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Under starter’s orders It begins with the Guineas and ends with the Six Nations. John Urquhart on the sporting season
“I don't care for sunny weather I like the change of seasons better I love the feel of rain upon my face”
T
hat’s Christine McVie banging out the lyrics in Hollywood, from the otherwise disappointing Fleetwood Mac album “Time” in 1995.
I love sport and I like to mark the changes of seasons by the beginning, or end, of a sporting season. Take the Flat Racing, for example; the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas, which together form the Guineas Festival at Newmarket, always coincides with the horse chestnut trees coming into blossom, and the beginning of the hay fever season for many. Wherever I am in Britain, when I see the beautiful purples and creams of the chestnut trees I know that the Guineas Festival is upon us, and that I need to start the antihistamines for the spring and summer. The cricket season starts in April, which is a silly time to play an outdoor sport that calls for a great deal of standing still at a time when there may still be frosts. However, the guardians of the great game of cricket have decided that we need to pack as much as possible into the season, and so we start in April, running through to September and October. The Lord’s Test is usually the first of the summer, and marks the point at which the real business of the cricket season gets under way. Then there is the Open Golf. One of the great sights of the summer, until the
authorities stopped it, was the gallery following the leaders down the 18th fairway on the last day, with the engraver busy putting the name of the winner on the Claret Jug. It’s so that when the winner has signed his card, as has to happen at every golf event from the humblest up to the Open, he receives the trophy which already bears his name. What a wonderful tradition. July and August; these are the months of major sporting events. World cups in cricket, rugby and football usually take place in these months, as do Olympic and Commonwealth games. Dovetail this with the climax of the cricket season, the Oval Test match – usually the last of the summer – and the finals of various domestic cricket competitions, and these are not good months to be out of the country. Christine McVie goes on to sing “Kick the falling leaves around” marking the start of the rugby season in September. Seven-a- side rugby, a game of exhausting endurance, is played in festivals at the very beginning of the season; so, with summer just fading away, and autumn leaning on the door, you can have rugby in shirt sleeves with cold beer. More usually we find ourselves in Edinburgh with the rain falling horizontally when watching the game. Winter arrives with November and December, with little to warm the sporting soul, unless there is an England Cricket Tour. England is the only Test
Match Nation playing in the Northern Hemisphere; South Africa, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand all play their cricket in our winter. West Indies in the Northern Hemisphere play a Southern Hemisphere season running from October to April. We welcome them to our shores in turn in each of our summers; and we visit them, in turn, in each of our winters. It is a very one-sided arrangement when you think of it. However, my favourite seasonal sporting transition is the Six Nations Rugby. November and December having been endured, with just some rugby and perhaps a cricket tour to sustain us, we find ourselves in February embarking on this great tournament – of them all, undoubtedly my favourite. Not least because, when the tournament starts, it is a cold Friday night in February; but when it concludes, six weeks and a day later, we will have been transported into spring, with all the promise that brings. Who can forget some of the great Six Nations (or, in this case, Five Nations) finales; Gregor Townsend taking Scotland to victory in Paris and to the Championship in a blazing hot summer day, while Scott Gibbs barrels over the line to deny England. Happy days. And so we come to the Guineas festival again. Which sporting events make your calendar?
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