World Class Runners Up

Well, it would appear the warmer weather is with us and thoughts naturally turn to some of the big sporting events happening here in the next few months.

In June we have Royal Ascot, the British Grand Prix and Wimbledon starts. July brings Henley Royal Regatta, The Ashes begin and The Open Championship Golf. August brings Cowes Week, Rugby League Challenge Cup and The Community Shield, which heralds the start of the football season and the onset of autumn.

What will underpin much of the sporting endeavour throughout the summer, will be the sheer weight of hyperbole and eulogising from the press focused on individuals with even the most passing links to this fair isle. Maybe their great-grandfather once used the facilities at Heathrow on a stop-over from Paris to Moscow, or they are the third cousin twice removed of Princess Anne. Whichever it is, they will be built up in the early summer as the future, only to be the overnight sandwich left on the radiator by September.

The British will not let slip easily the mantle of World Class Runners Up. The Aussies will probably tonk the English at cricket, we will struggle to have a representative in the second week of the tennis at Wimbledon, and the Open will probably be won by a Papua New Guinean who had first picked up a club three weeks before.

Whatever the outcomes this summer, hope springs eternal and maybe, just maybe 2009 will be different..

To clock some great British Summer Sports imagery, go here.