WHY WE CAN’T AGREE WITH DALEY’S CHOICE OF GREAT BRITS

Martin Samuel Sir Clive Woodward Nasser Hussain Jamie Carragher

IF andy Murray quit tomorrow, turned his back on the sport in new york, did not add to his Grand slams, his Olympic medals, or take another swing at the davis Cup, he could still make a claim to be the greatest British sportsman of all time.

darts? triple jump? sailing? sorry, daley, I know there’s no right or wrong answer to any list of the Greatest, but I’m pretty sure the candidates stand some distance away from the oche.

I know you said the 10 named had to be retired, too — but I reckon that’s a cop- out. Mo Farah is another who could walk away from running today and his achievements would stand.

He doesn’t need to win one more race for us to consider his career as exceptional, even in comparison to other athletes. It’s the same with Murray. the feats are there. all that is unknown is what he will go on to achieve, how truly great he might be.

Why Murray for me? Well, to have a player single-handedly carry a sport as significant as tennis in this country throughout his career is quite exceptional.

Without sebastian Coe, there was steve Ovett. Without Chris Hoy there was Jason Kenny. Without steven redgrave there was Matthew Pinsent. But without Murray, nothing. and tennis is not a marginal sport.

let’s face it, if Ben ainslie had not come along, there would have been no inquest into Britain’s failure at sailing. as great as he was, sailing does not capture the public imagination in the same way. nobody would have stressed over British disappointment in the Finn or laser class.

tennis is different. Wimbledon is possibly the biggest event in the sporting summer. British inadequacy there was an annual theme. so when Murray played on Centre Court, the 77 years that you find irrelevant were actually a huge factor, and a huge weight.

daley, when you won the decathlon in Moscow in 1980, it was 76 years since a British athlete had last taken that gold medal. But this drought had not been the focus of every year since. Few had even heard of tom Kiely, your predecessor from 1904. But every- one knew Fred Perry. they knew Perry because those years of failure were part of Britain’s sporting psyche. this country has arguably the most iconic tennis tournament in the world, but was abjectly useless at it and had been for the best part of a century.

Murray changed that on his own. He changed that coming from dunblane, an outpost one imagines could never produce a tennis champion. and every time he sought to change that, he dragged with him all the baggage of 77 years as if it was his fault.

When he lost, when he fell just short, he wasn’t the greatest British tennis player of the post-war era — which he still would be, even if he had been defeated in every final he ever played — he was a choker, an also-ran, he became part of that dismal tradition. that was the narrative he swept aside. not once, but twice, and also in america, and twice again in Olympic finals.

He went to the davis Cup and close to won that on his own, too. and there is no athlete out there who seems to take greater delight in winning for his country. He is an individual with the soul of a team player. Very rare. ask america’s golfers. ask nick Faldo.

I’d also quibble with the argument that the machine is not as important to ainslie or Hoy as it is to lewis Hamilton, and to discount the best of motorsport because of the engine would also eliminate any athlete who has an engineer as part of the team.

But, as you say, there’s no right, no wrong, and it’s only a bit of fun. except for Murray. I’m not backing down on Murray.