Roger Alton

Has there ever been a more wondrous start to a tournament than the first weekend of this term’s Six Nations? In any sport for that matter. England playing like the All Blacks, with Owen Farrell in stupendous form and Billy Twelvetrees, the face of a choirboy and the frame of Hercules, blasting all before him;

The football writers laid on a tribute do for Steven Gerrard the other night, not as you might suppose at Nando’s — but at the Savoy and very jolly it was too. As someone said, it’s about the only honour he’s likely to get now, what with playing just for Liverpool and England and all

Sad times for The Times, and for the game of cricket, with the passing within days of each other of William Rees-Mogg and Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Both men represented, besides the potency of the double-barrelled surname, a specific and wholly admirable strand of Englishness. They had unfailing good manners, and though very posh were never snobbish.

This journal’s gongs are, rightly, recognised the world over, and justly so of course. Sadly, however, this column’s Sporting Awards, which would normally be presented around this time of year, have had to be cancelled because they were all going to Laura Trott. The problem with 2012 was that you could either enjoy the greatest

So those really were the days of miracle and wonder, the time of times, or any other lyric you might care to think of. 2012 — never has a year of sport provided so many thrills and tears, so many shivers of disbelief, so much joy. From Manchester City winning the Premiership with the last

Here’s a thing: some years ago Rhodri Davies left Cardiff and emigrated to New Zealand with his young half-Scottish, half-Irish wife Megan. Not long after settling in Auckland Megan gave birth to a son, Jock. Jock was a bright boy, and mad keen on rugby. After university and through the local rugby club he met

Football, bloody hell, as that old bruiser Sir Alex Ferguson twinkled bibulously at the turn of the century. But it’s not looking so good now, Sir Alex. Bloody hell, it’s in a pretty dark place: the game’s a beauty of course, but otherwise nothing but racial abuse, wholesale cheating, assault, shocking levels of officiating and

Ah, what joys, the first weekend of the mighty Heineken Cup. How many sporting events are so closely identified with their sponsor that you can’t imagine them being called anything else? Heineken has backed this since the first European competition in 1995, which is when rugby went professional. You can’t imagine rugby without beer, though

That seems to be that then, the final episode of the best sporting year since, well, 1977 at least. That was another jubilee year, but Ginny taking tea with the Queen, Red Rum at the National, Liverpool winning the European Cup and England the Ashes is still no match for 2012. This is a year

Right now it feels like being eight years old again, having just had the best Christmas Day ever, with the best presents ever, then wandering down on Boxing Day to find what could be an even better present lying still wrapped under the tree. We’ve had the Olympics, and the Paralympics; a Briton won the

Having reached the summit of the Test cricket rankings by thoroughly outplaying England in three matches that flew largely under the radar due to events in east London, South Africa continue their tour as summer winds down with some one-day cricket. They are pretty handy at this form of the sport, too, and can be

The other day, I was listening to Radio 5 from Crystal Palace, where there had been a Diamond League athletics meeting. By this time the stadium was all but closed, the event had finished, the lights were out and the rain was falling. But what the commentators were seeing was this: in the deserted stadium

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, as Joni Mitchell used to whiffle way back when. And on cricket, as on so much else, the flaxen-haired loopster of Laurel Canyon was right. My friend Fiona took her three boys to the cricket at the Oval last Thursday and a fine time was had

Amid the weeping in SW19 last weekend, Andy Murray essayed what was a clunky if well-meaning compliment to his opponent’s longevity. ‘Not bad for a 30-year-old,’ he said. Shortly after, Roger Federer opined that he thought Murray might indeed win a Grand Slam one day. Probably deserved it, too. Unspoken seemed to be the thought,

If ever I feel my zest for racing flagging, a day at Windsor soon sorts things out. The Thameside track, even more fun if you go there by boat, is one of the friendliest I know. Families picnic on the grass between the parade ring and the winner’s enclosure, the jazz bands stroll between the

One of my main preoccupations during Sunday night’s football was the size of Roy Hodgson’s watch. An immense timepiece, it sat on the managerial wrist with the quiet assurance of Big Ben. So weighty was it that you wondered whether Hodgson would have the strength to raise his arm to signal a substitution (in the

One Test series down, one to go. It’s been fun to have the West Indies here this soggy summer. They are not yet fit to lace the rum punch of their predecessors but they’ve been better than some recent vintages of Caribbean cricketer. Now we wait for the main — if truncated — event of

Heavens, we do like a moan. Sure the traffic will be hell; the commercialism mind-numbing; the Zil lanes a pain; and the presence of the egregious will.i.am, a man so irritating he makes Stephen Fry seem likable, lugging the Olympic torch is preposterous. Usain Bolt will probably miss the final because he’s been stopped and

Like modules at the Leveson inquiry, gut-wrenchingly exciting weekends of sport are coming along thick and fast now. But forget last weekend’s theatrics if you can, take a deep breath and get set for what truly will be one of the best days of sport in the year. Just before we do though, a brief