The decade’s top 100 sporting moments: Nos 60-41
The staff of Times Sport have assembled their favourite memories of the past ten years. Part three of the countdown includes the memorable final act of an Ashes folk hero and humiliating exits for two England football managers
Joe Calzaghe added the WBC and WBA belts to his WBO title with victory over Mikkel Kessler
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60. 2000: Kevin Keegan resigns in the toilets, Wembley
It is rare that England managers leave in a manner of their choosing. Keegan had replaced Glenn Hoddle in 1999 after Hoddle had claimed that disabled people were suffering for sins in a former life. If that was a memorable way for a manager to lose his job, Keegan’s departure was just as poignant. He had overseen a lacklustre campaign in Euro 2000 and was under pressure to qualify for the 2002 World Cup. In hindsight, he was not mentally fit for the emotion of a key match against Germany. It was the final game at the old Wembley and his mother had died recently. Dietmar Hamann’s winning goal pushed a fragile man over the edge, haunted by the boos of the fans. In the toilets after the game, blinking back tears, he decided to resign.
59. 2001: Liverpool 5 Alavés 4, Uefa Cup final, Dortmund
Of course this is merely the second most memorable European cup final involving Liverpool in the past decade, but the club’s first continental trophy for 17 years deserves its spot. Gérard Houllier’s side had beaten some illustrious sides to reach the final — Olympiacos, Roma, Porto, Barcelona — but did not expect much of a fight from their little-known Basque opponents. Liverpool led 2-0 after 20 minutes and 3-1 at half-time, but Javi Moreno scored twice in the first five minutes of the second half to bring Alavés level and, after Liverpool went 4-3 up, Jordi Cruyff took the game into extra time with an 88th-minute header. Twenty-seven minutes of sudden death were played before Delfí Geli headed past his own keeper to give Liverpool victory.
58. 2004: Brian Lara regains his world record, Antigua
Lara had a point to prove when he hit consecutive balls from Gareth Batty for six and then four — the 44th and 45th boundaries of his innings — at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St John’s. Not to the England off spinner but to an Australia batsman on the other side of the world who, six months earlier, had dared to take Lara’s world record for the highest score in Test cricket. In 1994, Lara had made 375 at the same ground against the same opponents to beat Garry Sobers’s world record, but in 2003 it had been broken again by Matthew Hayden, who made 380 against Zimbabwe. With those two hits off Batty, Lara first equalled Hayden’s score and then again set the benchmark. He declared when he reached 400. The match was drawn.
57. 2009: Harlequins and rugby union’s “Bloodgate” scandal, London
In the old days, if you wanted to make a blood substitution you just got one of the forwards to tread on a head at the base of a ruck. Not in the professional era. Dean Richards, the Harlequins director of rugby, took no chances when he wanted to bring Nick Evans, the New Zealand fly half, back on for the end of his side’s Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster. He told Tom Williams, a young wing, to chomp on a blood capsule bought from a joke shop in Clapham and leave the pitch for medical attention. Just to make it look like a real injury, the Harlequins doctor cut Williams’s mouth with a scalpel. But the truth came out, including threats made to Williams to keep silent, and Richards was given a three-year ban from the sport.
56. 2004: José Mourinho arrives as “the Special One”, London
“Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.” It was a big claim for a manager to make in his first press conference and there were many keen to see Mourinho have to eat his words. The Chelsea manager disappointed them. He spent big and won big, although the failure to win a Champions League with the West London side, as he had with Porto, was a blemish. In his first year, Chelsea won the League Cup and the first of two titles, their first league win in 50 years. He also delivered one FA Cup, but the closest he came to victories in Europe were defeats by Liverpool in the 2005 and 2007 semi-finals. Special, yes, but not as special as Rafael Benítez?
55. 2004: Matthew Pinsent weeps after fourth Olympic gold, Athens
Redgrave and Pinsent go together like cheese and pickle, but for the last of his four Olympic gold medals Pinsent, arguably the better rower, had to lead a new crew, one that had competed in only two races together before the final. A year earlier, James Cracknell and Pinsent were told that they wouldn’t win in the pairs and would compete in a four instead, with Steve Williams and Alex Partridge. Then, two months before the Olympics, Partridge suffered a collapsed lung. Ed Coode was subbed in, but in choppy conditions many expected the more settled Canada crew to win. With Pinsent driving the boat on, Britain were first to the line by just 0.08sec. His laurel-wreathed breakdown on the podium captured the emotion perfectly.
54. 2008: Rebecca Adlington in the pool, Beijing
You know you have reached the big time when pubs change their name to bask in your reflected glory. It was only a brief gimmick, but when the Yates’s bar in Mansfield became the Adlington Arms, it was a tribute to the town’s heroine who had become the first British woman to win an Olympic swimming gold for almost 50 years. More appropriately, the local swimming baths were renamed the Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre. Adlington won two golds in Beijing, in the 400 metres and the 800 metres, breaking a world record in the latter that had stood for most of her 19-year-old life. But it was the first medal, Adlington baring her right armpit at the cameras as she held her goggles aloft in triumph, that sticks in the memory.
53. 2003: First Twenty20 Cup matches, Durham and Southampton
Twenty-over cricket was not new — it has been played in schools and evening leagues for years — but it was an innovative way for the ECB to revive a flagging interest in county cricket. The irony is that seven first-class counties voted against it. Within five years, Twenty20 was not only bringing in large crowds, but it had spawned a new global tournament and a lucrative spin-off in the Indian Premier League. It was a brave move to hold the opening games on Friday 13th, but if the concept was a bit too It’s a Knockout for some, with pitchside jacuzzis, girl bands and mascot races, the cricket turned out to be worth watching for its own sake. Surrey won the first Twenty20 Cup on a finals day at Trent Bridge that lasted 11 hours but kept the 15,000 spectators rapt.
52. 2007 Joe Calzaghe outclasses Mikkel Kessler, Cardiff
It takes a special person for 51,000 people to come out and pay top-dollar to watch you at 1am on a cold November morning in Cardiff, but Calzaghe was special. He had been underappreciated since winning the WBO super-middleweight title by beating Chris Eubank in 1997. But, after a supreme display to beat Jeff Lacy the year before, this was Calzaghe’s night as he became only the second boxer in history to hold WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF titles in the same weight division. He struggled early on against Kessler, a hard-punching Dane, but, as he always did, Calzaghe found a way to win. He overwhelmed Kessler with sheer volume of punches and put his seal on a thriller by going toe-to-toe in the last round, when he could have coasted to victory.
51. 2002: Rhona Martin’s curlers win Olympic gold, Salt Lake City
Every once in a while a nation stays up past midnight entranced by a sport that they had previously known little about. To the epic Taylor v Davis world snooker final in 1985 was added the Olympic women’s curling final 17 years later, when Britain won their first gold medal at a Winter Games since Torvill and Dean in 1984. The skip was a Glaswegian housewife whose main job, apart from delivering inch-perfect stones down the sheet, seemed to be to shout “hurry” at her sidekicks with the brooms. In a thrilling final that came down to the very last stone, Martin’s last throw had to be perfect to beat the Swiss — and it was.
50. 2004: Paula Radcliffe’s marathon ends in tears, Athens
Radcliffe sat on the kerb of an Athens road and wept in pain and frustration at her failure to win the Olympics marathon. A year earlier she had smashed the world record in London, but the 35C heat and humidity in Athens was too much for her. Radcliffe was with the leading group through 15 miles, but Mizuki Noguchi broke away and as the terrain became steeper and the heat rose, Radcliffe struggled. She slipped to fourth with three miles to go and then, her spirit broken, she gave in. She could have been labelled as a quitter, but somehow the nation only loved her more.
49. 2000: Tanni Grey-Thompson’s four Olympic golds, Sydney
To win four golds at one Games is special, but to do it twice, as Grey-Thompson did at the 1992 and 2000 Paralympics, is astounding and the Welsh athlete was appointed a Dame for her achievements. Her first gold in 2000, in the 800 metres, was comfortable enough, but she had to dig deep to win her second in the 100 metres, pipping the favourite by four hundredths of a second. “Part of my preparations now is to throw up before each event,” she said, but if she was nervous before her final two golds, it did not show. The 200 metres followed and then, with extreme exertion, she added the 400 metres on a rain-soaked track.
48. 2001: India beat Australia after following on, Calcutta
Australia had won 16 consecutive Test matches before the second match of their series away to India and it looked like being 17 when they made the home side follow on 274 behind. But V.V.S. Laxman made 281 in 10½ hours, adding 376 for the fifth wicket with Rahul Dravid, to turn the game. India passed 650 and set Australia 384 to win, but Harbhajan Singh took six wickets as the touring side fell short. Harbhajan took 15 wickets in the third Test, too, as India won by two wickets to snatch the series. It was the third time a side had won a Test after following on, after England in 1894 and 1981.
47 2002: Lennox Lewis pulverises Mike Tyson, Las Vegas
When Lewis’s clash with Tyson was finally agreed after years of waiting, the bad feeling boiled over during a press conference at the Hudson Theatre, New York. Tyson attacked Lewis, biting him on the leg during the mêlée. Such controversy only helped to publicise the bout, held in Memphis because Tyson was banned in Nevada, but promoters were so worried about a repeat performance from Tyson that a line of security men stood across the middle of the ring to ensure the boxers could not see each other during the introductions. When the barrier was lifted, Tyson was revealed as a shell of the boxer who had terrorised the division 15 years before and Lewis gave him an eight-round beating he probably felt was long overdue.
46. 2006: Steven Gerrard’s last-minute FA Cup Final equaliser, Cardiff
Like the Stanley Matthews Cup Final in 1953, the 2006 Final has come to be remembered for the exploits of one man. Steven Gerrard, Mr Liverpool, kept his side in the match twice, first by volleying home in the 53rd minute to pull them back to 2-2 against West Ham United after they had trailed 2-0 and then, in the third minute of stoppage time, by striking a majestic first-time shot from 37 yards that rifled past Shaka Hislop to make it 3-3. After extra time, Gerrard scored Liverpool’s second in the penalty shoot-out, which they won 3-1. The match should have been at the new Wembley, which would have been poetic for West Ham as they had played in the first Cup Final at the old stadium in 1923, but construction had not quite finished.
45. 2007: “Barney” turns off “The Power”, Purfleet
Darts is part of the traditional Christmas festivities and the final of the PDC World Championship in 2007 was a cracker. Phil “The Power” Taylor had won 11 of the previous 12 world finals but he had a new challenger in Raymond van Barneveld, a Dutchman who had defected from the rival British Darts Organisation after winning their world title four times. Taylor won the first three sets, but “Barney” won the fourth with a maximum 170 checkout on his way to a 5-4 lead. That became 6-6 and after the first ten legs of the final set were shared, it went to a sudden-death leg, which Van Barneveld won.
44. 2007: Steve McClaren and his umbrella, Wembley
Some England managers get turned into vegetables by the tabloid press when their teams don’t win. McClaren was simply dubbed “the wally with a brolly” after the image of him standing in dejection in the Wembley rain summed up his side’s attempt to qualify for Euro 2008. McClaren was dismissed by the FA after just 18 months in the job, the nadir being the 3-2 defeat at home to Croatia that ended their qualification hopes. After the match, McClaren blamed the lack of roofs on the Wembley dugouts for him needing an umbrella. It slightly missed the point.
43. 2004: Best Mate matches Arkle by winning three Gold Cups
Horses are like strawberries, not staying fresh for long. Perhaps that is why only two horses in the modern era — Arkle and Best Mate — have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years in succession. Comparisons with the former are frivolous, but this was the magical day that Best Mate emulated him. After fluent wins in 2002 and 2003, Henrietta Knight’s star started 8-11 favourite. However, the tacky ground was against him and, when short of room three out, it seemed the party might fall flat. Best Mate forged to the front, though, and then dug deep to repel Sir Rembrandt in a stirring finale. Setbacks prevented him from defending his crown in 2005 and, sadly, he collapsed and died when making his reappearance the following season.
42. 2004: Colin Montgomerie’s putt to win the Ryder Cup, Michigan
Some will say that Ian Poulter won the 34th Ryder Cup for Europe and it is true that the Englishman holed a putt to go dormie three in his singles match a few seconds before Colin Montgomerie rolled in a putt from four feet to beat David Toms on the last and get the half-point Europe needed to be sure of victory. But Poulter could still have been disqualified and in any case who would begrudge Montgomerie, who continued a seven-match unbeaten run in Ryder Cup singles matches? Normally perceived as a misery when competing for himself, he became a different man when playing for a team. Truly Mr Ryder Cup.
41. 2009: Andrew Flintoff runs out Ricky Ponting, Kennington
The final act of a folk hero before riding into the sunset. In truth, the last Ashes Test had long turned towards England, but a pessimistic nation still feared that Australia could make 546 to win match and series. With Ponting at the crease, that was a slim possibility. Then Mike Hussey nudged the ball off his hips to mid-on and called for a single. Bad decision. Flintoff may have had dodgy knees but he had a sense of occasion. He pounced, threw and hit the stumps a shade before Ponting’s bat got home. Five balls later Michael Clarke was also run out by Andrew Strauss and it was game over.
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The list so far: 61 Kauto Star regains the Gold Cup, Cheltenham, 2009. 62 Paula Radcliffe’s world record, London Marathon, 2003. 63 Brian O’Driscoll spear-tackled, Christchurch, 2005. 64 Formula One “Crashgate”, Singapore, 2008. 65 Ashley Giles hits winning runs, Trent Bridge, 2005. 66 Morne Steyne’s series-winning kick against the Lions, Pretoria, 2009. 67 Paolo Di Canio’s sporting gesture, Liverpool, 2000. 68 Kostya Tszyu retires in his corner, Manchester, 2005. 69 The 30-game final set, Wimbledon, 2009. 70 Paul McGinley’s Ryder Cup-winning putt, The Belfry, 2002. 71 Stephen Harmison takes seven for 12, Jamaica, 2004. 72 Wales win rugby’s grand slam, Cardiff, 2005. 73 Allen Stanford’s helicopter, Lord’s Cricket Ground, 2008. 74 Padraig Harrington wins his first Open, Carnoustie, 2007. 75 James Anderson and Monty Panesar’s last stand, Cardiff, 2009. 76 Wimbledon closes the roof on Centre Court, London, 2009. 77 Denise Lewis wins Olympic gold, Sydney, 2000. 78 The highest one-day run chase, Johannesburg, 2008. 79 England end a 75-year Ashes curse, London. 80 South Korea 2, Italy 1, Daejon. 81Tiger Woods crashes his car, Florida 2009. 82 Robert Howley’s try, snatched from under the nose of Clement Poitrenaud, to win the Heineken Cup for Wasps v Toulouse, 2004. 83 Stuart Broad’s Ashes-winning at the Oval, 2009. 84 Ronaldo’s wink after Rooney’s red card at World Cup, 2006. 85 Ireland win grand slam, Cardiff 2009. 86 Fabio Capello appointed England manager, 2008. 87 Leon Lloyd’s second try in Leicester’s first Heineken Cup win in Paris, 2001. 88 Mark Ramprakash gets 100 hundreds, 2008. 89 Mark Cueto “try” disallowed, Eng v SA, World Cup final, 2007. 90 India win the first World Twenty20, 2007. 91 Andrew Flintoff breaks his bat, v South Africa at Lord’s, 2003. 92 Celtic and Rangers contest last day of Scottish Premier League, 2003. 93 Yuvraj Singh, six sixes off Stuart Broad, Durban 2007. 94 Oxford win Boat Race by one foot in closest ever race, 2003. 95 Stephen Harmison’s wide at the start of Ashes, 2006. 96 Michael Lewis publishes Moneyball. 97 Zidane volleys Champions League winner at Hampden Park, 2002. 98 Michael Schumacher bursts into tears after winning the Italian GP to equal the 41 victories of Ayrton Senna, 2000. 99 Adrian Morley sent off after 12 seconds for Great Britain v Australia, 2003. 100 Zara Phillips wins Eventing World Championship, 2006.
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