Roger Alton

A chum was in Waitrose a year or two back, and was bending down with some difficulty to look at the sandwiches when he realised the sprightly elderly chap next to him, eyeing up the cheese and celery, looked very familiar. It was the greatest tennis player of all time, the one and only Rod Laver, the Rockhampton Rocket himself. They had a pleasant chat, for the Rocket is nothing if not affable, and Laver agreed to call my pal’s tennis coach and say: ‘Hi, it’s Rod Laver here.’ The coach didn’t believe him, of course, but it was true. When you saw the ecstatic reaction of Centre Court last week as Laver, now 80, was presented with a special Wimbledon trophy you realised how lucky we are that he is still with us, and still charming everyone.

Forty years ago the football transfer market went crazy: the British record was broken four times in 1979, more than in any other year before or since. A lot of this was down to Malcolm Allison at Manchester City, who shelled out a record amount for a teenager (£250,000 for Steve MacKenzie, an apprentice at Palace) and £1.45 million to bring Steve Daley from Wolves. That was later, unkindly but not inaccurately, described as ‘the biggest waste of money in football history’. Allison continued to spend money like a drunk in a bar; something the club never recovered from until it became part of the sovereign wealth portfolio of one of the richest countries in the world.

Hardly any men can hit a tennis ball on clay better than Dominic Thiem. Unfortunately he ran into one who could in the French Open final last Sunday. It is worth reflecting on the extraordinary scale of Rafael Nadal’s achievement, besides his ability to rock a very stylish yellow T-shirt. This was his 12th win in 15 attempts at Roland Garros and one of his three ‘failures’ was a withdrawal in 2016 with a wrist injury. That’s two defeats in 15 years on the most punishing grand slam surface. Has there ever been a blend of athlete and venue to rival it? Rafa’s savage spin on the forehand has always been his greatest weapon, along with his remorseless strength and fitness. But now his attitude and intensity have become, if possible, even more ferocious.

Well, you have come a long way baby. As the whizz-bang hoopla of the cricket World Cup strides into view at the Oval, take a look back nearly 50 years to the very first limited overs international played in 1971. It was between Australia and England in Melbourne; 40 eight-ball overs a side, on what would have been the last day of a Test that had been rained off. Australia won with six overs to spare. The names on the team sheet are not those you would associate with breathless one-day hitting: Boycott, Edrich, Fletcher, Lawry and Stackpole. The run rate was pretty painful: England scored at below four an over and Ian Chappell hit the solitary six for Australia. England managed a grand total of just eight fours. Happy days.

It is always possible to tell the difference between a bunch of Manchester City fans and auditions for the latest Dolce & Gabbana commercial. And in that uproarious packed stand at Brighton on Sunday, there were clearly quite a few folk who hadn’t gone without a meal for some time. But by golly we were a happy, relieved bunch. City supporters have been used to getting kicked in the face at the last moment for so long that no one really celebrated till the result was beyond doubt. ‘Why are you so nervous, you’re 4-1 up?’ ‘I know, but there’s five minutes to go,’ is a joke made for City fans.

Say what you like about Elland Road — and in my experience it is not a place to linger — but Leeds United is the soap opera that just keeps on giving. The sainted Marcelo Bielsa, their coach, has won himself massive plaudits and double page spreads in the press for the near-miraculous feat of making The Damned United vaguely likeable, even momentarily. Bielsa gifted Aston Villa a goal after Leeds had scored a controversial opener. Villa thought that play had stopped for an injury; Leeds didn’t kick the ball out, and scored. Cue general handbags, after which Bielsa ordered his players to let Villa score.

Something very odd happened on the Today programme the other morning. Amid the mountains of bombast that usually fill the Radio 4 airwaves at that time came the calm, modulated tones of a man speaking with great humour, wit and modesty of an extraordinary achievement. It was Sir Robin Knox--Johnston, on the eve of his 80th birthday, marking the anniversary of his greatest triumph. Almost exactly 50 years ago today he sailed his battered 32ft ketch Suhaili into Falmouth harbour — and history. He had become the first person to sail single-handed around the world without stopping. When Suhaili had slipped out of Falmouth in June the previous year it was almost unnoticed: when it returned it was to worldwide acclaim and crowds of tens of thousands.

Sometimes you fear for Neil Warnock. The embattled Cardiff manager is 70 and operates at level 11 all the time; quite how long before the old boy explodes is a worry-ing question. But he was quite right to combust over some appalling refereeing decisions during his Cardiff side’s completely undeserved defeat by Chelsea at the weekend, with a blatantly offside goal being just one of his many justifiable grievances. Has there ever been a season when so many bizarre decisions by referees have affected the results of so many crucial matches? That Cardiff result could have a profound effect on their relegation battle, which could then impact on jobs, money and opportunities in the region. All because of one dozy linesman.

Outside the rugby superhighway of the A316, linking Richmond, Rosslyn Park, the Quins and HQ, it’s hard to imagine anyone who cares about rugby not on their feet cheering Scotland’s miraculous recovery in the Calcutta Cup finale to the Six Nations. To say England are disliked by the rest of the rugby world doesn’t really do justice to it. On Lions tours, the English are famous for being outsiders — apart from Martin Johnson, and we know how well he got on with the blazers. So how on earth did a tiny rugby nation like Scotland humiliate mighty England (and though it was a draw, make no mistake: England were humiliated)? Scottish rugby has always been a smaller sport, played by middle-class schools in the cities and border mill towns.

It can’t be a coincidence that two of the coolest sportsmen on the planet are from the same place, Jamaica. Must be something in the air. Chris Gayle and Usain Bolt have both redefined excellence in their fields. And Gayle’s impending departure from cricket, like Bolt’s from athletics, will have the effect, sadly, of making sport more monochrome, though diehard traditionalists world over will doubtless be glad to see the back of him. Ten years ago, Gayle (aka Universe Boss) said he wouldn’t be ‘so sad if Test cricket died out’. In the intervening decade he has striven spectacularly to promote the action-packed delights of the limited-overs game, rarely more jaw-droppingly than against England these past few weeks.

And so we say farewell to the round of 16 in the FA Cup, traditionally a viscerally thrilling process that embodies what we romantics like to think of as the glory of the Cup. With eight matches over four days, there was a lot of dross that all felt much worse for being spread so thinly. It began with Watford grinding out a dreary and just-deserved win at QPR on the Friday and ended with a thumping for Chelsea from the new, all-smiling United outfit. In between, only the mighty efforts of Newport County, at home to Manchester City at a terrible Rodney Parade pitch, held the interest. And the fans seemed to agree: there were 14,010 at Doncaster, and only 11,261 at Swansea — to see Daniel James score one of the goals of the season.

At the same time as England’s rugby union players delivered a magnificent hearts-of-oak performance to humble a very good Irish side in Dublin, England’s cricketers were giving a very passable impression of what happens to a pile of balsa wood when stamped on by an elephant. What happens next — especially looking ahead to the rugby and cricket World Cups later this year — is fascinating. The remaining Six Nations matches will show us whether Eddie Jones’s England, with the formidable help of the returning Vunipola brothers and Manu Tuilagi, will go to Japan at the end of the year as a supreme force. I think they will. As my Kiwi friend Angus said: ‘If they play like that, England will beat the All Blacks.

Amid the many splendours of West Side Story is this lyric: ‘My sister wears a moustache, my brother wears a dress/ Goodness gracious, that’s why I’m a mess.’ Quite what Officer Krupke would have made of planned reforms to the Gender Recognition Act is hard to say, though not much at a guess. The proposed changes have just been through a consultation period and may become law. They are said to have the support of the Prime Minister but that is no guarantee of anything these days. The amendments will allow anyone to self-identify rather than living in their preferred gender for two years and getting a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Here’s a date for the diary: if you’re in south London on 11 April, head for the Oval. It’s going to be nippy for sure, certainly a four-sweater day, and it might even be snowing, but you can count on the free coffee Surrey generously lays on for members, not forgetting a few pastries as well. More than that, though, you should be able to see a real copper-bottomed English knight of the realm strapping on his pads. With a bit of luck Sir Alastair Cook should have said cheerio to his lambs and be playing in the County Championship for Essex in what must be his gazillionth season of first-class cricket. If ever a man deserved his gong it’s Sir Chef.

It may be the end of the year but it’s also the end of some major sporting eras. Alastair Cook signed off amid sun-drenched glory and a tsunami of affection. And surprise, surprise, it has liberated Joe Root to make a team in his own image, playing with brio and bravery. Roger Federer may be capable of one last burst of incandescent brilliance but not much more than that. Meanwhile, the implacable giants of football and cricket, Germany and Australia, have been brought crashing down to earth. We should relish the schadenfreude now, because renewal will follow quickly, and a new-look young German football outfit looks to be already on the way. They beat Russia 3-0 with a lightning-quick forward line labelled by one paper ‘the moped gang’.

‘And I need a wee,’ said the former England fast--bowling legend Darren Gough, as tension built up during the Sri Lankans’ thrilling last--wicket stand against England in the third Test in Colombo. Not something you would normally expect to hear in cricket commentary, but this was the new kid on the block, the invigorating Talksport, and Gough is one of its stars. He has long been a consummate broadcaster, as well of course as the taker of a Test hat trick (against the Aussies), and the winner of the Strictly glitterball. Not much wrong with that CV. The BBC had things its own way for so long it just didn’t see it coming when Talksport barged Test Match Special out of the way to secure rights to this winter’s cricket in Sri Lanka and the West Indies.

Marvellous team, the All Blacks, of course. But they certainly know how to waste some time. Here are some things you may want to do when the New Zealand forwards are making their way to a line-out with a one-point lead and the clock running down: change your energy supplier, clear those clogged winter gutters or, for the more adventurous, nip out to Santa Pod Raceway in Bedfordshire and do a quarter of a mile in a drag-racing car. Either way, those mighty Kiwi forwards won’t have moved far. Much to the annoyance of some big footballing beasts like Bayern Munich, Manchester City appear to have been channelling away millions of pounds in funding from owner Sheikh Mansour so as to beat the Financial Fair Play rules.

Leader in the clubhouse for top rugby try by an Englishman in 2018: Oliver Gildart. Oliver who? Oliver Gildart, only 22, scored a corker of a try on his debut, sprinting from well within his own half, with several sidesteps and a blinding turn of speed, to secure an 18-16 win over New Zealand in a brutal first rugby league test at Hull. If you missed it please catch up: it doesn’t take long to watch, trust me. I remember once getting into a steaming row with a rugby pal who had dared to suggest that rugby league was better to watch than union. But who really does get the better entertainment?

Eddie Jones’s sorrows as England’s rugby coach certainly keep coming in big battalions. Now the giant battered No 8 Billy Vunipola is out of the autumn internationals, and maybe longer. His brother Mako is hurt too, along with Sam Simmonds, Jamie George, former skipper Chris Robshaw, Joe Marler (retired) as well as Uncle Tom Cobley, the noted back row forager. They won’t go away, though, these injuries. How do you get people to want to excel at a game not where you ‘might’ get injured but ‘will’ get injured, probably badly? Rugby at school level is an excellent game. The best players representing lst XVs in the Schools Cup are likely to turn pro and earn a good living.

For a nation which gave us a brilliant TV show called Band of Brothers, the Americans find it hard to bond like brothers, or even second cousins. Gratifyingly, they seem to loathe each other. The best part of Europe winning the Ryder Cup, especially with a thrashing, is always the American meltdown afterwards. Four years ago in Scotland, Phil Mickelson gave his captain, the much-loved Tom Watson, a full barrel--load post-match. ‘We have strayed from a winning formula,’ was the gist. Later, when asked about Mickelson’s disloyalty, Watson replied with customary courtesy: ‘He has a difference of opinion. That’s OK. My management philosophy is different than his.