2019 A SPORT 0DYSSEY
So 2018 has come and gone. It has been a year of Antipodean adventures and late- night dashes through the snow, double trebles and defeating the English. But what does the next 12 months have in store? Stewart Fisher takes a look
JANUARY
THE first world champion of the year will be crowned in the world of darts at Ally Pally on New Year’s Day, with Scotland’s Gary Anderson hoping to be among the contenders.
While Scotland’s biggest top-flight football clubs are sunning themselves overseas – Celtic, Aberdeen and Hibs are jetting out to Dubai, while Steven Gerrard takes Rangers to Tenerife – some of our other top athletes will be seeking out the mud and the cold in the Simply Health Great Stirling X Country event on January 12.
Elite Scottish runners such as Laura Muir and Jamie Williamson will take on an all-Scottish team of Sol Sweeney, Mhairi Hendry, Adam Craig and Steph Pennycook in a mixed 4x1.5km international relay. While Muir and others will be in athletics action at a Glasgow Athletics Association event as early as Friday, the Stirling event – freshly moved from its old site at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh – is one of the highlights of the domestic calendar.
Another man taking in a few rays this month will be Andy Murray, who has unfinished business in the Australian Open tennis at a Melbourne Park venue where he has been beaten finalist five times. Simply proving he is ready to go deep into a Grand Slam a year after hip surgery would be positive, while Jamie Murray and Gordon Reid can be expected to do great things in the doubles and wheelchair events respectively.
The big guns of Scottish football, meanwhile, get their customary rude awakening upon their return from foreign climes with a Scottish Cup fourth-round schedule that includes a tasty Fife battle between Raith Rovers and Dunfermline, plus an enticing Ayrshire dust-up between Ayr United and Auchinleck Talbot.
An SFA summit will tell us more as to whether Scottish referees will get the green light for VAR.
FEBRUARY
SCOTLAND have never won the Guinness Six Nations but just perhaps this is the year. While teams will also have an eye on the World Cup in Japan, this promises to be one of the more fascinating instalments of this competition, with Scotland desperately hoping to keep pace with Ireland, Wales and England.
First up is what could be a nice loosener against Italy ahead of a home battle with the Irish. Win that and Gregor Townsend’s men will feel anything is possible as they go to Paris later in the month.
Continental football is back, with Celtic fans already having booked their travel to Spain as the club take on Valencia in the last 32 of the Europa League. The Spaniards aren’t the force they once were but coming through this tie would still be quite something.
Josh Taylor is expected to be back in action round about now in his World Boxing Super Series semi-final (and IBF title bout) against Ivan Baranchyk of Belarus but, in terms of razzmatazz, nothing can quite match the Super Bowl. Version LIII takes place at the MercedesBenz Arena in Atlanta, with the NFL world wondering who will follow the Philadelphia Eagles as the sport’s world champion franchise, and whether this is the end of an era for the New England Patriots.
World-class Scottish track cyclists such as Katie Archibald, Jack Carlin and Mark Stewart will hope to bring back some bling from the UCI track world championships in Pruszkow, Poland, while another red-letter day for Muir and co is the British Indoor Championships in Birmingham.
MARCH
THE first major sporting event of 2019 in this country, the European Indoor Athletics Championships at the Emirates Arena, takes place from March 1 to 3. Muir, a reigning double champion, will be one to watch for the local support, but the likes of Eilish McColgan, Andy Butchart and Eilidh Doyle will aspire to be among the medals too.
Then Stirling hosts the World Wheelchair Curling Championships for the first time since 2005.
There is a low-key start to Scotland’s Euro 2020 qualifying campaign with Alex McLeish’s men away to Kazakhstan and then San Marino at the end of the month, and a high-profile end to Gregor Townsend’s Six Nations campaign, with battles against Wales at home and England away.
The 2019 Formula One season begins in Australia as usual, with reigning champion Lewis Hamilton going in search of his sixth drivers’ championship and fellow countrymen George Russell, 20, and Lando Norris, 19, earning seats at Williams and McLaren respectively.
APRIL
A FEW of the old staples of the sporting year come into view, with the Grand National at Aintree being closely followed by its Scottish equivalent at Ayr. It falls on the same weekend as the US Masters, with Russell Knox currently Scotland’s best hope of getting into the top- 50 ranked players at the cut- off t wo weeks before to earn a berth in Augusta.
The World Snooker Championship starts at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with John Higgins hoping to go one better than his agonising 18-15 and 18-16 final defeats to Mark Selby and Mark Williams in the past two years – that is if he wasn’t serious about quitting the sport.
The month ends with the London Marathon, with Mo Farah confirmed for the event but no word, as yet, if Callum Hawkins will give him a run for his money as he attempts to peak for the World Athletics Championships in Doha.
MAY
THE month ends with t wo major finals in one day, one of which is certain at least to involve Celtic.
The Guinness Pro14 reaches a conclusion at Celtic Park on May 25, the same day as the William Hill Scottish Cup final. This could make parading the trophy difficult if a triple treble is in the offing. The identity of the Premiership play- off winners will be known a day later, but will a Seville- style exodus also be under way from Celtic fans en route to the Europa League showpiece in Baku, Azerbaijan?
The ICC Cricket World Cup starts in England and Wales, but Scotland won’t be there, despite last year’s defeat of the best team in the One Day International world rankings. Afghanistan – granted full ICC membership in 2017 – will visit the Grange for two ODIs on the 8th and 10th of the month, a nice warm-up for the visit of Sri Lanka on the 17th.
The French Open begins on the 26th, although Andy Murray may be judicious about playing there given his injury history and hoping to keep himself fresh for the grass-court season.
Changes in the golf calendar also mean the US PGA Championships in Bethpage have been brought forward to the middle of May.
JUNE
THE biggest game in world football takes place in Atletico Madrid’s new stadium on the first of the month, with Scotland’s Andy Robertson hoping to return to the showpiece for a second successive year with Liverpool. Perhaps he will be an FA Premier League winner by then too, which would serve as a nice warm-up to the second instalment of the nation’s Euro 2020 campaign, a home tie against Cyprus before a tricky away test to take on Roberto Martinez’s Belgium.
Meanwhile, England will be competing in the conclusion of the baffling Uefa Nations League, a four- team finals including Portugal, Switzerland and Netherlands.
But all of that is just a warm-up for the real sporting event of the summer, as Shelley Kerr’s Scotland women’s side go into action at the World Cup in France. On the face of it, they have landed a tough group against England and Japan – second and third in the 2015 version – and Argentina.
However, the team have progressed since reaching the European Championships in 2017 and Kim Little, Erin Cuthbert and co have a cleaner bill of health injurywise. Instead, it is England who will be without one of their best players in Arsenal’s Jordan Nobbs.
The tennis tour turns to the grass courts of Queen’s Club, where Andy Murray is the most successful player in the event’s history.
Pebble Beach plays host to the world’s best golfers.
JULY
WIMBLEDON was a strange place last year without Andy Murray, the Scot returning to the tour just weeks before the event but then pulling out on the eve of the tournament for fear of aggravating his injury further. It would be the Scottish sporting story to end them all if he could claim this title for a third time after so many have been writing obituaries for his career. Jamie will be back in action too, with possibilities of wild cards for Aidan McHugh and Maia Lumsden.
Sky may be counting down to the end of their sponsorship with their cycling team but expect fireworks in their last Tour de France. Welshman Geraint Thomas will arrive at the Grand Depart as last year’s yellow jersey winner but he will do well to prevent it ending up on the shoulders of team-mate Chris Froome.
Duncan Scott will be among the Scots hoping to make a splash in Gwangju, South Korea, for the World Swimming Championships, while the Scottish Open in Gullane – claimed by Brandon Stone last year – will once again serve as the precursor to The Open. Now the final Major of the year, it will be at Royal Portrush, also known as
Rory McIlroy’s backyard. There would be some scenes if the home favourite could add to his 2014 triumph.
The British Grand Prix takes place at the start of that week, and England’s cricketers take on Ireland in a Test match, while Scotland get started in the new ICC Cricket World Cup League 2.
On the football front, Scotland’s European participants will be starting (and in some cases finishing) their European campaigns in the qualifying rounds.
AUGUST
A MONTH of comparative calm – were it not for the Scottish Premiership crashing back into action.
The Ashes begin in Edgbaston, reaching its conclusion in midSeptember, while the tennis tour rumbles on to the US hard court, culminating from August 26 in the US Open at Flushing Meadows, one of Andy Murray’s happier hunting grounds.
On the home front, the Great Scottish Swim, the Blair Atholl horse trials and the inaugural women’s cycling Tour of Scotland should be fun too.
SEPTEMBER
A BUSY month. The World Athletics Championships takes place in Doha, Qatar, with McColgan, Muir, Hawkins and Doyle in the cast list of world-class Scots hoping to bring home medals as they time their runs for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Muir is chasing her first outdoor global medal, while a Hawkins triumph would be hugely popular following his misfortune in 2018.
The rugby boys are back in action, too, travelling to Japan for the World Cup. Last time around and under the direction of Vern Cotter, Scotland were a dubious decision or two away of being the only northern hemisphere side in the last four, and they will feel pretty good about themselves if they can shock a highly-rated Ireland side in their pool stage opener. Whatever happens, it will be bruising stuff.
Scotland should know more about whether they will need that March 2020 play-off by the time McLeish’s men play host to Russia then Belgium, while Harrogate will stage the road cycling world championships.
The Solheim Cup comes to Gleneagles – with Scotland’s Catriona Matthew taking the captaincy and British Open winner Georgia Hall likely to be among the star turns.
OCTOBER
ALEX McLeish’s men are away to Russia, before what should be a stroll in the park at home to San Marino.
Having hopefully taken care of Baranchyk, Josh Taylor could be back in action, with the Muhammad Ali trophy on the line, perhaps against the highly- rated Regis Prograis.
Other local events of interest are the Loch Ness Marathon and the Tiree Wave Classic, the longestrunning professional windsurfing event in the world.
NOVEMBER
USUALLY autumn international time in the rugby calendar, Scotland would love to still have an interest when the Rugby World Cup final gets under way at Yokohama on November 2.
The same applies to McLeish’s Euro 2020 campaign, which concludes with a visit to Cyprus and a home match against Kazakhstan.
Great Britain, captained by Leon Smith and possibly featuring Andy and Jamie Murray, and Cam Norrie, have been given a bye into the inaugural Davis Cup final competition, a new format where the top nations in world tennis will battle it out in Madrid.
Closer to home, there are the Nitto ATP Tour tennis finals at the O2 in London.
DECEMBER
HAVING hosted the European Long Course Swimming Championships in August, now it is time for Glasgow to welcome the European Short Course Swimming Championships. They take place at Tollcross International Swimming Centre between December 3 and 8.
The first major honour of the football season, the Betfred Cup, will be handed out at Hampden before the action returns to the green baize with the Scottish Open at the Emirates Arena.
The contest to find the 2020 world darts champion gets under way at Ally Pally.