As the gloom of June gives way to the gloom of July, August and September, it is worth taking a second to consult the schedule. Because an unusually epic summer of global sport is well under way.
This is quite a thing. From Real Madrid’s triumph in the Champions League final at Wembley this month through to the women’s cricket T20 World Cup in October, we’re in the midst of a non-stop sporting bloom.
The centrepiece is a classic high-summer European one-two. First, Euro 2024 in Germany, which begins on Friday and ends in Berlin on 14 July, also known as Gareth’s glorious last stand, or alternatively Gareth’s angry and tearful defenestration, depending on the bounce of a ball. And second, the Paris Olympics from July into August, followed by the Paralympics two weeks later, a chance for the greatest sporting show to reassert itself eight years on from the last non-plague-ridden summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Before that, the ongoing men’s T20 World Cup, which is taking place in the Caribbean and the US, but mainly, for members of the spam-faced, safari-suited, limbo-thrusting British press pack, in the Caribbean.
And around this we have the usual summer banquet of the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, Wimbledon, the Open golf, plus the unceasing background chunter of Premier League comings and goings and mid-summer transfer blah.
It is a lovely prospect from here. Sport has been a gruelling place over the past few years. The Qatar World Cup was complex and fraught. Covering the previous Covid-hell Tokyo Olympics was like being imprisoned in a very small chain hotel room by a sinister sports-based surveillance state conducting real-time experiments into the effects of constant cheap delivery food combined with watching people throw the hammer in a ghost stadium occupied only by TV crews, empty seats and feelings of alienation.
This year is something else, a clear three-month run crammed with colour, drama, escapism, plus maybe even some sense of the wider value of coming together for these global sporting beanos. And of course the Guardian will be covering the whole thing on these pages.
Point to an event and we’ll be there in all available formats, from pictures, numbers and colour, to live reports filed at 23 seconds to midnight from some crumb-strewn gantry by a flushed and desperate hack.
Back in London our on-desk team will be reeling off beautifully crafted minute-by-minute, ball-by-ball, medal-by-medal commentaries from beneath the familiar pile of energy drink cans and tofu jalfrezi foil trays.
Perhaps you’re even a fan of the multi-award-winning Football Weekly, featuring talking’s Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning, which is fine, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and no one can prove otherwise. Good news: Football Weekly will also be daily during Euro 2024.
All of this will again be provided free at the point of delivery. And, yes, it’s now that moment where it becomes necessary to point out the truth; which is that all of this is only possible because of your support.
These requests are always awkward. At the very least they provide an excellent opportunity to laugh at journalists trying to keep the lights on, or for people who have long since uncovered the company-wide bias against [insert name of your favourite football team] to say things like “cry more”.
But it’s also important. Funding an operation that can continue to produce high-quality (ie edited and non-insane) journalism in a 24/7 digital landscape is a puzzle that is not straightforward to solve. Asking our readers to become supporters, or to contribute to pay for something they value is, in our opinion, the best way forward.
So, if you like this stuff and think it’s worth helping it to continue, why not make a contribution to the Guardian. It only takes a minute and can be as little as £1 if you’re particularly tight or shameless.
Our part of this bargain is that we won’t stop talking about all the good parts, and also about the more difficult things, won’t become a club mouthpiece or a PR arm of the governing bodies, won’t parrot the line the algorithm likes most; will instead continue to act as a newspaper, as opposed to a rage-farm, cheerleading troupe or clip-site peopled by sex-bots.
Enjoy the summer of sport. Please keep coming back to follow it. We can promise brilliant writing and reporting from the likes of David Hytner, Ali Martin, Jonathan Liew, Sid Lowe, Suzanne Wrack, Jonathan Wilson, Sean Ingle, Tumaini Carayol, Jacob Steinberg, Donald McRae and all your other favourites. And if you think what we do is good, please help us to give you more of the same.
