It was a hell of a sporting year just gone and here are three moments that made us shout 'Holy F*ck' at our TVs, iPads or phones
So much stuff happened in 2013 in sport that it is very hard to pick the most shocking. We decided to set a simple criteria; did you think 'Holy F*ck' when you heard the news. And while Luis Suarez's nibble at Branislav Ivanovic, Clare's last second equaliser in the All Ireland and Roy Keane being hired by the FAI all fitted the bill, here are the three we went for in the end.
BOD gets dropped by Gatland
I’m pretty sure holy f*ck doesn’t cover the reaction of the entire Irish nation when word filtered through from Australia that Brian O’Driscoll, Ireland’s greatest ever player, was not going to play in the third and decisive Lions Test.
On his fourth tour, the game in Sydney was definitely going to be the centre’s final appearance in red and his final shot at a much sought after series win. Sure he hadn’t had his best game in the previous Test in Melbourne but nobody, at least on this side of the world, expected the Leinster man to be dropped from the team. And the entire squad. Cameo appearance gone too.
The reaction here was akin to Saipan but thanks to social media, four of the five stages of grief were flown through in about two-and-a-half hours.
Denial was instant with a raft of ‘Noooooooo’ tweets. Anger was also swift, and quite strong, with poor old Warren Gatland getting banned from every pub from Malin Head to Mizen. Bargaining followed quickly with cries of ‘maybe he’ll get back in from injury’ and ‘if we had a different manager’ popular refrains.
Depression at the reality of the situation soon sunk in. Acceptance would have to wait its turn. In the end we enjoyed the memes, the jokes, the #JusticeforBOD campaign and, as it happened, the Lions went out and destroyed Australia in the final Test.
Jonathan Davies, the man in BOD’s No 13, played very well and O’Driscoll’s on-pitch walkabout post game, with his new daughter Sadie, put it all back in perspective and we could finally get to acceptance.
We’re sure some folks might still hold a grudge, but if the man himself has moved on, so should we. But that moment when the news hit was definitely a 100 per cent, gold-standard, holy f*ck moment.
Alex Ferguson announcing his retirement
A 71-year old announcing his retirement from a job he has held for nearly 27 years in a profession in which he was involved his entire life would normally be a cause for celebration, but Alex Ferguson announcing his retirement in May almost felt like a death in the family for Manchester United fans.
A large proportion of them, like myself, hadn’t experienced life under another manager as a United fan and facing into life without the fiery Scot was a little bit scary.
Thanks to the statue erected and the stand named in his honour, Fergie was literally part of the furniture at Old Trafford and although we knew his reign had to come to an end someday, it was still a pretty seismic shock when it became clear that this time, unlike a similar announcement in 2001, it was for real.
The holy f**k moment didn’t really arrive when the announcement was made, but when the realisation began to kick in about what the future would hold for United without Ferguson in charge. United have had some great teams during his time in charge, but a lot of the success enjoyed by the club during his two and a half decades at the club was down to the man himself, particularly in the last couple of years when his teams seemed to be dramatically punching above their weight.
Some of the fears United fans had for the post Fergie-era have been borne out since his departure. David Moyes deserves – and probably will be given – time to adapt to his new surroundings but a few things still stand out. Although the appointment of a new Chief Executive also had something to do with it, it’s hard to think that United would have endured such a publicly disastrous summer in the transfer market if Ferguson was still around.
You also would never hear Ferguson say he was delighted to get a draw at Cardiff and, so far at least, the gung-ho approach of United sides going all out in search of a win in the dying stages of matches has rarely been seen so far; if anything the opposite has been the case following the concession of last-minute goals against Southampton and Cardiff already this season.
No matter who took over from Fergie they were always going to suffer in comparison to one of the greatest managers the game has ever seen and that is why it is paramount that fans of the Red Devils have patience in what are likely to be a few seasons of transition for the Premier League Champions.
Unbelievably pompous as it sounds, I guess this is what’s like to be a normal football fan; it’s just taking a little while to get used to it.
Auburn game
I'll admit my bias in that I'm a big fan of American football, but for me this was one of the greatest sporting moments in recent memory. It was so unlikely, so unusual, that we probably won't see anything similar happen again in the near future, and the emotion shown by both sides after this tells the story of how amazing it truly was.
There are plenty of occasions when a player has the run the ball back from a punt and gotten a touchdown, but those aren't as usual when the clock is ticking down towards the end of the game and there's so much riding on the outcome. Just a few weeks earlier, a similarly improbable set of circumstances saw Auburn come out on top in a game against Georgia that once again, had one of the more dramatic endings that we can recall to football game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkpDz8YyVD8
After that, I thought there would be no play that could top that in terms of excitement, but it was also a pure fluke. While the pass was designed to hit that runner, Lady Luck intervened to make sure it arrived in the receiver's hands in time.
What makes this play better than the pass is that while it seems like a fluke, this was the best case scenario for a plan that they had accounted for. Nick Saban's decision to take the kick meant that it was a bit of a hit and hope, but throwing a Hail Mary seemed less probable. It was a tough decision and a brave call, but he got it wrong. When you send out the field goal unit, there are a lot of blockers and not many athletes who can cover the ground in time should anything go wrong. Chris Davis is back there for that reason exactly, waiting and hoping that it might turn out his way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqIBNX0CXDc
That gives me goosebumps every time I watch it, even now a good few weeks after it happened, and can only imagine what it must have been like to have attended the game and sample that amazing atmosphere as a whole stadium held its breath in anticipation of the impossible, only to see it come true.
Auburn take on Florida State in the BCS Championship in the Rose Bowl on January 7th, and while they are, technically, the underdogs, the way this season has gone you can't rule anything out for the Tigers, even when they seem dead and buried. Should they win, or maybe even if they don't, you can almost guarantee there will be a dramatic ESPN 30 for 30 about this season, and that run back will feature front and centre.
