A late New Year's resolution - my 2015 campaign to see a massive variety of local sport

It is statistically (un)proven the New Year’s resolutions which are most easily broken are the ones made half-cut at 12.01am on New Year’s Day - those ones which have had no thought put into them whatsoever.

So, therefore, using the same reasoning, the best time to make a resolution must certainly be at the start of February. So, here is mine.

This year, I want to watch live as many different sports as I possibly can, at a variety of different levels in Berkshire and North Hampshire (for the simple reason I grew up in Reading, work in Slough where I cover the Windsor patch and live just in Hampshire in Tadley).

And this is where I want some help; I want suggestions on what sports and teams I should go to see over the remaining 11 months or so of 2015 to add to this crude list I’ve made below which will also outline why I’ve chosen that sport/team or who has suggested it.

Football

Reading FC - hometown team, supported since I was five-years-old and, to be honest, an easy one to add to this list as I would be seeing them already this season anyway. DONE - AWAY AT FULHAM FC, SATURDAY 17 JANUARY

Basingstoke Town FC - fitting in with my relocation from Reading to Tadley, Basingstoke are the nearest semi-pro side around (and my girlfriend’s boss owns the place so it would be rude not to divert some of my income that way)

Reading Town FC - there has to be a lower league outfit in this list and seeing as RTFC play at Scours Lane around 15 minutes walk away from the house in which I grew up, it kind of makes sense.

Cricket

Berkshire CC - when I was studying journalism at university, I did a ‘day at the cricket’ as a feature piece for the sports journalism section of my course. Unfortunately, that day largely consisted of eating the food the club generously laid on as heavy May rain caused the match at Falkland CC to be called off. Time for a re-visit.

Basketball

Reading Rockets - They are the only basketball team playing at a decent level in the region so kind of a forced-hand but they have been pretty handy in recent years, so Wikipedia tells me.

Rugby

London Irish - I am in no way a fan of rugby but as a proper UK sport, it must be done and I may as well see what is the cause of why the Madejski Stadium pitch is a bit ropey at times. Plus the promise of St Patrick’s Day being the day for this trip is kind of enticing.

Ice Hockey

Basingstoke Bison - I can’t remember where the idea for 2015 being the year of diverse spot for me came from but Basingstoke Bison features somewhere in there so they have to feature. DONE - HOME TO GUILDFORD FLAMES, SATURDAY 28 FBERUARY

Hockey

Reading Hockey Club - Back to Reading again (this is becoming awfully Reading-centric), but both the men’s and women’s team compete in the top tier of English hockey with many an international player among them which is something of a rarity in this list.

Boxing

No idea where yet but there is always some amateur boxing going on in Reading or Slough... no reference to nightlife chortle, haha, etc and so on.

Horse Racing

Newbury, Windsor, Ascot - plenty of choices here to get pissed in as classy a way as there is.

Got anything else I should add to this list? Tweet me or leave a comment!

Big Men In Little Shorts - the Six Nations and I

You know the feeling when something sounds really important - like the annexation of Crimea or what that woman from The Only Way is Essex wore to dinner last night - but you just cannot seem to give it the same amount of interest as say, freeing the sock fluff from in between your toes?
That is basically how I feel about Big Men In Little Shorts From Half A Dozen Countries Pushing Each Other While Being Terribly Polite About The Whole Thing - or to give it its official name, the RBS Six Nations.
I get that it's important in the world of rugby and usually I'm unthinking enough to buy into jingoism and Scot-bashing played out on grass in most other sports but...just...something...there is something about it that means I end up writing a blog that will be read by eight people at most while the tournament culminates.
It's the sporting equivalent of not watching Borgen or not listening to Yeezus by Kanye West - it probably is worth my time, but that doesn't mean I will.
Then again, I polished off Breaking Bad in the last six weeks, just started watching House of Cards and read all of the so-far-published A Song of Ice and Fire books in about four months so I'm just as mindless and sheep-like enough to follow the tempting, tempting crowd with their offers of social acceptance in those fields anyway.
Just for some reason, the sport really, really does not draw me in. Do you know where I was when England got to the World Cup Final in 2003 and 2007 - in a branch of Argos and at a dog-racing evening respectively which about sums it all up.
I'd watch golf in the form of the Ryder Cup over either code of rugby which I don't like typing, but that is simply the way it is.
All in all, it must be pretty much the same feeling that people who are ambivalent to the omnipresent, all-consuming monster that is football feel for the rest of the 45-odd weeks of the year - enduring the never-ending questions of "Did you watch the game?", "Did you see X fuck up?", "I hate Y so much; how about you?" and so on and so forth.
No I didn't watch it, can we talk about something else? Nope, thought not. I'll go back to de-fluffing my littlest toe.