I've been musing on a weekend of rather pleasing sporting drama. On Friday night an inspired Llanelli eviscerated Bath on the rugby field. Simply beautiful. And rugby was not finished with us, still to come was a bloody-minded Harlequin victory over Wasps - Quins had nothing to play for whereas their opponents could keep alive their prospects of qualification for the European Cup quarter-finals. The explosion of delight from the Quins players when they scored the late and decisive try was a perfect illustration of the joy that is to be had from spoiling a rival's party. Cherishable even if it does leave us perilously close to there being no English team left in the competition. Hey ho, a bit of humility never goes amiss in English rugby.
Moving on to football, of the association ilk. The January transfer window is open so we are constantly reminded of the quite obscene bucketloads of cash that players and their agents take out of the game. But Sunday also saw lambent evidence of why this is the 'beautiful game' - Liverpool - 4, Manchester City 3. Beautiful, skilful, joyous.
And on again - the NFL play-offs, that mixture of ballet and brutality. Did you see the final and decisive play of the New Orleans/Minnesota match? Thrilling.
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| R.I.P |
Finally a mention for an old hero who has died too young. Cyrille Regis was a muscuar Christian who graced the West Bromwich Albion shirt. In an age before footballers made millions, he lived round the corner from us and used to nod to me when he was out washing his car as I ran by on a Sunday morning. Football was played at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, end of.
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