The Best and Worst of ...

Our latest posts

• The best of the Masters
• The best of the Grand National
• The best of England in the Five/Six Nations
• The worst of England in the Five/Six Nations
• The worst of the Grand National

The idea behind “The Best and Worst of …” is to take a sport, a club or a sporting event and try and pick out not only the greatest moments from the history of that sport, but also the not-so-great moments. Our premise is that real sports fans relish the unlucky breaks, the refereeing injustices, the collapses in form, the last-minute defeats almost as much as they enjoy the great victories and achievements. It’s what makes you a real fan – following your team through thin and thinner!

I speak as a fan of Middlesbrough FC – winners of one solitary significant piece of silverware in almost 150 years as a league club. As an England cricket fan who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s – decades when we were routinely stuffed by Australia and the West Indies. And as an England rugby fan whose views were shaped in a decade when Wales were unbeatable. Even when I’ve picked teams in other countries, like the New York Knicks or the Chicago White Sox they’ve turned out to be perennial underachievers that flower only once in a blue moon. It does, however, make the good moments, as few and far between as they are, all that more special.

So, in each blog post, our quest is to find the moments of magic, of brilliance, of joy, of uncanny good fortune, but also to balance them with the opposite. We invite you to decide what your moments of triumph and tragedy are and whether you agree or disagree with our selection. Enjoy!