Calum Grant's Sporting Review of the Year

2015 was a big year for sport. Lots of great memories and very good players. Here are my favourite sporting memories in 2015.

Football

My favourite memory of football in 2015 was Dunfermline beating Dundee 3-1 in August. Fayseel El-Bakhtaoui scored twice and Joe Cardle once. The attendance was 3,806 which was a small crowd for Dunfermline. But sadly, Dunfermline was beaten in the next round to Dundee united 3-1 at Tannadice.

 

Dunfermline defeated one half of Dundee only to be put out by the other in the next round

 

My other favourite memory is when Stirling Albion beat league leaders Annan Athletic 1-0 at Forthbank stadium on the 19^th of December. Phil Johnston scored in the 77^th minute to make Stirling go 5^th in the Scottish league 2.

Tennis

Britain won the Davis Cup, for the first time in 79 years. Winning 3-1 in matches. Andy Murray won 3 games, one with his brother in the doubles and twice in the singles. Kyle Edmund got beat by David Goffin 3-2 in sets. He was 2-0 up but the power of David Goffin was too much for the young Brit.

 

Andy Murry practises in the mirror

 

Andy Murray won against David Goffin and Ruben Bemelmans. The Murray brothers then beat David Goffin and Steve Darcis in the doubles. The Stirling Barmy Army sang lots of songs in Belgium.

Elsewhere in tennis Novak Djokivic won the Australian open, Wimbledon and the US open. Stan Wawrinka won his first grand slam in the French Open 

Cricket

England won the ashes 3-2 599 days after they were whitewashed in Australia in 2013/2014. Joe Root got 2 hundreds, one at Cardiff and the other at Trent Bridge in Nottingham. In the same test at Trent Bridge Stuart Broad took 8-15 and he bowled out the clueless Australians for 60.

My other favourite cricket memory was when Scotland made the Cricket World Cup. They didn’t win any games but they came close in 3 of the games against Bangladesh, New Zealand and Afghanistan. The other games were a thrashing to say the least.  

 

England reclaimed the Ashes in a quite bizarre series 

 

2015 was a great year for sport and hopefully 2016 can be even better than 2015. We are looking forward to the Euro 2016 finals and the England cricket team are playing Pakistan in the summer.

 

 

by Calum Grant 

 

 

 

Max Delrio's Football Review of 2015

There have been many highlights in 2015 such as Leicester getting to the top of the table, Ronaldo winning the ballon D’or.  Here are a few of my favourite football moments of 2015.

 

2015 was a great year for football as there were many records broken records, many amazing goals scored and there were many club heroes that took their teams further.

 

Southampton player Sadio Mane broke the Premiership record for the fastest hat trick in football history beating the previous owner Robbie fowler who had a time or 4minutes 33seconds, Mane managed to score 3 goals in with 2minutes 56seconds.

Sadio, you're the 'Mane..!!'

Barcelona won the treble for a second time, they won La Liga, the Copa Del Ray and the Champions League with outstanding performances in each competition. Messi, Neymar and Suarez scored a combined total of 121 goals out of Barcelona’s 158 goals in all competitions in 2015.

 

Douglas costa a player who went from Shaktar Donesk to Bayern Munich for £25m was actually quite a cheap price for a player with so much talent. The 25 year old bagged himself  6 goals and 9 assists in half a season for Bayern Munich.

Douglas Costa, well worth the money

 
Jamie Vardy broke the Premiership record for goals in consecutive games previously held by Manchester united Player Ruud Van Nistelrooy.  Jamie Vardy was able to pull off 11 consecutive goals in the Premier League and it wasn’t against the easiest of teams he had to score against some of the toughest teams in the league such as Manchester united, Chelsea and Tottenham.

Who scores when they want..?? I do...!!

2015 was big for South American team Chile as they won the Copa America and event they hadn't won in 99 years. It was really eventful and there was some really close matches.

 

It was a big year for football and I’m looking forward to all the new transfers, and all the records that will be broken and amazing goals and saves 2016 has to offer.


by Max Delrio

Andrew's Sporting Review of 2015

2015 was a massive year for sport so much happened such as Leicester topping the Premier League Table, Great Britain won the Davis cup, Ronaldo won the ballon d’or and David Luiz somehow got in the team of the year. Here are my highlights…..

 2015 was a great year for rugby as we had an amazing rugby world cup with lots of highlights and upsets as well as some horrible referee decisions. Japan had a surprisingly good world cup as they defeated South Africa 34-32 scoring a try in the 84^th minute to win the game.

 

Japan lit the Rugby World Cup alight with an electrifying win against South Africa

 

Scotland did very well as they got all the way to the quarter finals being the last home nation left in the whole tournament, unfortunately referee Craig Joubert made a horrible decision by giving Australia a penalty in the 78^th minute and Australia went on to win the game but by no means did they deserve it.  Scotland almost had a place In the semi-finals and in my opinion would easily beat Argentina giving them a place in the final which has to be a huge boost for upcoming six nations.

New Zealand were easily the best team in the world cup and went on to win the tournament for the second time in a row. They did not lose any of their rugby world cup games destroying everyone in their way all the way to the final. I think they deserved to win it as they came into the tournament as the reigning champions so and had the most to lose. New Zealand are the first International Rugby team to retain the Web Ellis Trophy.

 

The All Blacks cemented their place as Rugby Royalty in 2015

 

In football Barcelona won the treble by winning the La liga,Copa Del Rey and the Champions League. They had  a brilliant year and they were well known for how well Messi, Neymar and Suarez (known collectively as MSN) who together scored 121 of Barcelona’s 158 goals in all competitions in 2015. Barcelona beat Juventus in a hard fought match to win the Champions Legaue and Andres Iniesta deservedly won the Man of the match with Morata equalizing the game after Ivan Rakitic opened the scoring then Suarez gave Barcelona the win by scoring past Buffon then in the 90^th minute. Neymar scored just to rub it in to Juventus at the end of the game we had one of the saddest moments in football history as we see football legend Andrea Pirlo burst into tears as he retired from the game.

Andrea Pirol, even when he's crying he still looks cool...!!!

 2015 was great year for sport with great goals great, amazing saves shocking red cards, expensive transfers, new managers, bad referees and much more. I really enjoyed 2015 and I am looking forward the Euros in France this year as well as the Olympics in Rio.

 

by Andrew Gilchrist                                                                      

Innes O'Donnell's Football Review of the Year

2015 was a big year for football and one of the most memorable moments was when Barcelona won the treble.  Barcelona won La Liga by only two points to the mighty Real Madrid and lifted the trophy at Atletico Madrid’s Vicente Calderón Stadium. 3-1 was the score in the Copa del Rey final where Messi scored a brace and Neymar scored at the Nou Camp which was hosting the event.  Barcelona were fantastic in the Champions League mainly because of their frontline of Messi, Suarez and Neymar.  Lionel Messi stole the show against Bayern Munich in the Semi’s scoring a brace and destroying Jerome Boateng and chipping the ball over Worl Cup Winning keeper Manuel Neyer.  In the Champions League Final Barcelona played Juventus who were the Italian champions and they beat them 3-1 with Neymar scoring two goals and Suarez scoring one.

 

Messi, Neymar and Suarez give the 'Dashing White Sergeant a go'

 

For Steven Gerrard 2015 at Liverpool was his final year but it certainly wasn’t his best.  His last home game for Liverpool was against Crystal Palace where they lost 3-1.  Gerrard’s final game for Liverpool was away at Stoke where Liverpool where thrashed 6-1, Gerrard did manage to get on the score sheet but that obviously wasn’t enough.

The 17th December 2015 will remain as a major date in the history of Chelsea as it was the date when club legend Jose Mourinho was sacked.  At the time of his departure Chelsea were just one point away from the relegation places after nine defeats in 16 games. 

 

Adel said hello while Jose waved goodbye in December 2015

 

Jamie Vardy the 28 years old Leicester striker hit the headlines in November after scoring in eleven consecutive Premier League games, ending with Leicester City's 1-1 draw against Manchester United where he had overtaken Ruud van Nistelrooy's previous record from 2003 when the Dutch hitman notched in ten successive matches.

In a match between Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg Robert Lewandowski was subbed on at half time with the score was 1-0 to Wolfsburg.  Lewandowski scored in the 51^st, 52^nd, 55^th, 57^th and 60^th minute.  He scored 5 goals in 9 nine minutes breaking many at Bayern Munich.    

After 99 years of waiting it came down to an Alexis Sanchez penalty against Sergio Romero in July 2015 where Chile claimed the Copa beating Argentina 4-1 on penalties.  It was very special for Chile as the tournament was hosted in Chile.  Before the penalties it was a very close game all it was missing was a goal.  On the way to the final Chile won all their games apart from drawing to Mexcio 3-3. Argentina’s fight to the final was a bit tougher beating Uruguay in the group stage and Colombia in the quarter finals.  Lionel Messi wasn’t at his best in that match although he was the only Argentinean player to score a penalty.  The man of the match was Arturo Vidal and later was named the player of the tournament.  

 

99 years of hurt were ended for Chilie in the Coppa America in 2015. Not a Hibbie among them...!!

 

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup was held in Canada, with the number of qualifiers increased from 16 to 24, including eight from Europe.  The winners were the USA and they thrashed Japan 5-2 in the final with Carly Lloyd the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’or winner scoring a hat trick.  The biggest win in the tournament was a 10-0 humiliation that Germany launched on Ivory Coast.  England surprised many by earning 3^rd place losing to Japan and beating Germany 1-0 in the bronze medal match.  This was USA’s third WWC tournament wins overtaking Germany with 2 Women’s world cups.

 

 

By Innes O’Donnell.