2015 Review of the Year, Part Three: Overview, Football, Tennis, Boxing, Cricket

In the final part of our series looking back on the sporting highs and lows of 2015, five more Independent writers share the moments and characters that stood out in their fields

Floyd Mayweather was paid in excess of £100m to fight his nemesis Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas (AFP)

Overview - Ian Herbert, chief sports writer

Favourite live moment of the year you witnessed Lionel Messi, pushing the ball through James Milner’s legs and leaving the Englishman sitting on his backside in the Nou Camp during a performance – for Barcelona against Manchester City in the Champions League in March – of greater sublimity than any I’ve witnessed on a football field. In that moment, the low incantation of “Messi, Messi” started thundering round the place.

Favourite match Scotland v Australia, Rugby World Cup quarter-final. Don’t let the iniquity of Australian Bernard Foley’s late winning penalty obscure the quite beautiful way in which the Scotland side – for whom no one offered a prayer – electrified Twickenham in October. Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell, Mark Bennett, Peter Horne, Stuart Hogg: I still smile when I think of you and that Sunday.

Disappointment of the year Sebastian Coe, the self-proclaimed “new broom” of athletics who has been nothing less than an establishment patsy – denigrating journalists for breaking the story of systematic doping and for creating the “noise” which forced him to abandon his cushy £100,000-a-year Nike sponsorship deal. What breathtaking arrogance. God help athletics.

Shock of the year England’s Ashes triumph. Never mind the extraordinary individual moments like Stuart Broad’s eight-wicket haul in the first innings at Trent Bridge. Not one individual from the press ranks predicted an English series win. Even 2-1 for the tourists seemed a brave call. Not the greatest Ashes series, yet I defy you to name a more stunning reversal of expectation.

Book of the year Martin Fletcher’s The 56, charting the loss of his father, brother, uncle and grandfather in the 1985 Bradford City stadium fire. The questions of criminality it raised provoked a controversy obscuring the book’s beauty as the memoir of how Fletcher and his mother tried to rebuild their lives, rattling around in an empty home which “was almost mocking you, like the birds in the trees”.

Newcomer of the year Coneygree – the first novice to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup since 1974 – had only run over fences three times before March’s race and only appeared in the shadow of Cleeve Hill against the initial expectation of the stable who have coaxed something extraordinary out of his fragile state. He led the field from the start and refused to let go.

Player of the year Alastair Cook. The psychological strength to shake off the chorus of doubters, as much as his 36.66 Ashes series average, has marked him out as an outstanding individual. To be relegated out of England’s one-day side, be impugned by so many and still grind Australia down required a quite exceptional inner resource.

Lizzie Jones singing at the Challenge Cup final (Getty)

Funniest moment of year Louis van Gaal demonstrating how Manchester United fans are satisfied with him, at a press conference in September. He raised his arms and his voice to mimic the Old Trafford supporters, chanting “Louis van Gaal’s army, Louis van Gaal’s army”. It was a startling moment because it came out of nowhere.

Villain of the year From a very, very substantial cast, Grigory Rodchenkov, the man in Moscow who trousered a salary to head an anti-doping laboratory, seemingly managed to sleep at night, and yet was systematically destroying 1,417 samples to cover up the doping regime. Pretty much as foul as foul gets.

Saddest moment of the year Meeting Lizzie Jones, the young wife left behind when her husband, Danny, died after his heart gave out on him on a rugby league field in May. The couple’s twins, Bobby and Phoebe, were five months old on the day Jones swung out of bed at 7am and slipped out of the house to play the sport he loved, never to return.

Football - Glenn Moore, football editor

Favourite live moment Nothing beats the satisfaction of seeing players develop. I coach an Under-10s team. We win games and lose games, but the players have enjoyed it and improved. Particularly rewarding has been watching one eight-year-old become a good, brave goalkeeper, hugely boosting his self-esteem with a recent last-minute, match-winning save.

Favourite match Leicester City 2 Arsenal 5. This season the King Power has been the best ground for atmosphere, and this game matched the stage with the attacking strengths of both teams to the fore. Leicester’s counter-attacking pace and power shocked Arsenal, but the visitors’ classy passing and individual genius won the day, with Alexis Sanchez scoring a hat-trick.

Player of the year With 30 goals in 2015 so far, 23 in the Premier League, Harry Kane just pips Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and Mesut Özil. It is not just the goals, and the assists, it is the thrill of seeing a young English player explode upon the scene with such fearlessness and humility.

Villain of the year The FBI’s arrest of former Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb made it look as though Fifa’s executive is rotten to the core. We knew the old guard was on the take, but Webb was supposed to represent a cleaner future.

Disappointment of the year Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United. It is not just the mixed results, but the combination of that with pedestrian football. United are supposed to be thrilling. If they lose they go down with everyone bombing forward, not drowning in pointless passing.

Shock of the year Leicester City. Relegation-bound at the start of the year, title contenders at the finish. Rarely can a team have been so transformed, and unusually it has happened under two very different managers, Nigel Pearson and Claudio Ranieri.

Book of the year David Goldblatt’s The Game Of Our lives. His socio-economic critique of football post-Thatcherism is another tour de force from the game’s best historian.

Louis van Gaal shakes Wayne Rooney’s hand (Getty)

Newcomer of the year In February Lucy Bronze was recovering from surgery and hoping she could retain her England squad place for the Women’s World Cup. By December the 24-year-old had been nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Her goals, from full-back, caught the imagination as the Lionesses reached the semi-finals.

Saddest moment of the year A litany of misery flowed from the Hillsborough inquests in Warrington, heart-rending stories of lives cut short and those of relatives blighted by grief.

Funniest moment of the year It is unusual on England duty to be met at the airport by the opposition manager but Keith Boanas, coach of Estonia women, is an old friend. However, his generosity exceeded the size of his car. With Keith’s wife and daughter also collected, plus another journalist, we piled luggage on our laps and squeezed in for the journey into Tallinn.

Tennis - Paul Newman

Favourite live moment The winning point in the Davis Cup final was fitting as Andy Murray turned stonewall defence into thrilling attack with a superb backhand lob over David Goffin. Of the 12 points Britain won this year eight were singles victories by Murray and three were in doubles alongside his brother Jamie.

Favourite match It was Rafael Nadal’s most unproductive year since 2004 but even in his 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 defeat by Fabio Fognini at the US Open the Spaniard played some magnificent tennis. Fognini, a great shot-maker, threw caution to the wind to complete a thrilling comeback victory at 1.27am.

Disappointment of the year After her breakthrough year in 2014 much was expected of Eugenie Bouchard, but the Canadian went into freefall. The world No 7 at the end of 2014, she is now No 49.

Shock of the year Serena Williams was two wins away from becoming just the fourth woman in history to win a pure Grand Slam of the year’s four major titles when she was beaten 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 by 32-year-old Roberta Vinci, the world No 43, who was playing in her first Grand Slam semi-final

Book of the year Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession by William Skidelsky is tennis’s answer to Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. Skidelsky describes his obsession with Roger Federer and through it delves into some of the changes the sport has gone through in recent times.

Newcomer of the year Timea Bacsinszky, a newcomer to the top flight, had never gone beyond a Grand Slam second round and had taken a job in a hotel when her career turned. The 26-year-old Swiss reached the French Open semi-finals and Wimbledon quarter-finals and is now world No 12.

Roberta Vinci after beating Serena Williams (AFP/Getty)

Player of the year Novak Djokovic won three Grand Slam tournaments, was runner-up in the fourth and won 11 titles in total. From mid-January he reached 15 finals in succession. With 82 wins and just six defeats, he became the first man for seven years to win 80 or more matches in a season

Funniest moment of the year Nadal brought the house down at his press conference after losing to Dustin Brown at Wimbledon. Asked if he would be staying on to enjoy his rented house, Nadal said he would not. “If you want to use the house, it’s going to be free tomorrow,” he told the reporter.

Villain of the year He was repeatedly warned for bad language, clashed with umpires and was accused of “throwing” a game at Wimbledon, but Nick Kyrgios plumbed his lowest depths with his sledging of Stan Wawrinka, telling the Swiss at a change of ends in Montreal that another player had “banged your girlfriend”.

Saddest moment of the year Mardy Fish, one of the nice guys of sport, retired after struggling for more than two years to combat mental illness.

Boxing - Steve Bunce

Favourite live moment First bell when Floyd Mayweather was paid in excess of £100m to dance a gloriously hitless mazurka with his reluctant nemesis Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. The city stopped, the whole world seemed to be watching but Manny arrived a broken man for the richest fight in history. Whew.

Favourite fight Big Tyson Fury against Wladimir Klitschko was irresistible, with plots, threats and curses. Big Wlad was the King and Fury, whether people want to admit it, was a massive underdog in front of 50,000 people.

Disappointment of the year Amir Khan has been frozen out by too many of the top fighters once again and has spent most of his time this year riding with truck convoys, delivering food to refugees in Greece, or being present and spending money to help with flood relief in Britain. He is boxing’s best ambassador.

Shock of the year As a youngish relic from the lean years of both coverage and talent, it has been a great shock this year to be part of a revolution in the dirty old game with sellout crowds, BoxNation showing 66 nights of live fights and the year ending with 12 British world champions.

Book of the year Donald McRae in his book A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith delivers a loving tribute to the heroic battler. Griffith was gay, loved the exotic trannies of Times Square and dancing and kissing in New York clubs. This world champion is like no other.

Newcomer of the year Mick Conlan is one of the Belfast Boys and in 2015 he did what no other Irish male boxer had managed to do in 40 years and won a world amateur title.

Fighter of the year Roman Gonzalez weighs less than eight stone, is unbeaten in 44 fights. It has been three years since anybody went the distance with him and the Nicaraguan is finally getting some recognition as the best fighter in the world. He has held world titles at three weights since 2008.

Funniest moment of the year Ik Yang is the wild man of Chinese boxing. He has an unorthodox style and face, and only returned to China from South Korea when an ancient murder had been solved; Ik was cleared. He lost a world title contest in Macau in July, his first defeat in 21 fights.

Villain of the year The title is always won by the same people: the pompous suits, not all bad, who run the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF. This year the cabal of lunatics excelled with some stupid decisions.

Saddest moment of the year Roy Jones, one of the finest fighters of the last 25 years, became a Russian citizen and in early December was knocked out by Enzo Maccarinelli in Moscow. Jones is 46 – it was his 71st fight and, hopefully, his last.

Cricket - Stephen Brenkley

Favourite live moment To be at Trent Bridge on Thursday 6 August 2015 was to be in a parallel universe where the fantastic happens. In 9.3 overs of outstanding fast bowling, Stuart Broad took 8 for 15, bowled Australia out for 60 and effectively won the Ashes for England. Everything was edged, everything was caught. Magnificent.

Favourite match If it must be the Trent Bridge Test (see above), an honourable mention goes to the Edgbaston ODI in June. Led by Jos Buttler’s scintillating innings of 129 from 77 balls, England made 408 for 9 against New Zealand. An abject World Cup was forgotten, everything seemed transformed and it really was a new England.

Disappointment of the year The handling of Peter Moores’ sacking as England coach and, to a lesser extent, the confirmation of Kevin Pietersen’s sacking were abysmally handled. It was no way for a sporting organisation to behave. Moores, dignified to the end, and Pietersen deserved much better and better there must be.

Stuart Broad at Trent Bridge (Getty)

Shock of the year Think back to July. England did not have a prayer in the Ashes. Australia arrived, barely bothering to disguise the swagger. At the first Test in Cardiff the world was turned on its head. Joe Root, dropped on 0, scored 134 as England recovered from 43 for 3 and won by 169 runs.

Book of the year The County Championship is a venerable institution which is too often casually treated and deserved a distinguished book to mark its 125th anniversary. In Summer’s Crown by Stephen Chalke it received it in spades: a wonderfully told story of a great competition and the men who have played it. No dry chronicle but a lively, affectionate, episodic celebration.

Newcomer of the year Appearing as if from nowhere, Mark Wood had an immediate effect on matches and colleagues. Picked for his raw pace after featuring only intermittently for Durham, he played in four of the five Ashes Tests, usually menacing, always ready for a laugh. Wood took the wicket which sealed the deal in Nottingham.

Player of the year Four contenders, one winner. Joe Root edges out Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and, just, the captain, Alastair Cook. Perhaps he did not convert enough of his Test fifties to centuries (nine did not become three figures) but he was resplendent, a consummate performer approaching the peak of his game with so much more to come.

Funniest moment of the year England became a perverse delight in the World Cup. After cock-ups galore they needed to beat Bangladesh to sustain qualification hopes. Chasing an accessible 276 to win, opener Moeen Ali, wandered dozily out of his crease half-looking for a single, only for the ball to be hurled back from mid-off, Moeen’s despairing dive beaten. It summed up a crass campaign.

Villain of the year This could become a perpetual award for the ICC, which is not so much governing a sport as running it for a select few. Its restructured finances are making the rich richer, reducing the chances of a global game, and it barely seems aware of where corruption may strike next.

Saddest moment of the year At 84, when he died in April, Richie Benaud had led a full life devoted to cricket. His influence will endure because he had the rare capacity to move with the times and he was a benevolent presence in two continents year round. Ground-breaking as a player, commentator and force for good. Much missed by the game.