Agenda: key sporting dates in the months ahead

It is all too easy to look at the next three months of sport in a glass-half-empty kind of way and see so many of the great set-pieces apparently shivering in the shadows as the chill wind of the new global economy does its worst. If you prefer your glass half full, however, you know that sooner or later sport itself is going to kick in and all you need do is sit back and marvel at its innate ability to enthral.

Until yesterday, for example, the backdrop to England’s four-match Test series in the West Indies, starting in February, had been the fraught relationships of both countries with the Texan billionaire Allen Stanford. His much-heralded and apparently life-saving investment in the game in the Caribbean and at Lord’s had turned out to look as reliable as Andrew Flintoff in a midnight pedalo race. Now of course, it is all about a new captain, a disgruntled superstar batsman, a temporary coach and the small matter of the battle for the Ashes in 181 days’ time.

The picture is the same wherever you look. The RBS Six Nations rugby tournament, the new Formula One season (for so long the poster event of corporate gorging), the Cheltenham racing festival, and even the Uefa Champions League will all find that the well-ordered and well-heeled world that they previously inhabited has shifted off its axis.

If, however, you see the glass as half full, then you can cheerily ignore all that gloom and doom and look forward to copious amounts of 100 per cent proof sporting spirit.

RBS may well be battered, bewildered and bemused about the future — much like Martin Johnson, the England team manager — but its £4 million a year investment in the Six Nations still buys a flattering association with an event that serves up vibrancy as standard. This year there is an added twist to the narrative with the northern-hemisphere countries having taken a battering from the south last autumn and casting their minds forward to the Lions tour of South Africa this summer. It’s a splash of Tabasco that’s not strictly required, but welcome nevertheless.

For England, it is what they call a “Blue Year”, with visits to Twickenham by Les Bleus, the Azzurri, and that lot from the other side of Hadrian’s Wall with a fondness for woad. Emerge winless from those fixtures and Johnson really will wake up with the Blue Year Blues.

Of all the credit-crunched sports, motor racing appears the hardest hit, probably because it had the farthest to fall. The withdrawal of Honda, and the consequent drive to make racing more affordable for the teams, is a U-turn to make even the most daring drivers blink. For the consumer, though, precious little will change. Indeed, TV viewers can look forward to uninterrupted Formula One coverage for the first time in 12 years as the BBC reclaims the sport from ITV. And Auntie should have a compelling story to tell.

Lewis Hamilton will have the world champion’s No 1 on his McLaren Mercedes and the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen in his wing mirrors. But it is the mounting threat from further afield — the rejuvenated Fernando Alonso, the young bucks Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica — that should leave viewers yearning for the odd ad break when they could safely nip out to make a cup of tea and not blame themselves for missing something.

In one way the Champions League is over the worst of the slump because it has left behind the bloated group stage and next month moves on to the real deal, the cut-throat business of knockout football that never fails to enthral. Manchester United v “José Mourinho’s Inter Milan” (as they will surely soon be rebranded), Liverpool v Real Madrid, Chelsea v “Claudio Ranieri’s Juventus” are the jewels of a fixture list from the gods, as opposed to the collection of mismatches that besmirched the preliminaries. Hard-up fans and sponsors are showing signs of wising up, but Uefa is not — a restructuring of the tournament next season promises even more of the same drabness.

Racing supporters may not descend on Cheltenham in March in quite the same number as in recent years, a reflection more of greater individual financial hardship than a disatisfaction with the quality of an event that is bedding into its four-day format nicely. Indeed, the potential reunion of Denman and Kauto Star in the Gold Cup should provide the event with a headline act ridiculously rich in drama.

There is, though, one man who can stride on to the sporting stage this month free from any financial worries, apart from RBS being one of his sponsors. Having pulled down £3 million in prize-money in 2008, Andy Murray will enter the Australian Open with a real chance of becoming the first Briton to land a men’s grand-slam singles title since 1936. Even as archetypal a Scotsman as Murray knows that sport should always be about glory first and foremost. The money can look after itself; the game is most definitely on. And we’ll drink to that.

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