if you’re not made of money. Even my ticket for the terraces at Welford Road to watch the Leicester Tigers take on Toulouse in the Heineken Cup costs £22.

I’m planning two trips abroad to watch sport in the coming months. One is to the Stade de France in Paris for Wales’s Six Nations game. The face value of my ticket is £30 – not dirt cheap, but much less than the equivalent over here.

The Stade de France’s ticket prices are much cheaper than the Millennium Stadium or Twickenham

The other trip is to this summer’s World Athletics Championships in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. For a weekend pass, prices start at 450 rubles (£9.27).

Bayern Munich, and the Bundesliga more generally, is often held up as an example of what English football should strive to be like. FC Bayern has sold out all home tickets until mid-March, and even with authorised ticket re-sellers – whose prices are almost always inflated – prices start at just £12.

World Athletics Championships 2013 – eight months to go

It is eight months until Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium hosts its first major international athletics meeting since the 1980 Olympic Games

The 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championships begin on Saturday, August 10, and conclude eight days later.

It will be the first opportunity to see many of the 2012 Olympic stars competing against each other again since they went head-to-head in London.

Russia won seven gold medals in athletics at the 2012 Olympics (five women and two men) and they will be hoping to repeat that success in front of a boisterous home crowd.