Why 2021 could be sport’s greatest year yet

The best thing about sport in 2020 was that any happened at all. And how good much of it was. The worst thing was that hardly anyone got to see it live. Trophies being lifted was a triumph. Trophies being lifted in front of rows and rows of empty seats was just tragic.

Let’s replay the year again. This time, though, we transpose the front and back pages of our newspapers. What a year it would have been if we had awoken each day to stories about the excellence of Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool; the continual brilliance of Lewis Hamilton; the coronation of the Gypsy King Tyson Fury and his admirable decision to tell the BBC to stuff their sports award where the sun don’t shine; the astonishing batting of some of our limited-overs cricketers; and the ever-more impressive Marcus Rashford’s repudiation of the idea that all footballers worry about is whether their bathroom taps are the right shade of gold.