Changing the Game

Ben Dirs is one of my favourite writers on the BBC website sports pages, always witty and usually distinctive. This week he wrote a blog about people or moments which changed a sport forever. I’m not sure about his list. Ronnie O’Sullivan in snooker is a choice I don’t agree with (Alex Higgins or Steve Davis, surely?). His other choices are Usain Bolt, Adam Gilchrist, Tiger Woods, Jonah Lomu and Muhammed Ali. I recall his chosen moments for all these except the Ali one (1964 is a bit before my time). As usual, my main take-away is how personal memories are. We all see different significance in events unfolding around us, which is one reason why the world is so complex, and interesting. Anyway, the article was enough to make me think about the same question for myself. All my events occurred since 1970, as it is my list built around my memories. I have to agree with Woods, and I also agree with Ben’s chosen event and its significance. Due to Woods, millions play and watch golf. Due to Woods, nearly all professional golfers behave like sportsmen, with fitness and mental coaching, rather than the amateurs of yore (though we still love throwbacks like Bubba Watson). Due to Woods, the bar of what is possible at golf has risen several notches. And he is of mixed race, which has changed conservative attitudes in golf around the world, including the all-white Augusta club. Once he retires, I hope we remember all this more than we remember his downfall. For Rugby Union, I also like the choice of Lomu, from a world cup match when he steamrollered England scoring four tries. The English must have prepared for the match, but they just had no answer at all. If it is the same match as the one I recall, the first try cam virtually from the kick-off. New Zealand simply passed the ball to Lomu and no one could stop him. Dirs is right that this was the catalyst for Rugby players nowadays more often resembling Lomu for size and strength. A second game changing moment for me in Rugby came in commentary, with Bill Beaumont describing a typically dull 5-nations game in the 1980’s. Someone kicked for touch as usual, and Bill said something like “well played, that is the art in international rugby, get the ball off the pitch whenever possible”. I like to think I wasn’t the only one who heard that remark and wondered why we bothered to watch. Since then, regulators have changed the rules many times, most often for the better. Thanks Bill. It is interesting that soccer does not feature on Dirs’ list. I could go for Cruyff and total football, or Beckenbauer and the invention of the sweeper (since morphed into the holding midfielder). I could go for Wenger: much as Woods has changed the work ethic of golf, Wenger has done the same for premier league football. Do you remember Superstars back in the 1970’s? Sportsmen from all sports competed in various fitness and skill challenges. The footballers always lost. ‘Nuff said. But my football choice in the end goes to Bruce Grobbelaar. Look at old footage of goalkeepers. They leave their line a few yards to meet a cross, or to face a striker one-on-one, but that is all. Grobbelaar was the one who changed that, turning the number one into a true eleventh player. They all do it now, thanks to Bruce. His decision making and shot-stopping was not the best, but he changed his art forever. Gilchrist is a reasonable cricket choice, and I like the example of an innings that won a test match in fourth innings. It surprises me that this is still not commonplace. Teams still hate to chase batting fourth (ironically, Australia more than most). I predict that this will change in the next ten years. For me, the lasting change in cricket started with Kerry Packer. Before him, cricket was like the county championship still is, an elite pastime with little interest for a spectator who wasn’t an insider. Packer blew this apart, and if he were alive, he would be smiling at twenty-20 and the IPL, as well as the fact that test cricket has improved too. In athletics, for negative reasons, I go for the Ben Johnson 100m Olympic win then disqualification. For me, I still cannot watch any athletics without wondering who is cheating. So I never watch athletics. Hansie Cronje gets a passing mention in cricket for the same reason, but the game just about holds on to its credibility for me. Athletics (and cycling road races) sadly do not. Boxing never had it for me. Formula One may not be tainted by cheating, but I still don’t see the point. In tennis, my choices are Billie Jean King as a precursor to Martina Navratilova. They were great players. They changed their sport in their emphasis on work and fitness – and that matters more than elegant skirts, surely, if we want only beauty we should follow fashion not sport? But I also love that they were lesbians and did not hide that fact. As a sheltered teenager, this was a revelation to me, and it really helped to understand that difference exists and is OK. We forget how prejudiced and fearful we all were then. Those two made a contribution beyond their sport to removing one of humanities great injustices. While I adore US football, I can’t think of a stand-out game-changer there. Other Us sports I don’t know well enough. That was a nice exercise, and I recommend it as good thought-provoking fun. I reminds me how much sport has developed in the last forty years, from the days of Eddie Waring and Kent Walton (was he the wrestling guy on ITV?). It also reminds me that some sportspeople have changed not just their sport, but their society as well.