A template for a successful London rugby league franchise

Martin Offiah remains the most iconic Broncos player despite only playing 16 games for the club           Pic: Getty Images

There's some debate as to the exact definition of a 'sports book'. For many David Storey's This Sporting Life is one of the great sports books but as far as I'm concerned it does not qualify. This Sporting Life is a novel, a work of fiction, and whilst I'm not suggesting it is impossible for a work of fiction to qualify as a sports book, this one, in my opinion, does not. Yes, it is a very good book and well worth a read and yes, it is about rugby league. But much more it is about the life and relationships of a young man in northern England in the 1960s. That Arthur Machin plays rugby league, and that this affords him celebrity status, is merely part of that tapestry. In many ways the story would not be radically different were Machin to be a celebrated cricketer, or footballer, or pop star. Except of course that, in the industrial north at the time, it was as a rugby league player that one's status as 'gladiator hero' (as the book's cover describes Machin) was most credibly realised.

And in some ways not a lot has changed. Wigan Athletic may now grace football's Premier League (and share a ground with the towns rugby league team, the Wigan Warriors) but for town's like St Helens, Hull, Bradford, Widnes, Warrington and, to a lesser extent, Leeds the true sporting heroes are rugby league players. Football remains prominent in the north but it is a place where it is equally legitimate to grow up dreaming of being a barnstorming second rower for the Huddersfield Giants as it is of scoring goals for Manchester United.

Which is what makes the London Broncos such an oddity. Despite some speculative attempts in the 1930s rugby league has never had a history London. Whilst a professional club has been a fixture in the area since Fulham Football Club branched out in 1980, the Broncos have gone through a number of manifestations (and bases) since that time, the most recent as the ill-fated Harlequins Rugby League. 2012 saw the return of the London Broncos name and the Broncos 'brand' was relaunched amid some fanfare in November 2011. However, as yet the bright future that was talked about is yet to materialise with the Broncos finishing the season in twelfth place in the table only two points ahead of joint last-placed Castleford and Widnes (and nine points behind the Bradford Bulls, who went into administration half-way through the season and famously made all their staff, including their coach, redundant).

As a self-professed rugby league fan I ashamedly admit that I only attended two of the clubs 2012 fixtures - against St. Helens and Leeds (on both occasions largely due to an interest in watching the visitors). Maybe it's just that I've been spoiled by watching to much of Australia's NRL competition but quite honestly the prospect of watching the listless Broncos get absolutely trounced by teams who, despite their superiority, rarely played high-paced enterprising entertaining rugby league wasn't sufficiently appealing to get me to show up more regularly than I did. I live five miles and an easy half-hour bus ride from the Broncos home ground.

When I mentioned this to my dad his response was: "They need to give it away. Rugby League's a northern game. Put another team in Leeds where it actually matters." But I refuse to accept that Rugby League cannot be a success in London. Whilst 32 years of failure (the club has never won a major trophy, with losing finalists in the 1999 Challenge Cup being their crowning glory to date) are hardly encouraging, the fact that the club lives on provides hope. What they need is a template, a successful team upon which to model themselves, a team that faced and overcame the same sort of challenges a rugby team in London is currently enduring.

Of course, the clubs current name harks back nostalgically to probably the best period in the clubs history when in 1994 they were bought by the Broncos of Brisbane. At the time an Allan Langer-led Brisbane team had just won back-to-back Winfield Cups and it would have been difficult to find a more successful template in Rugby League on which to base oneself. 18 years on though the differences between a rugby league franchise in Brisbane, where rugby league rules, and London could not be more stark. Instead, a much better model for the 2012 London team exists in the form of the Melbourne Storm.

The Storm have established themselves as a championship pedigree team in Australian Rules heartland, and whilst they have had some significant (and at times dubious) advantages along the way, they are the organisation which the London Broncos must seek to replicate. Here, in no particular order, are just some of the ways how:

1. Exploit uncertainty at other clubs
The inaugural Melbourne Storm benefited from the demise of the Perth Reds and Hunter Mariners enabling them to sign foundational players of the calibre of Glenn Lazaridis, Robbie Ross, Scott Hill and Brett Kimmorley. In recent years both the Crusaders club and the Bradford Bulls have struggled enormously financially (with the Crusaders being effectively disbanded at the end of 2011) with financial difficulties plaguing a number of other Super League teams. So far the most noteworthy addition London have been able to recruit from either the Crusaders or Bradford is Michael Witt, hardly the sort of signing to set pulses racing or build a team around. With Bradford players so disenfranchised with the last season that many of them are choosing to retire London must be able to offer them an attractive alternative.

2. Find a committed owner
It's pretty difficult to offer a viable alternative to players at clubs suffering financial hardship if you're not financially secure yourself. While I don't claim to have any knowledge of the London Broncos current financial situation I think it's safe to assume there's not a enormous amount of coin floating about. Melbourne of course have benefited enormously by being owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. London, who Murdoch "fast-tracked" into the Super League when it was launched in 1996 on "commercial grounds", could do with hitting up the media mogul for the same sort of support. And let's face it, the bloke could do with some positive publicity in this country right at the moment. But even assuming Murdoch has enough on his plate at present and can't foresee Londoners signing up to Sky in their droves to watch a rugby league team (surely a large part of his motivation for his initial support), one mustn't forget that the London Broncos have attracted hefty financial support in the past. In the late '90s Richard Branson's Virgin Group were briefly majority shareholders only for the club to be sold to supporter David Hughes in 2002. Such support, if it can ever be replicated, can not be allowed to slip through the Bronco's fingers again.

3. Build partnerships
One of the keys to Melbourne's success has been their relationship with Brisbane-based feeder club Norths Devils. Such a relationship has played an important role in the club securing the likes of Queensland and Australian representative players Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Greg Inglis (amongst others). Rugby league may not be established in London but that doesn't mean the club can't benefit from where it is established. By building partnerships with clubs in Britain's next tier down, the Championship, London can exploit some of the emerging talent from the north and encourage it to make it's home in the nations capital. Similarly there are plenty of players knocking about Australia's reserve grade who are just shy of making the breakthrough into the NRL but could have a massive impact in the UK Super League. Even better, given the Storm's occasional necessity to offload players who they are no can't keep under the cap but wish to retain (Ryan Hoffman for example) why not sign up to some sort of (legal) agreement that sees them come to London as a first port of call rather than Wigan.

4. Find a niche and invest in the grassroots
Partnerships are important in getting established but it should be complemented with grassroots investment to make a career in rugby league a realistic ambition for London-based kids. There's nothing like a homegrown hero to galvanize a club (see point 5). An essential part of that is finding a niche. Basing yourself in middle class south west London - sharing a ground with Harlequins no less - puts you in direct competition with rugby. Rugby league has always been a working class game, and a sports' alignment with a certain class is even more entrenched in Britain than in the relatively egalitarian Australasia. For the Broncos to thrive they need to find themselves a working class community, on the outskirts of London (preferably in the north of the city), with a relatively uninspiring football club and invest in that community. Afford me a slight departure from my Melbourne model here: the Auckland-based Warriors are the template for this. By basing themselves in south Auckland the Warriors ensured they were not in direct competition with rugby and offered a relatively deprived community (in a sporting sense, as well as in other areas) something to get excited about. The Broncos needs to establish good training facilities, do lots of community work, and provide encouragement and support to schools to the point where they develop a reputation like the Gold Coast's Keebra Park Secondary School so end up attracting aspiring rugby league players not just for the local community but from all over the south of England and beyond.

5. Continue to cater to away fans
If either of the games I attended this season are any indication (and I have no reason to believe they were in any way exceptional), away fans continue to make up a significant proportion (if not the majority) of the attendance at London Bronco's games. But they bring so much more than ticket revenue. They bring atmosphere, loyalty, dedication and passion which is a spectacle in itself. London needs to do all it can to encourage away fans to keep attending and make the away trip the highlight of their season. There are a number of ways this can be achieved but the obvious one that springs to mind is to cut down travelling time and expense by basing the club somewhere north of the Thames.

6. Sign a marquee player
In the short term it's important to give the fans something to get excited about, a reason to turn up on a Saturday. The Storm are fortunate enough to be stacked with marquee players and it was arguably this more than anything else that led them down the track of their salary cap indiscretions. The temptation to add the freakish talent of someone like Israel Folau to an already stellar core was too much. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world it says a lot that many people still associate the glory days of the London Broncos with Martin Offiah. London-born winger Offiah was 30 by the time he returned home to play for the Broncos and his best years (for Widnes and more famously Wigan) were almost certainly behind him. He only actually played 16 games in three seasons at the club but the combination of a hugely charismatic local boy with the capacity to still occasionally turn it on ignited something in supporters and opposition fans alike. The London Broncos need that again, preferably over a slightly longer period of time, but a 34-year-old Craig Gower, who would have been quite a card about eight or nine years ago, isn't going to provide it.

7. Sign a decent coach
Your chances of attracting a marquee player (and the rest of a decent team) expand exponentially if you can attract a coach that players want to play for. Attracting future Australia coach Chris Anderson as the Storm's first coach was a bit of a coup only really surpassed by tying up Craig Bellamy five years later. I remain perplexed that Australian rugby league players continue to choose to semi-retire (let's face it, for most of them that is all that Super League is) to Wigan or Huddersfield or Widnes rather than the bright lights of London. Sure your chances of winning the title aren't as great and you're not going to be noticed in the High Street but I would of thought that this might act as a positive given some of the scrutiny players in Australia face from both the public and the media. For whatever reason, I feel like this argument should apply several times over for coaches. What's more, high quality Australian coaches seem to be in even greater supply than players. Nathan Brown's success at Huddersfield was not deemed sufficiently impressive for him to attract an NRL coaching job and he has now signed with St Helens. Heck, Chris Anderson himself is currently available and with a decent track record in both Australia and the UK. It would be interesting to see if Bluey McLennan could replicate his Leeds success in London and Brian Smith could potentially be coerced into a London-based sabbatical having coached Hull and Bradford earlier in his career. These are all established NRL coaches and completely overlooked the up and coming coaches who are struggling to get a look in at the top level due to lack of opportunity. They could do a lot worse than spend a couple of years in London and they need to be reminded of that and remunerated in such a way that it makes it worth their while.

8. Win something
Melbourne's credibility increased out of sight when they made the finals in their first season and went one better to win the grand final in just their second year in existence. A lot of factors contributed to that result but London must target winning something, anything, to boost their credibility. The old cliche is that success breeds success but the Broncos should be entering every competition they can - local raffles and all - in the hope of building a winning mentality.

9. Overhaul their image
If, in the unlikely event that even some of the steps outlined above are followed, this may become more or less unnecessary. At one level supporters don't care what badge the players wear on their chest as long as the team is winning. On the other hand the most recent rebranding seems like an enormous missed opportunity. Perhaps it was done on the cheap - it certainly looks like it - but I have no emotional attachment to the new Broncos logo, shirts, brand etc. As a West Ham fan I'm happy to be seen proudly sporting merchandise for a team that loses more often than it wins but not if it looks crap. Give the supporters something they can feel some sense of pride in wearing in public. If I'm honest, the whole Broncos thing feels a bit old hat and whilst I'm reluctant to advocate further identity overhauls for one of sports most weathered franchises I think one final one could be in order. If the Storm do indeed end up acting as the model for the London franchises success why not go the whole hog and adopt their moniker too? Anyone who has spent any time in London would realise that in many ways a weather-based name couldn't be more appropriate. After all, I've been in London a year and am yet to encounter my first Bronco.

'A Life Too Short' is about so much more than Robert Enke's battle with depression

Will Robert Green be the latest victim of misplaced sporting conventional wisdom?                 Pic: AP/Bernat Armangue

I spent much of my 2500-word post last week defending Andre Villas-Boas (check it out below – it’s worth a read) but, only a week later I find myself resenting him for his role in scuppering one of the funniest transfer sagas of recent times.

American midfielder-cum-striker Clint Dempsey had excelled for Fulham for five years since joining from New England Revolution in 2007, so few could begrudge him his ambition of moving to a top English club, preferably competing in the Champions League, this summer. At 29, it was probably Dempsey’s last opportunity to make such a move.

However, showing up to the first day of Fulham’s pre-season training proudly announcing you are on your way to Liverpool was not the way to go about it. Particularly when Liverpool hadn’t even made a bid. In Dempsey’s defence, one can only imagine he’d received a tip-off from his agent that the move was already in train, but it didn’t stop him from looking any less of a big-time Charlie when a bid subsequently failed to materialise.

As the transfer window drew to a close with Dempsey training with Fulham’s reserves, and the West London club reporting Liverpool to the FA for unsettling a player who remained contracted to them, no offer was forthcoming.

If the newspapers are to be believed Liverpool did make a late bid on the final day of the transfer window of around £3m - a figure that could only be considered derisory for a player of Dempsey’s quality - but it was Tottenham and Villas-Boas who eventually came to Dempsey’s rescue by meeting Fulham’s £6m valuation.

Dempsey had, by the narrowest of margins, avoided becoming the latest transfer windows biggest loser (at least on an individual level - Liverpool's failure to sign Dempsey left them with only two strikers and a manager whose preferred formation features three up front - when it comes to which club "lost" the transfer window, it's a no contest). Instead, the individual title went to another player who, unlike Dempsey, was a relatively innocent victim in a situation not entirely of his own making.

As recently as May this year Robert Green was playing in goal for England (keeping a clean-sheet in a pre-Euro 2012 friendly against Norway). Now it looks as though he may spend the rest of this season plying his trade in the Championship on loan from Queens Park Rangers, who he only joined in June.

Green only played three matches for his new club (who he joined after his contract expired at West Ham United) before Rangers signed another keeper, Brazilian international Julio Cesar from Inter Milan, who now looks set to cement a place as the club’s number one goalkeeper.

QPR manager Mark Hughes described the situation like this:

"It is a challenge for everybody. What we're trying to do here is improve the quality of the group and that includes the goalkeeping position as well.

"I said I wanted to have two quality keepers this window if at all possible. Sometimes when opportunities present itself you want to pursue them.

"When you get an opportunity to possibly bring a player of Julio Cesar's quality, with his playing record and his mentality, then I think you have to pursue it.

"I think when we started the process we probably never thought there was an opportunity or chance he would be able to come here. If we are able to conclude it, we'll be delighted."

Hughes uses the word ‘opportunity’ three times in as many paragraphs, but what really sticks out is the ruthless way the club has pursued what is essentially only an incremental improvement.

Since Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes bought the club in August 2011, QPR have sought to improve their squad at every opportunity. Whilst this is not an uncommon strategy for clubs recently promoted to the Premier League (who often find the players that got them there are not of sufficient quality to keep them there), it is the complete absence of any semblance of planning that leaves QPR looking desperate (they signed 12 news players in the last window – more than an entire starting line up) and caused Football365’s Nick Miller to declare on Twitter that he hoped the club would be relegated this season.

If QPR appear desperate, it’s probably because they are. Staying in the Premier League has well-documented financial benefits and one only needs to look at the likes of Portsmouth to see how fragile many clubs business model’s become once the riches of the Premier League are denied them. However, their treatment of Robert Green seems counter-productive. It feels to me like going out and buying a new TV, only to upgrade to a slightly better, slightly more expensive one a week later. Although, given that Green was signed on a free, it is possibly more like being given an old TV by a friend, only to buy a brand new TV a week later when you see it on sale.

Nevertheless, the point is that the most stable and successful clubs in the Premier League rarely dispose of valuable assets quite so freely. I think of Everton, who have performed admirably for a number of years despite being subject to testing financial constraints. Everton’s keeper Tim Howard may not be the best keeper in the league and Everton could possible replace him with someone better if they were determined to do so, but he is more than serviceable (at least for another couple of years) and he has repaid the faith the club have shown in him with loyal service and a key role in establishing Everton as a challenger for the European places.

Reports linking Everton with a bid for 19-year-old Birmingham (and now England) keeper Jack Butland in the last transfer window seemed fanciful because of the fee involved (£6m was talked about - a lot of money for a club of Everton’s miniscule financial resources) but had a degree of credibility because it seemed logical for a club like Everton to look to replace Howard with a promising young keeper at some point. It didn’t happen this transfer window but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Butland join Everton at some point in the future if they’re not outbid by one of the big clubs.

To bring it back to QPR, I couldn’t help but feel for Green. In truth, Green left a very comfortable situation at West Ham despite the offer of a new contract, looking to benefit from the ambition shown by QPR, the same ambition of which he has now become a victim. However, it seems incredibly unfair that the best Green can now hope for is sitting on the bench or chasing promotion with a Championship contender.

What sort of a psychological impact will that have on Green? To a certain extent goalkeepers, by their very nature, have to be adept at bouncing back from setbacks, and Green has showed in the past that high-profile errors on international duty (with one of his greatest gaffes coming against Dempsey during the 2010 World Cup) haven’t massively impacted his form at club level. But the conventional wisdom about such things is not always accurate.

I have just finished reading Ronald Reng’s biography of another goalkeeper, German international Robert Enke (called ‘A Life Too Short’ and winner of last year’s William Hill Sports Book of the Year). Reng’s stirring account of an interesting, compassionate, talented professional who also happened to suffer from depression is one of the better sporting biographies I have read in recent times. It doesn’t throw up too many surprises – Reng doesn’t depart much from the formula followed by sporting biographers the world over – but its delicate treatment of the subject of depression is both timely and fascinating.

Enke’s story provides plenty of food for thought, but one thing that sticks with me is the over-reliance of conventional wisdom in sport. Enke was, I suspect, far from conventional even without taking into account his depression. What Reng makes clear is that depression as an illness makes life’s challenges seem insurmountable, sometimes irrespective of how great they appear to others. I therefore do not wish to suggest that Enke simply could not “hack” the competition and pressure of being Germany’s number one keeper and this is what “caused” his depression. It may have contributed to certain episodes but that is almost beside the point.

The way Enke was able to establish himself as Germany’s best goalkeeper at a mid-table club like Hannover 96 where he was the undisputed number one, following setbacks at Barcelona and Fenerbache, goes against the conventional wisdom that goalkeepers require competition to produce their best. Enke was the consummate professional and his own harshest critic. I suspect that many professionals are the same. Enke’s triumph over the conventional wisdom is remarkable (even before taking his illness into account). At the same time, such defiance was probably the secret of his success.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Robert Green is at risk of throwing himself in front of a train as Enke did. Green is his own man and may be more comfortable with the conventional sporting wisdom. He may relish the opportunity of dropping down to the Championship and enjoying playing football out of the spotlight. He may be able to turn this setback into motivation to become a better player and eventually displace Cesar as QPR’s number one. But I can’t help but feel that QPR may have benefitted just as much from letting Green know they had the opportunity to sign Cesar but declined due to their confidence in their recently signed England international. As a West Ham fan I wish Green all the best. I just hope that his career is not the latest victim of misplaced sporting conventional wisdom.

As for ‘A Life Too Short’, one hopes that its impact will be the most obvious one: deepening people’s understanding of the illness of depression, as it did my own. But I am also hopeful that stories of players such as Enke will help demonstrate that there can be success for those who defy the conventional wisdom.  Whilst Enke’s illness and untimely demise give Reng’s work a greater gravity, his story is compelling even without it’s ending. Amongst the saddest sub-plots in the book was the way Enke felt unable to share his experiences more widely during his life. Both Green and Dempsey could learn something from a fellow professional whose tragic death denied football an inspiring role model. And not just because he suffered from depression.

The growing likeability of Chelsea

End of the old guard: Drogba's departure has restored Torres' confidence... and made Chelsea likable again    Pic: Reuters

As the summer transfer draws to a close with the outcome of Chelsea’s pursuit of young German striker Andre Schurrle still unknown, one thing is sure. The overhaul of the Chelsea squad is not only underway, but may almost be complete. And, perhaps even more surprisingly, the turnover of players has not only got Chelsea looking like a more formidable challenger than they have for many years, but, against all odds, verging on likable for the first time since the Roman Abramovich takeover in 2003.

Despite their triumph in both last years Champions League and the FA Cup, the west London club could only manage a sixth-place finish in the English Premier League. When the promising Andre Villas-Boas was sacked as Chelsea manager in March last year following a 1-0 league defeat against West Bromwich Albion, a large part of the criticism leveled against the Portuguese was that he had failed to impose his preferred style of play on Chelsea’s influential old guard and had quickly lost the confidence of his players. But this overlooked the fact that in a perfect world Villas-Boas would have brought in players better suited to his system rather than having to rely on those who were already there. Indeed, many people felt that Villas-Boas had been handed a poisoned-chalice by Abramovich, who demanded the manager rebuild without compromising results. In the end, Villas-Boas was given neither the time nor the support to see his project through and was shown the door. But today the signs are there that Villas-Boas may have been more successful than he was given credit for, only for Roberto di Matteo (and whoever replaces him in a year's time – probably Pep Guardiola) to reap the benefits.

In truth, until recently the shadow of another Portuguese manager, Jose Mourinho (for whom Villas-Boas worked as Opposition Scout) remained cast across everything that went on at Stamford Bridge. Mourinho was Abramovich’s first managerial appointment as Chelsea owner and the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ led the club to unprecedented success between 2004 and 2007, albeit without being able to deliver the Champions League trophy so coveted by the new Russian-owner.

When Mourinho left the club by “mutual consent” in September 2007 following a well-documented power struggle between himself and Abramovich, it started a procession of managers (currently six in five years) who have promised much, but until last year, largely failed to deliver (with the exception of a League and Cup double under Carlo Ancelotti in 2009/10).

Throughout the years that followed Mourinho’s departure, the core of his Chelsea team remained more or less in tact. Under Mourinho, the team's effectiveness and the manager's own charisma and ability to draw the attention of the media to himself instead of his team, disguised, to a certain extent, how the team he had assembled was almost completely devoid of any charm of its own.

None of this is to detract from the quality of the players in question. Rather more, it is to highlight the genuine difficulty anyone other than Chelsea fans had in feeling any warmth towards the likes of Peter Cech, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba. This problem was exacerbated by their close association in the eyes of many with an owner, the origin of whose fortune was unknown and who seemed intent on buying the Premier League, literally at any cost. It was the sense of inevitability, almost of entitlement, particularly after they won their first league title in Mourinho’s first season, that made Chelsea the target of most neutrals’ intense dislike (with me first among them).

But this aura wasn’t helped by the uninspiring nature and/or dubious character of some of Chelsea's key players: Petr Cech, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, all relatively devoid of any sense of glamour, were all vital parts of the side that won the league title in 2004/05 and were later joined by similarly obnoxious Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack, Nicolas Anelka and Branislav Ivanovic. All the while, players demonstrating flair or the potential to become fan favourites were stockpiled by the wealthy club, but either failed to properly assimilate or were left to rot on the bench before being shipped out again (Joe Cole, Arjen Robben, Hernan Crespo and Scott Parker all spring to mind as the most obvious examples).

Undoubtedly one of the worst culprits of this is John Terry who, while undoubtedly a fine defender initially much appreciated by England fans for his heart-on-sleeve approach, could only disguise his loathsome personality for so long. I’m not from the school of thought that believes that it doesn’t matter what a footballer does off the pitch as long as he performs on it and Terry's conduct both on and off the pitch contribute to the detestable figure he has become. Terry has rightly attracted a lot of negative publicity for cheating on his wife (and mother of his twins) with the former partner of then-teammate Wayne Bridge, model Vanessa Perroncel, and his alleged racial abuse of QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, the brother of England teammate Rio. Most recently his attempts to crash the party at the end of last years Champions League final, a game in which he was not involved through his own stupidity/thuggery in the semi-final, were laughable but also entirely predictable. Sadly, such incidents are just the latest of a string of incidents (beginning with his abuse of American tourists at a Heathrow airport bar in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks – an incident in which Frank Lampard was also implicated) that have plagued Terry’s career and mean that “Big JT” is worthy of complete derision and all the bile that comes his way. Even Chelsea fans now have trouble defending the antics of their “heroic” captain.

Unlike Terry, Lampard’s involvement in the September 11 debacle can probably be put down to immaturity, but his subsequent performances have hardly helped endear him to the footballing public. Whilst I’m willing to admit that my perspective of Lampard may have been unfairly tainted by the acrimonious circumstances under which he left West Ham (the club I support) and the way he refused to defer to the superior Steven Gerrard in an England midfield that could only accommodate one of them, it says something that, despite being the highest scoring midfielder in Premier League history, he is thought of less fondly than midfield contemporaries such as Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Patrick Viera, Roy Keane and even Ryan Giggs (who has not been without off-field indescretions of his own in recent times). Goals may be one thing, but they alone can’t buy you the affection of Premier League audiences, and his finger-pointing-to-the-sky celebration is touching, but hardly inspires passion.

The greedy, chavvy, cheating Ashley Cole, the self-important Ballack, the headgear wearing Cech (who in fairness only does so following a “challenge” by one of the few footballers to rival Terry for shear unpleasantness, Stephen Hunt), the moody Anelka, and the so-thuggish-that-the-only-surprise-is-that-he-hasn’t-joined-Mourinho-at-Madrid-yet Ivanovic were all also complicit in contributing to making Chelsea the most difficult team to feel anything but negativity towards.

However, perhaps it is Didier Drogba that was the greatest contributor to the dour view many people took of the Chelsea of the last five years. Bought from Marseille in July 2004 for £24 million right at the start of the Mourinho era (unlike Lampard and Terry who were already at Stamford Bridge by the time Mourinho arrived), Drogba is perhaps the personification of Mourinho’s Chelsea. At his best Drogba was unstoppable meaning he regularly scored hatfuls of goals for the Blues, but much like Mourinho's Chelsea never played in a way that encouraged the adoration of the neutral. There’s no escaping that many of the goals he scored were incredibly impressive and, as demonstrated in the 2012 Champions League final, Drogba always seemed capable of producing at crucial times and in the most important matches. But there is also no getting away from the idea that Drogba was more reliant on power and force than skill, that he bullied defenders, and that his desire to win and make himself look good mattered more to him than anything else. And while none of those things are bad qualities to have for a Premier League striker, one can’t help but feel that the Stamford Bridge crowd (not to mention the rest of the football watching world) would have liked to see a bit more of the artistry exhibited by the likes of Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp at cross-town rivals Arsenal from time to time, even if they could never admit it.

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that the same things that made Drogba a winner also acted as a detriment to teammates, that his mentality and personality may have been so dominant that other players failed to flourish in his presence, that the potential of a Chelsea team was sometimes sacrificed on an alter of Drogba’s perhaps subconscious insistence that he personally was the star.

The following quotes from double-winning former Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti are, in my opinion, some of the most interesting insights offered into the inner workings of a team by any sports figure in recent times and are particularly enlightening with regard to the impact Drogba had on Chelsea:

"What I would say is training Chelsea, when the club is in the middle of a major generational change, is complicated.

"Take Torres and the crisis he has lived through there. I now know if you decide to invest strongly in him, you have to sell Drogba.

"Didier is like Filippo Inzaghi was at AC Milan. He simply devours any competition.

"It's not that he's evil - nor was Inzaghi - it's just the way they are."

Drogba may not be evil, but “the way he is” is not necessarily terribly likable either. It comes as absolutely no surprise to me, or it would seem to Ancelotti, that Torres has begun to find form again this season and I fully expect him to score 20 plus goals this season and be in contention for the Golden Boot.

And that is where the revolution of likability at Chelsea begins. I’ve followed the career of Fernando Torres since he was a fluffy haired teenager debuting for Atletico Madrid and have always liked him. When he moved to Liverpool in July 2007 I thought it was the perfect move for all concerned. One of the brightest young talents in Europe moving to a high-profile team where he would immediately be not just a first-team player, but a star. Most importantly he hadn’t chased the money and gone to Chelsea. And for the first couple of seasons Torres really did look the complete striker, a rare case of a prospect who lived up to the hype. Needless to say I was devastated when one of my favourite players moved to one of my least favourite clubs for £50 millon in January 2011. The fee was astronomical (the sixth highest paid for any player ever) which only served to prove, in my mind at least, that Torres wasn’t the player I thought he was, and instead just another Chelsea mercenary. But then what was an initially embarrassing lack of goals turned into a complete humiliation for Torres. After a year and a half of taking the piss out the Spaniard, I actually began to feel sorry for him and started making excuses in his defence. The Ancelotti quote was all the encouragement I needed to change my perspective of him once again. Torres hadn’t turned into a terrible player overnight as a form of devine retribution for joining a club like Chelsea. Instead, it was that Drogba and the environment he created that wouldn’t allow Torres to perform and with Drogba gone, Torres could not only redeem himself, but could possibly also contribute to the redemption of Chelsea.

Then, this summer Chelsea won the race to sign another of Europe’s most exciting talents, Eden Hazard, beating out no less a club than Manchester City. Manchester City, of course, had just won the Premier League on the back on a massive influx of money from the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Limited, much as Chelsea had done seven years earlier. The only difference was that City had assembled an even more impressive (although somehow more likable) squad who played more attractive football. But City’s newfound wealth meant the Manchester club also surpassed Chelsea as the club players moved to if they were only interested in money. All of a sudden, Hazard’s £32 million move to Chelsea (as opposed to City) became more acceptable.

Seemingly overnight, Chelsea could field an exciting front three of Torres, Hazard and Juan Mata without an overbearing Ivorian or moody Frenchman in sight, and with youngsters Daniel Sturridge and new boy Victor Moses as back-up. 

In midfield, Frank Lampard will (unfortunately) probably continue to be something of a fixture (at least for another couple of years albeit in a deeper lying role), but will most likely be accompanied by the sneaky-good Ramires (who showed he was so much more than just a workhorse box-to-box midfielder with this strike against Barcelona in last year’s Champions League semi-final), the bad-boy with a heart of gold Raul Meireles, and the promising Oscar and Marko Marin. Only perma-crock Michael Essien and the money-grabbing John Obi Mikel (who never really reached his potential after forcing his way out of Manchester United after realizing there was more money on offer at Chelsea) remain as midfield relics of the Mourinho era.

In defence Ashley Cole (at least until he inevitably chases one last payday) looks likely to come under increasing pressure from young Champions League finalist Ryan Bertrand, who came through the Chelsea Academy (making it difficult to begrudge him his success at the club). Meanwhile, as captain, John Terry will continue to feature prominently but for how much longer is unclear, particularly if he continues to be dogged by scandals of his own making. In his place are the enormously entertaining “Playstation footballer” David Luiz, and the affable and competent England international, Gary Cahill, who toiled valiantly for a number of years with Bolton before making a deserved switch to a Champions League contender. The final piece in the puzzle was added last week when Chelsea signed Cesar Azpilicueta, a young Spanish defender who I've been following since he made the unconventional and brave move to Marseille at the age of 20, to contest the right-back spot with the brutish Ivanovic (if he survives his first training session against the Serbian).

I’m even almost ready to forgive Cech, who despite demonstrating increasing frailty last season, was an excellent and exciting keeper before he was tarred with the Mourinho-era brush (and suffered his head injury). I’m hopeful that Cech can reinvent himself as part of a bright, new, inspiring Chelsea team and provide the sort of leadership that will be needed by this young squad (particularly once Lampard and Terry shuffle off).

I’m not saying that this will be the team to line up against Atletico Madrid in this evening’s European Super Cup, or even necessarily feature all together in any game this season, but this season Chelsea could field a team of Cech – Azpilicueta, Cahill, Luiz, Bertrand – Ramires, Meireles, Oscar – Mata, Hazard and Torres and that’s just about one I can get behind, or at least watch without actively hoping bad things happen to them.

Speaking as a West Ham fan, I have to say it’s the kind of overhaul that other teams in the Premier League should be envious of and whilst the finishing touches have undoubtedly been put on it this summer, with Roberto di Matteo at the helm, the foundations were there under Andre Villas-Boas last season. With a bit more time and support there’s no telling how successful Villas-Boas might have been but Chelsea fans should perhaps now look back on his time at the helm a little more fondly. They are now reaping the benefits of Villas-Boas cleaning house. Now it’s over to Tottenham fans to see if he can repeat the feat – maybe this time with a bit more support.

Clash of the Codes 2012

Two-thirds of Clash of the Codes 2012 least likely

contenders                              

For anyone who hasn't yet read last week's post featuring me reminiscing about the television series Clash of the Codes, it might be an idea to keep scrolling down before reading this weeks post, which is essentially the second part of a two-part series.

I have already acknowledged that, for a number of reasons, we are unlikely to ever see the compelling spectacle that was Clash of the Codes return to our screens, but that hasn't stopped me dreaming the dream. Should my wish be granted though, what exactly would it look like 15 years after the second and last series drew to a close.

First things first: As much as my love of Black Box's 'Ride on Time' will endure forever, the theme tune needs updating. I don't want it to stray too far from the original, though, so I'm advocating for for DJ Fresh's 2011 hit 'Louder'. Backing this up - and to be used for in-show montages of competing athletes - will be Muse's 'Uprising', which, I admit, is not terribly original having been played at every one day cricket game (and just about every other sporting event I've attended) in the last five years. However, I defy anyone to watch a sporting contest on mute with 'Uprising' playing on repeat in the background and not have their viewing experience enhanced. My Olympic-watching experience was enhanced by approximately 67% by doing this. It even made dressage seem decidedly bad-ass.

After that, we're gonna need some hosts. Now, I should probably say at this point, that while my hopes for global Clash of the Codes TV domination remain undiminished, I accept that we're gonna have to start small. If we can't replicate the show's success in New Zealand then there's no hope that we can branch out to Australia, Asia, America, Europe and eventually the World. As much as I could one day see the Worldwide Edition of Clash of the Codes being presented by Ryan Seacrest and Jill Wagner, for the time being we're going to have to go local and, sadly, it's pretty slim pickings. The contenders are: Pulp Sports' Bill and Ben; CGW's Mark Richardson and Andrew Mulligan; Tony Veitch and Bernadine Oliver Kerby; and Brent Todd and Wendy Botha (anyone else remember Mountain Dew On the Edge?) but the winners, for me, rekindling their awkward sexual tension from another much-loved New Zealand sports show Sports Cafe, would be an enthusiastic Marc Ellis and Lana Coc-Kroft, at her sarcastic, acerbic, mildy resentful best.

Marc and Lana would oversee a show drawing on all the lessons of the last 15 years of reality TV. 2012 Clash of the Codes would incorporate elements of American Idol, Big Brother, The Biggest Loser, Survivor and The Amazing Race. Every week the show would contain both a minor and a major challenge with the winners of the minor challenge being granted immunity and the losers of the major challenge facing elimination. The major challenge would, as you would expect, be some kind of physical test of the athlete's fitness, strength, coordination (which as well as the expected Army assault courses and races up Rangitoto should also include the modern pentathlon, arm wrestling, tug of war, and my new favourite sport and my vote for the next sport to be admitted to the Olympics, Chessboxing). The minor challenge, though, would be something sports-related, but not necessarily physical, like a A Question of Sport-style trivia quiz, some kind of timed puzzle, a cooking challenge etc. with the basic aim of humiliating the athletes, promoting tantrums, putting pressure on team dynamics, and generally creating comedic gold. Whilst I'd stop short of insisting the teams lived together Big Brother-style for the duration of the show, a taped-confession room would ensure there would be plenty of hilarious insights into the mindsets of the athletes. Finally, there'd be no pussy-footing about with a league table. Each week the bottom two-ranked teams after the major challenge would being subject to elimination to be decided either by a panel of judges (headed by former Clash of the Codes guru Ian Ferguson) or by text-poll or some glorious combination of the two. How could this fail?

The decline of status of rugby as the all-defining sign of masculinity may take something of the edge off all other sports desire to triumph in Clash of the Codes 2012 (although I suspect the so-called minor sports - i.e. anything other than rugby, league, cricket and soccer would still have a lot to prove) the growth of the sporting personality as celebrity would mean the characters involved would be both more familiar and more interesting to the audience.

The philosophy behind the make-up of the teams would, in the spirit of reality TV, be whatever maximised drama, tension, entertainment, or humour.

I love the idea of Kieran Read (in a audition for the All Black captaincy) struggling to contend with the oversized ego of Piri Weepu, and Andrew Hore's idea of a good time (Sonny Bill is excluded on the grounds that he can't decide what sport he plays); and Benji Marshall trying to reign in Isaac Luke and the somewhat goofy Manu Vatuvei. I would enjoy the relative sophistication of Laura Langman, Irene Van Dyk and Maria Tutaia; and laugh at the complete bemusement of Andrew Nicholson, Mark Todd and Jock Paget. Mahe Drysdale could take his pick of any number of excellent medal-winning rowers to make up his team; while Bevan Docherty, Kris Gemmill and Terenzo Bozzone would be early favourites to take the title as triathletes.

The team I would undoubtedly most look forward to seeing, however, would be the cricketers. The choices for me are obvious: Daniel Vettori leading the always entertaining Jesse Ryder and the definition of oddball Chris Martin. Vettori herding Ryder and Martin through a series of challenges would be a sight to behold. The plucky Black Caps may even have a chance of winning the whole competition - in the bottom two almost every week, but who would vote them off? Not me.

Please, please, please someone tell me we can make this happen. It would be must-watch TV at its most compelling - in the meantime can we please try and raise the profile of Modern Pentathlon between Olympics (and work out a way to get Chessboxing televised).

Lamenting the loss of Clash of the Codes

Simon Barnett at his What Now? peak                                                                                                              Pic: onfilm.co.nz

Last week I wrote that of all the Olympic sports the modern pentathlon seemed to me to have the greatest reality TV potential. Whilst some of the feats on display at this Olympics have been remarkable (with David Rudisha's world record breaking 800m being amongst the most impressive), I can't help but feel that it's almost unfair that one person can win a medal for performing in just one discipline when the heptathletes, decathletes, triathletes and pentathletes all have to perform at high levels in multiple.

And when I say unfair, I'm not just talking about on the athletes; we also lose out as spectators. Olympic watchers between 1984 and 1996 not only had the privilege of watching Carl Lewis run incredible times on the track, but also got to see him utilize his unique technique to leap to four golds in the long jump. The world record in the long jump (8.95m) as not been broken since 1991 (when Lewis was still competing). And one of the main reasons for this is apparently the relatively lucrative nature of sprinting, which means that the likes of Usain Bolt are not willing to jeopardize their sprinting career by diversifying and potentially risking injury. This is unfortunate, because sports engineers have estimated that Bolt could leap as far as 10.50m in the long jump pit - a quite incredible prediction given how illusive the 9m barrier has proved.

As enthralled as I've been by Bolt at these Games, and as much as I recognize that specialization enables him to do what he does (even if, by his own admission, he is not the hardest trainer in the world), I would love to see him tackle a multi-disciplinary sport. The decathlon would be good but the modern pentathlon would be even better. Can we somehow arrange for ten of the most high profile gold medal winners to take part in a modern pentathlon competition on the last day of the Olympics? You're telling me you wouldn't tune in to watch Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Lebron James, Jessica Ennis, Chris Hoy, Ryan Nelsen and Gabrielle Douglas going head to head in fencing, swimming, equestrian, running and shooting? The potential for unintentional comedy is almost untold but the potential to reveal the world's best athlete is even greater.

The idea of some sort of competition to help compare the relative merits of sports people from different codes is nothing new. Down under, Hayden Knowles' Gatorade 100m Bolt famously pitted athletes from Australia's footballing codes against one another in 2010 to see who was the fastest (with rugby's Lachie Turner taking out the title) and New Zealand's charity Fight for Life has appealed to audiences keen to get to the bottom of debates about the respective toughness of league and union players. The pinnacle for me however, has to be the oft-forgotten and regrettably deceased Clash of the Codes.

Criminally, a search of the internet turns up a desperate lack of YouTube footage and little more than a Wikipedia stub for a television show that was amongst the most compelling viewing of my formative years. I still can't hear Italian house sensation Black Box's 1989 hit 'Ride on Time' without reminiscing about tuning in to Simon Barnett (bouncing back from the plane crash of a game show that was Face the Music where he struggled to replicate the classic What Now? years) to hear what challenges the athletes would endure in the next half hour in the battle for sporting supremacy.

In case you were living under a rock during the nineties, the basic premise of the show was teams of three athletes from various sporting codes would compete against each other in a series of physical challenges (most of which, as I recollect, seemed to revolve around Rangitoto in Auckland's Waitemata Harbour). The triathletes were perennial favourites and the netballers always seemed slightly disadvantaged against teams containing at least two males (although most teams did contain at least one female member) but it was Ian Ferguson and the canoeists who came out on top winning both series (in 1994 and 1997).

As a young football (soccer) player growing up in a rugby-mad country, any ammunition that could be gathered in the argument against any sport other than rugby being "wussy" was like gold dust. I may never have touched a kayak in my life but watching the rugby team get beat (and convincingly so) not once, but twice was priceless.

Looking back, the beauty of Clash of the Codes was that it was conceptualised at a time where the seeds of reality TVwere just being planted but, more importantly, professionalism in sport was yet to really catch on (with the exception of a few All Blacks who had crossed the ditch to make their fortune playing league, the bloody traitors). At the start of the first series the Super 12 was still two years away. It's telling that the second series, in 1997, one year after the launch of the Super Rugby era, failed to capture the imagination in the same way and led to the cancellation of the show. It was a simpler, more innocent era where athletes needed the media exposure (and anything they got paid to take part) far more than the media needed them. Professionalism changed all that, and whilst I accept that the quality of sport on offer for mere spectators has improved out of sight as a result (unless you happen to be an Auckland Rugby fan), I think it's important to acknowledge that, at the same time, something has been lost.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the whole situation is that at the same time as professionalism has made the recreation of a show like Clash of the Codes highly improbable, if not completely and forever out of reach, reality TV has come on in leaps and bounds. The lessons learned from Big Brother, American Idol, The X Factor, The Voice and any number of other horrific spin offs would only serve to make Clash of the Codes even more glorious. Instead, we'll just have to settle for specialist athletes doing incredible things in just one discipline (and tune in to the Olympic pentathlon every four years).

Unfortunately, I'm not able to let go of this idea just yet. The potential of such a show is just too great. Come back next week to read my column about how the 2012 edition of Clash of the Codes would look, especially if you happen to be a TV exec with an enormous budget and a programming hole to fill!

Are all gold medals equal?

An actual-size shot of how the medals might look if I was running the Games?                                      Pic: london2012.com

The day before the Olympic opening ceremony I had the following conversation with my highly-opinionated film critic friend Patrick:

Me: “If you were Bradley Wiggins would you rather win the Tour de France or win a gold medal?”

Patrick: “Well, he has both so…”

Me: “Yeah, but if you had to choose.”

Patrick: “Tour de France, no question. It’s the pinnacle of cycling.”

Me: “I think I’d rather have the gold medal but that’s probably because I don’t care that much about cycling.”

Patrick: “Yeah, you’re an idiot.”

Once my damaged self-esteem had recovered, it led me to thinking about the seemingly ever growing number of sports for which the Olympic Games is no longer the pinnacle. What’s more, I couldn’t help but feel that, if the Games aren’t the pinnacle of a certain sport, it somewhat devalues winning the gold medal in that sport.

How can we reflect this? My initial reaction was that “The Pinnacle” rule should be the primary criteria for making decisions about which sports featured at future Games. But I soon realised that a large part of the appeal of the Olympics is the sheer diversity of the sports (and athletes) competing in one place at one time. I may not think a men’s football gold medal is worth the same as the gold for the 100m sprint but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the idea of Michael Phelps, Tyson Gay and LeBron James all hanging out in the Athlete’s Village or swapping stories of their conquests (sporting and, ahem, extracurricular) as they walk around the Olympic Stadium at the closing ceremony (which totally happens by the way!). But I’m adamant that it should be reflected in some way.

After quite a lot of thought, I decided the only fair way to acknowledge the relative value of an event’s gold medal was by size and weight. If an event is devalued because it’s not the pinnacle of that sport, then the medal, as a representation of achievement should suffer the same fate.

The medals at London 2012 weigh approximately 400g but there really needs to be at least two smaller sizes than that.

Here’s the definitive list of events that would qualify for 100g gold medals if I was running the Olympics:

As a general rule any team sport should fall into this category. Call me a purist but there’s something about the Olympic motto ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ that just translates better in individual sports. This is even more the case when the sport in question has a showcase event of its own already.

The prime offender here is men’s football, which, in many ways, barely warrants a medal at all. Could we not just keep men’s Olympic football as a permanent exhibition sport? Whilst I’m sure many footballers consider winning a gold medal a great honour, it is far from the pinnacle of the sport. The greatest footballers are, and always will be, judged on their performances at World Cups and, to a lesser extent, in the Champions League. The bizarre compromise with FIFA that sees the majority of players competing aged under 23 only serves to give the whole tournament even more of a development feel. ‘Hey, come watch some Olympic football – you might see the stars of tomorrow.’ These guys haven’t trained for four or eight years solely for the chance to compete at these Games. For many of them it’s just another notch on the bedpost of a career that will find its ultimate fulfilment elsewhere. As much as I’ve enjoyed getting my first close up look at Neymar, Lucas Moura, Oscar etc. during these Games, the level of competition has frankly been pretty disappointing and many of the matches have been played out at low intensity in front of mediocre crowds. I’m sorry guys, but the 100g gold is the most you deserve.

The other sports that sit in this category are women’s football (at least there are no age limits), basketball (rumoured to be considering implementing age limits to give greater weight to their own World Cup), tennis (it may be at Wimbledon, but the players would still rather win actual Wimbledon), handball (I remain unconvinced by Bill Simmons’ new found appreciation), hockey, volleyball, waterpolo, and, on the basis of my conversation with Patrick, road cycling.

One level up from that you have the 200g gold medal events:

Once you’ve got the traditional team sports out of the way there are still a number of events where athletes rely on someone and/or something else. Don’t get me wrong, I love team sports and recognise that there is often greater skill involved in coordinating multiple people than just a single person, but when it comes to the Olympics I’m all about the primacy of individual achievement. A friend of mine recently asked, “Not being a dick or anything but is equestrian even a sport? If anything, the horse should get the medal.” I’m not sure I entirely agree, but the greatest equestrian in the world couldn’t compete at the Games without a horse. The involvement of the horse, not to mention many of the events being competed for as a team, sees equestrian fall into the category of the 200g gold.

Other sports that fall into this category are anything synchronised (diving, swimming, trampolining), table tennis and badminton doubles, all the relay events in both swimming and athletics, and beach volleyball.

Also anything that requires basically no movement falls into this category. Sorry shooting, archery and chess (oh wait, not an Olympic sport yet?).

I would reluctantly also put boxing in this category because, despite Olympic boxing’s great appeal and it being a sport where the Olympic committee seem to have got the rules on professionals competing right, it is also very difficult to argue that, for many boxers, the Olympics isn’t just a checkpoint on their way to bigger and better things.

Finally, as much as it saddens me to say it there are some sports that simply fail to capture the imagination in the way that a true Olympic sport should. I know there will be fans of the sport out there that will argue until their blue in the face that it’s not the case, but taekwondo, wrestling, sailing and (outside of Asia) the table tennis and badminton singles will never capture the imagination of the average punter in the same way as swimming does, albeit only every four years.

Which brings me to the 400g gold medal events, the pure events of the Olympics, the sports that have you turning on the TV knowing nothing about the event and somehow getting swept away in the emotion of it all and choking up as an unheard-of Lithuanian claims gold in the 100m breaststroke.

These are the sports that typify the Olympic spirit, not just in the sense of ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ but also in the sense of mutual reinforcement. The sport is made better by the Olympics (can anyone honestly say they’ve sat up through the night to watch an athletics World Champs?), but the Olympics is made what it is by the sport. I can imagine an Olympics without football, without archery, and just about without boxing. But an Olympics without swimming or athletics is heresy. It simply wouldn’t be the Olympics. Whilst great Olympic teams do sometimes stick in the collective consciousness, particularly in the smaller countries where medals are rare (Hungary in waterpolo for example, or,to a lesser extent, USA’s basketball Dream Team in 1992) our Olympic heroes typically come from the 400g medal sports.

No Olympic Games has truly started until the first medals are won in the pool and London 2012 was no different. Yet the Games don’t feel like they’re in full fling until the athletics gets started a week later. Some of the sneaky good viewing from any Olympics comes in both the weightlifting and the judo. And you have to admire the versatility of both the triathletes and those competing in the modern pentathlon (even if the latter rarely gets the television coverage it deserves – if they put this on outside of the Olympics I’d watch it – and that’s before you exploit its potential to make a great reality TV show). Despite both the teamwork and question marks that remain over how much it means to the athletes track cycling remains an important part of any Games and perhaps I’m showing my New Zealand bias but you can’t take a 400g medal away from the rowers.

Like I say, I don’t have a particular agenda when it comes to seeing sports added or taken away from the Games (except golf which should not be allowed under any circumstances). The Olympics remains the spectacle it is because of the smorgasbord of events on offer. But I do think that this new scheme would give literal weight to something most of us already accept: Not all Olympic medals are created equal.

Clough's perfect timing

Brian Clough with his assistant and 'mate' Peter Taylor after Nottingham Forest won the European Cup in 1979 

Pic: Sporting Pictures/Rex Features

You often hear that timing is everything in sport. Difficult to define and reportedly even harder to coach, timing is what makes the difference between a cricket shot that races to the boundary off the meat of the bat or an edge to first slip; the difference between a run that beats the offside trap and one that has the referee calling you back having seen the linesman’s flag go up; the difference between a golf shot that lands up on the fairway and one that’s sliced into the rough. And in every case, we’re talking about fractions of a second that make the difference between the exceptional and the very, very ordinary.

But timing also matters in a historical sense. Reading Duncan Hamilton’s award-winning account of Brian Clough’s time as manager of Nottingham Forest, Provided You Don’t Kiss Me, I was struck by the extent to which Clough was a man who, despite his undeniable managerial qualities, benefitted from great timing.

Clough, of course, took both Derby and Nottingham Forest from the Second Division (today's Championship) to the First Division title (today's Premier League) and into Europe. He made it as far as the semi-finals in Europe with Derby but it was the back-to-back European Cups Clough won  with Forest in 1979 and 1980 that cemented his status as a managerial genius.

However, according to Hamilton, by the time of his final season in charge of Forest in 1992/93, “Clough didn’t understand, or chose to ignore, the new realities of a game which by this time was embracing the nascent demands of the Premiership”.

By then, even Clough seemed to accept that, despite the possibility of future glory, his time had probably come and gone. Clough told Hamilton about a month before his resignation: “You never give up hope. You think about the Championship, you think about another European Cup. I don’t know how many great teams one manager can create in a lifetime. Two? Three at most?  The thing is, though, you never stop trying. It’s like an actor wanting to win another Oscar, a mountaineer who wants another crack at scaling Everest. I’m like that.”

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, has written of the advantages bestowed upon both junior ice hockey players and footballers based on seemingly arbitrary age-group cut-offs. He suggests that players born in certain months may be more likely to succeed based on the month in which they were born as it could give them a developmental advantage over those born later within the same age grouping. The developmental difference between two players, one who is 12 years and a few days and one who is 12 years and eleven-and-a-half months, can be quite significant. Gladwell argues that such differences can set off chains of events, say if the older, more developed player gets selected for junior representative teams and gets exposed to better coaching and facilities, that give them a much greater chance of excelling or turning pro in their chosen sport irrespective of their talent relative to the younger player.

An excellent actor requires not just the right role in the right film but also the right time to win an Oscar as such decisions are not made in a vacuum and are subject to the fashions of the day which dictate what is and is not acceptable. To what extent then are our perceptions of sporting greatness also defined and determined by what may appear to be historical accident?

For whatever reason whenever I think of the epitome of sporting greatness, Michael Jordan comes to mind. And while it’s tempting to think that an athlete like Jordan, whose determination and quasi-psychopathic competitiveness are well-documented, would have succeeded in any era through his sheer ability to exert his will in any given situation, to do so is to overlook some of the other factors that contributed to his aura. Coming through at the end of the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson era gave Jordan some (admittedly declining) rivals against which to test himself. At the same time after Bird and Johnson retired the NBA lacked a superstar to capture the imagination. The rise of cable and, more significantly, the rise of Nike as a marketing colossus with Jordan as a figurehead, not to mention the change in Olympic rules that allowed Jordan (and other professionals) to compete (and win gold) for the ‘Dream Team’ at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, all contributed significantly to how Jordan is remembered today.

 Titles obviously contribute to perceptions of greatness but are also largely subject to timing. Teams that win titles are often remembered retrospectively as great irrespective of the merits of the individual components, or for that matter, the competition. England seem to go into every major international football tournament (or at least those for which they qualify) with high expectations only to be disappointed when the team fails to live up to the standards of the group that won the World Cup in 1966. The 1966 team was undoubtedly one of very high quality, but timing is still required to bring the individual components together and have them peak at the right time. Similarly, the 2011 All Blacks will now be remembered as great.

It is also tempting to spare a thought for those on the cusp of greatness who were arguably denied it by poor timing. Marty Holah, an exceptional open side flanker, had the misfortune of playing in New Zealand at the same time as Richie McCaw, when in another era he could well have won 100 caps for the All Blacks and be remembered equally fondly.

A lot of this tends to suggest that sporting greatness comes down to luck - either good or bad - more so than timing, but that denies the skill in the execution. Luck may provide the opportunity, but there is a skill in exploiting it. Timing is where opportunity and execution overlap and that is what makes it such a prized asset in sport.

So, don’t get me wrong. None of this is to take away from any of Clough’s achievements or legacy. Clough certainly benefitted from meeting Peter Taylor when he did, having his playing career cut short by injury and existing in an era where managers could exert almost total domination over a football club. His eccentricities, arrogance and relationship with the press were tolerated in the 70s and 80s but would have held Clough back today.

Hamilton concludes: “It is inconceivable that another Brian Clough could ever emerge from the swamp of banknotes that is modern football.”

He adds: “The question of whether Clough would have been as successful  in today’s football is easily answered – he would not.”

And so, he may not, even if he had been around, have been the right person to manage Aston Villa in 2011 but don’t let that detract from his legacy.

If timing is everything in sport, Clough had it in abundance.