The Sporting Almanac Podcast

<p><strong>Episode 38: The 2025 Sporting Almanac Awards and End-of-Year Review</strong></p><p>After eight months, 37 and a half episodes and a surprising number of listeners (we cannot thank you enough), we bring the first season of the Sporting Almanac Podcast to a close in the most fun way we could think of - with an award show, nominees chosen by us, winners voted for by friends of the show and completely unknown to us until revealed during recording.</p><p>We discuss why we have chosen our nominees for best event, high and low moments, best team and coach, best sportsmen and women and finally, and most enjoyably of all, our most "prestigious" award, the Villain of the Year, awarded to the person who has most sullied the name of their sport and brought shame upon themselves and disgust to sporting fans everywhere.</p><p>Expect plenty of golf, women's football and rugby and F1 mentioned, alongside names like Rory McIlroy and Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Ellie Kildunne, Sarina Wiegman and Michael Maguire. All finished off with talking drug cheats, VAR, American golf fans and how to keep adult sized toddlers from having tantrums with shiny medals...</p><p>For everyone who has listened this year thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We can't wait to see what 2026 brings for us, for you and for the world of sport.</p>

<p><strong>Episode 37: The African Cup of Nations</strong></p><p>In 1956 when the Confederation of African Football was founded, four African nations were members of FIFA: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Africa. The first Cup of Nations was played in Sudan between three of these, with South Africa's apartheid supporting Football Association immediately excluded from both CAF and the new tournament, not to return for nearly forty years.</p><p>In those forty years, the competition grew. Within a decade of that first three-team tournament dozen of countries had shaken off the last remnants of their colonial pasts, and most had set their sights on the biggest sporting prize the continent had to offer. Three teams became four, eight, twelve, sixteen and now twenty-four competing for the glittering gold trophy. Legends were born, many becoming household names at Europe's biggest clubs but returning every two years - whether their clubs liked it or not - for another go at the Cup of Nations.</p><p>Along the way there was tragedy and controversy, heartbreak and joy - never more so that the tale of Zambia rising like a phoenix from the unimaginable horror of their national team's 1993 plane crash that took the lives of most of a golden generation of talent. If 1994 was extraordinary for them, 2012 was a destiny fulfilled when within touching distance of the spot in the Atlantic Ocean where their heroes were lost they upset the odds and won it all.</p><p>Sport can be utterly extraordinary, and the African Cup of Nations more so than most.</p><p></p>

<p><strong>Episode 36: The PDC World Darts Championship - "This darts match will make you happy!"</strong></p><p>Every Christmas thousands cram into Alexandra Palace in fancy dress to scream in unison at a little black, white, red and green board on the wall. In this episode, we trace how that surreal festive tradition came to be - from darts as a pub pastime, through the birth of the televised World Championship, to the civil war that split the game and created the PDC’s neon-lit circus at Ally Pally.</p><p>Along the way we meet the swaggering heroes and fragile geniuses of the oche - Bristow, Jocky, Taylor and Barney through to van Gerwen, Smith, Humphries and Littler - and dig into how walk-ons, nicknames, Sky money, global tours and life-changing prize cheques turned a smoky, working-class obsession into a worldwide Christmas staple.</p><p>It’s about the sound of “One hundred and eighteeee!”, but also about class, rebellion, reinvention and a sport that somehow stayed true to its roots even as it wrapped itself in fireworks and confetti - and whether it can maintain that as more and more money pours into the game, fuelled now more than ever by the so-called "Littler Effect".</p><p>It’s gaudy, raucous, sometimes ridiculous, often sublime - and at Christmas, it somehow belongs to all of us.</p>

<p><strong>Episode 35: Our Ashes XI (The Ashes, Part 3) - Why We Love Cricket</strong></p><p>In Part 3 of our Ashes series, we reflect on almost 30 years of being cricket fans, and the players who’ve inspired us, shaped our love of the game, and delivered moments of both joy and agony.</p><p>To do that, we stick on our selectors caps and pick an Ashes XI drawn from our time as fans. Some choices come easily - Shane Warne, Steve Smith, Stuart Broad: shoo-ins, no debate needed.</p><p>Others, though, need a proper argument. Does Jimmy Anderson’s stellar Test career earn him a place when his Ashes record is so uneven, especially with Pat Cummins and Mitch Starc looming in the background? Can Joe Root realistically compete with Steve Waugh when the pairs Ashes numbers suggest the older man belongs on a higher shelf - and are those numbers even telling the full story?</p><p>We even make a brief detour to Headingley in 1981 to bridge eras, but make no mistake: while the legends of series past matter deeply, it’s the personalities, moments and memories we’ve lived through that made us fall in love with this wonderful game - and with the Ashes most of all.</p>

<p><strong>Episode 34: Beginnings, Bradman, Bodyline and Benaud (The Ashes, Part 2) - The Birth of a Rivalry.</strong></p><p><em>"Media were never allowed into an Australian dressing room until I became skipper. I changed that and invited them in at the close of play each day, thereby confirming for many administrators they had appointed a madman as captain." - </em>Australia captain and broadcasting legend Richie Benaud.</p><p>England have lost the first test, but rather than slide into familiar darkness and misery Jack and Ben instead go back into the early history of the Ashes to rediscover what it is that makes this contest so special, what makes them keep coming back even when the outcome feels like an inevitability.</p><p>It's a dive into the contests origins, an obituary notice and a quest by Ivo Bligh to regain what was lost. Into WG Grace and Billy Midwinter, whose careers intersected as teammates and opponents and, on one memorable occasion, as kidnapper and kidnappee. Into the greatest man to ever wield the willow in Sir Don Bradman, and how Douglas Jardine hatched a dastardly plan to stop him, and nearly set Anglo-Australian relations back a generation or two in the process. And into a man whose voice and passion for the game made him as beloved in England as in Australia - Richie Benaud.</p><p>Because through good and bad, the Ashes remain memorable, occasionally maddening, frequently controversial and - when all is said and done - utterly marvellous.</p><p></p><p>Intro Music: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://Bensound.com/free-music-for-videos">Bensound.com</a></p><p>License code: MZ7BOE03DMJ0CYB5</p><p>Artist: Benjamin Tissot</p>