Having been challenged by a fellow trainee journalist Josh Pettitt to put forward a Sporting Icon for the Noughties here is mine, the incomparable Ryan Giggs OBE:
I am not a religious man, but Ryan Giggs is a gift from God. I try not to eulogize about people too much but with Giggsy I could genuinely go on all day. He’s my favourite player of all time, and throughout my life watching football and Manchester United he has been ubiquitous, and as with all the best gifts, he is still giving.
In 1999 Giggs, aged 25, had won the lot; 5 league titles, 3 FA Cup’s, a League Cup, and now the Champions League. At club level there was nothing else to prove, he had offers to go abroad, most notably Inter Milan, but he has stayed at Manchester United, and in the last decade he has done so much I think its impossible for me to vote for anyone else.
He used to be the most feared left-winger in the world, but has adapted as he has aged into one of the finest central midfielders in the game, and was honoured for his ability to still control matches with the PFA Player of the Season award last year to go with his 11th league title.
He overtook Bobby Charlton to be United’s most-capped player in the 2008 Champions League Final, he has never been anything but a model professional, a fantastic trainer and an iconic figure in the City of Manchester. As the video above shows he has everything; a great passer, a great touch, he scores goals, he has a brilliant brain and has maintained an incredibly high standard throughout 18 seasons of top flight football, so much so he has scored in every season of the Premiership. He is simply the greatest player to pull on United’s red shirt, and is un-arguably the greatest player of the premiership era.
I will leave you with two things:
Giggs’ Honour List;
Premier League (11): 1992–93, 1993–94, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09
FA Cup (4): 1993–94, 1995–96, 1998–99, 2003–04
Football League Cup (3): 1991–92, 2005–06, 2008–09
FA Community Shield (7): 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008
UEFA Champions League (2): 1998–99, 2007–08
UEFA Super Cup (1): 1991
Intercontinental Cup (1): 1999
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2008
PFA Player of the Year: 2009
PFA Young Player of the Year: 1992, 1993
BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year: 1996
Wales Player of the Year Award: 1996, 2006
FA Premier League Player of the Month: September 1993, August 2006, February 2007
PFA Team Of The Century: 2007
PFA Team of the Year: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2007, 2009
Goal of the Season: 1999
English Football Hall of Fame: Inducted in 2005
Enough said.
If you want to join in the debate then write your own blog, and post a link to it on this page or on Josh’s, and your choice of icon can be a part of the poll.
11 Comments
November 16, 2009 at 7:37 pm
[...] Ryan Giggs [...]
November 16, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Not had nearly the same impact as schumi – http://tomvictor.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/and-now-for-something-completely-different/
November 16, 2009 at 8:48 pm
[...] http://alaintolhurst.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/ [...]
November 16, 2009 at 10:47 pm
[...] Alfie set the ball rolling with his nomination of Ryan Giggs, a number of my coursemates have given their suggestions, so I thought I’d throw my hat into [...]
November 16, 2009 at 11:37 pm
[...] are the other candidates for greatest sporting icon of the noughties: Roger Federa by Josh Pettitt Ryan Giggs by Alain Tolhurst Usian Bolt by Mike Brown Michael Schumacher by Tom Victor Zinedine Zidane by Rob [...]
November 16, 2009 at 11:41 pm
[...] Ryan Giggs [...]
November 26, 2009 at 12:09 am
[...] Ryan Giggs [...]
November 26, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] Federer by Josh Pettitt Ryan Giggs by Alain Tolhurst Usian Bolt by Mike Brown Michael Schumacher by Tom Victor Zinedine Zidane by Rob [...]
November 26, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] Icon of the Decade Jump to Comments Having written about my sporting icon of the decade Ryan Giggs and my fellow trainee journalist colleagues gave their nominations, here are the final ten for the [...]
November 30, 2009 at 4:58 pm
[...] Recently myself and other trainee journalists put together a list of sporting icons, mine was Ryan Giggs (you can still vote here), and now we have moved on to The Album of The Decade. This is my [...]
November 30, 2009 at 6:10 pm
[...] Finally on to Manchester United, who beat a struggling Portsmouth 4-1 in a scoreline that flatters them somewhat. Portsmouth caused United plenty of problems but unfortunately for them they failed to put away the great 1st half chances they carved out, Aruna Dindane being guilty of three bad misses. United went in front with a (slightly dubious) Rooney penalty, only to be pegged back when Portsmouth scored a penalty of their own through Kevin Prince-Boateng. United played better in the second-half, with Giggs putting in another great performance after a few weeks looking a bit off his usual high standards. He set Rooney up for a simple finish to put United back in front then was fouled for the penalty that gave Rooney his hat-trick and then rounded off a performance that Rooney likened to that of a 26 year-old rather than one about to turn 36 with a great free-kick late on. That was his 100th premier-league goal, and confirms what i wrote when i named him my sporting icon of the decade. [...]