AFTER my rant last week about the downright overblown nature of Premiership football, a coltish newsroom colleague collared me.

'Why can't you write anything happy?" he chided with all the naivet of someone who has barely been exposed to the seamier side of sport. "Why does everything have to be so negative?"

Given that last week's article espoused the virtues of rugby league and rugby union playing at the highest tempo minus any Premiership play-acting and yet still having due deference to officials, I thought his observations a mite over the top.

But his remarks did get me thinking. Almost 30 years on from reporting my first top-flight match, am I turning into a GOG - grumpy old git?

Certainly, it's a charge that my wife of 21 years is more frequently hurling in my direction. However, that's more to do with the annoyances of cold calling, cartons that don't open where and when they should, television presenters who bawl from the box as if you're inherently deaf or stupid, or both, and blasted computers that don't do what your fingers tell them to do, or at least what you think you've told them to do.

When it comes to sport, yes there are so many issues that put your teeth on edge, but there's so much more to embrace and enrapture.

So 'KitKat Matt' - for want of a better alias for my newsroom interrogator - at the risk of sounding like a Scouse Julie Andrews (what a nightmarish image that is) here are a few of my favourite sporting things.

First, and perhaps because I am of such an advanced age, I must kick-off with events and entertainers from my, ahem, more youthful days.

Two men share the top. The late, iconic, irascible and inspirational Bill Shankly. What a manager and what a man. Principled and passionate, he dragged Liverpool FC from boots without straps to still being England's most successful club, even though we are 14, nah make that 15, years away from our last title.

In joint esteem with Shanks, whose shoulder I once touched amidst a pressing crowd in the Anfield car-park, and later played against his five-a-side team, is Muhammad Ali.

When I first got into boxing he was then a brash Cassius Clay. But whatever his incarnation, he was, is, and will always be, the most formidable fighter I have ever witnessed.

Those two top so many memories, most, to be accurate, involving LFC.

More recently there is of course York's own world-championship chaser Henry Wharton. He never won the world title - his only defeats were at the final pinnacle - but like so many practitioners of the noble art he was a warrior in the truest sense. I have the utmost respect for boxers, a breed who put their lives on the line each time they compete.

Back to football and I will always cherish York City's magnificent night of Gold Trafford magic when they humbled Manchester United 3-0. That scoreline will never dim and, of course anything with the words 'United 0' will always bring a smile to this ancient face.

But what of modern sport? Does it pale to what's gone before? How could it when you have the likes of cyclist extraordinaire Lance Armstrong; Olympic supernovas like Kelly Holmes; crowd-pleasing talents like Andrew Flintoff (cricket), Danny McGuire (rugby league) and Jason Robinson (rugby union).

And in football, yes football, you cannot fail to be intoxicated by the nerve and verve of Messrs Thierry Henry, Steven Gerrard and, even, Wayne Rooney when he is not creasing his face into an impression of Craggy Island.

So there you have it. Loads of reasons to be happy. So can I now get back to being grumpy again? Cheers.

Updated: 10:55 Tuesday, February 08, 2005