Goals, gold and grabbing slice of 2012 history (From York Press)

Goals, gold and grabbing slice of 2012 history

9:10am Saturday 31st December 2011 in TKO Tony Kelly By Tony Kelly, Deputy sports editor

IT’S that time of year again when you feel like a spectator at a tennis match where the two protagonists are baseline specialists who revel in protracted rallies.

On the very cusp of a new year, do you look back over 2011 or look ahead to 2012? The neck sinews and muscles are visibly stretched and strained. Oh, what a dilemma for those of us among the brethren of columnists.

The biggest temptation is to reflect on the past 12 months – at least you can get a handle on what happened.

And the most valuable lesson from recalling previous events is that you can best learn from your mistakes.

But if, as Henry Ford once opined “history is bunkum”, then perhaps it is far more advisable and valuable to enter crystal ball territory and predict just what might occur over the next 12 months (and a bit) – 2012 is a leap year, remember – which chime into action at midnight tonight. Arrh, the bells, the bells.

I’m not talking about wishes, they seldom come true. I’m not wittering either about hard and fast changes to lives. Resolutions, schmesolutions.

No, what I am going to do is put my scrawny neck on the chopping block and foretell the immediate future.

Here we go then, dear reader, here we go.

A football team containing the letter ‘A’ will win the Premier League crown. Whadya’ mean that’s too much of a cop-out?

Okay, the top-flight crown will go to…Manchester United. Sorry City fans, you may not even get runners-up spot as Tottenham will overhaul you.

Roberto Mancini’s men will, however, win the Carling Cup, and the team they beat en route to the first bauble of the season, Liverpool, will replace Man City as the FA Cup winners.

Arsenal will come agonisingly close to becoming Champions League kings, but Spain will rule again in the form of Real Madrid. Damn that man Mourinho.

As for international football, the Euro crown will be worn by either Holland or Germany with the latter likely to take the honour yet again. England will scrape through the group but bow out in the semi-finals. No change there, then.

What about locally, though? Pundits of purdah reckon the best York City can hope for is a play-off place. But don’t rule out the title and, with it, automatic promotion.

Wrexham will have that blip and with Jason Walker fit again – his current absence may be a slight blessing in that he may now have slipped under January’s transfer raiding radar – Gary Mills’ Minstermen can make up the lost ground.

Across the city to York Knights, I envisage them starting the new campaign like a storm under their new triumvirate of Chris Thorman, Mick Ramsden and the newly-returning Mick Cook. But it will be one that eventually blows out.

There’s a new regime too at Yorkshire County Cricket Club where former Australian attack leader Jason Gillespie will be keen to prove a wizard of Oz. His immediate task is an instant return to the domestic top-flight, but they will miss out, though limited-overs cup triumph will be seized.

2012 will be a huge year golf-wise, especially for York-born Simon Dyson, who today signs off his most productive year on the European Tour.

The soon-to-be-dad will be further buoyed by fatherhood and crack the world’s top 20 players and, in so doing, secure a place in the European Ryder Cup team to face the Americans at the Medinah Country Club in Illinois at the tail-end of September.

The biggie though next year is, natch, the 2012 Olympic Games, the first Olympiad to grace these shores since 1948.

Expectations are building to Everest proportions as to how Team GB will fare. But the weight of such, no doubt accompanied by Churchillian blustering from peripheral pundits like a certain Lord Mayor of London and an uncertain Prime Minister will prove too burdensome.

Team GB may win the tub-thumping and flag-waving, but there will be more of an outbreak of red, white and boo-hoo faces.

Provided injury is avoided, expect only the few to prevail – Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah being certainties.

So there you have it. I’ll revisit these aforementioned tips at the fag-end of next year and prepare to be shot down.

Given my desert-like barren run of success when selecting gee-gees – I’d probably wager on a non-runner in a one-horse race – I expect all the above to end like so many of my betting slips, shredded apart. Unleash 2012.