Haye Rolls The Dice For All The Marbles

By Shane Thomas

On Saturday evening, Britain's David Haye will take on Ukraine's Wladimir Klitschko in Hamburg for the right to be recognised as the undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world.*

Haye is looking to walk ground previously tread by Evander Holyfield, who unified the cruiserweight division before being regarded as the finest global heavyweight. It was a feat that Haye publicly aspired to as far back as 2002. He has one final obstacle to overcome, and that is defeating Klitschko at the Imtech Stadium.

Episode 32 - The Black Ball Final

It's the 28th April 1985, and 18.5 million people stayed up until past midnight to see the climax of the most tense & dramatic snooker match in history. Steve Davis vs Dennis Taylor came down to the final black ball of the final frame with the World Snooker Championship at stake.

The Greatest Events In Sporting History' is available from http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/

The 11 Different Types Of Sport Stars

By Shane Thomas

In sport, it's easy to position its practitioners in the narrowest of pigeon-holes. Especially in this current era, in which top level sport is big business, many look upon sports stars the way they look at celebrities. Dim-witted, vacuous, self centred and avaricous, no better than the faces of those who adorn the covers of Heat or Us Weekly.

Now of course controversy and scandal sells publications quicker than tales of hard work and subsequent success (those kind of stories take years to ferment), but that doesn't mean that the likes of Michael Vick, Danny Cipriani or Ron Artest are representative of sports stars any more than Lindsay Lohan is symptomatic of actors or all pop stars are replicants of Selena Gomez.

So for the uninitiated, or those who simply haven't pondered such a topic for whatever unknown reasons (I imagine those people have those weird things called "lives"), here's the list of the many different type of sports star:

The Problem With Being Good At Sport

By Shane Thomas

It's rare that the lead sports story is the same on both sides of The Atlantic Ocean, but at the moment the storming performance of Rory McIlroy at last week's US Open is at the forefront of the sporting consciousness (sure to be closely followed by events at Wimbledon over the next fortnight).

Rory Bounces Around Maryland In US Open Procession

By Shane Thomas

Rory McIlroy's meltdown at this year's Masters was well and truly forgotten as he put on a golfing clinic in the US Open to win his first major title by a record score, and become the competition's youngest winner since World War II. His final total of 16 under par was the lowest total ever to win the US Open, obliterating Tiger Woods's record of 12 under to win this tournament at Pebble Beach, back in 2000.

Episode 31 - Seve Ballasteros

A timely induction into our Legends series, after the recent untimely death of Severiano Ballasteros, a man who transcended his sport and changed the European Tour. We look at his revolutionary approach to the sport of golf, how he thrilled crowds like no player before or since, and how he played a major part in closing the gap between Europe and America in the Ryder Cup.

The Greatest Events In Sporting History' is available from http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/

England Stumble After Colliding With A Swiss Roadblock

By Shane Thomas

ENGLAND 2-2 SWITZERLAND

Only a huge favour from Bulgaria (which I'll get to at the end) kept England at the top of their qualifying group for Euro 2012, after Fabio Capello's men stumbled to a 2-2 draw against Switzerland at Wembley. While the primary emotion would have been frustration, it was probably tinged with relief as England were staring down the barrel of an embarrassing defeat as they were 2-0 down after 35 minutes. There were some interesting contradictions in the post-match comments as Capello bemoaned the fatigue of his players, while captain John Terry refused to use it as an excuse - personally I think they're both right. After a grueling domestic season, England were flat - and looked on their last legs in the final minutes. But this is opposition that they should be defeating comfortably, and despite a lacklustre display that left England fans going home annoyed, they still created more than enough chances to win the game. It was their profligacy - particularly Darren Bent's - that we should criticise rather than the all-round showing.

England vs Switzerland - Match Ratings

By Shane Thomas

JOE HART (5)

Has the cocksure nature of youth, but pride can sometimes come before a fall. Cannot be blamed for the first goal, but was far too slow to react for the second. And his nonchalance when dealing with backpasses could hurt England in a more important game than this.

The 2010/11 Premier League Club Review

By Shane Thomas

The Champions League final hopefully ended - for the time being, at least - the tiresome debate on whether England's Premier League or Spain's La Liga is the superior division. As well as being an asinine argument, it tends to come down to a matter of personal taste. Do you want high achievement or competitive meritocracy? As that will probably determine which league you'd rather watch. And right now, it's also an irrelevant point, as the topic at hand here is running the rule over England's top division. Unlike last season, I'll go through the clubs in the order of their respective league positions rather than alphabetically. And I'll also compare how accurate - or not - my predictions were at the start of the season with where they actually finished: