Sporting Heroes Series

Since I am "out of season" and nothing too exciting is going on in my running, I'm going to do a series on those men and women who were (and are) my sporting heroes. A lot of the names will be unfamiliar to my American readers because they come mostly from sports that the rest of the world play, and which I enjoyed growing up. Nevertheless I hope you find it interesting as these players and athletes cross many National boundaries and cover several different sports.

You will find no mention of Troy Aikman, Michael Jordan, Sammy Sosa and the like because they meant nothing to me until I moved to the US. That's not to say they weren't great sportsmen - they obviously were - but their sports are not part of my culture. Even now, having lived in the US for nearly 10 years I'll take rugby, cricket and soccer (probably in that order) over mainstream US sport any day. Maybe its because I grew up with the myriad of stories and characters that fueled the history and romanticism of those sports.

So back to my own field of dreams - should be fun to say hello again to some of my childhood (and adulthood) heroes.