The Boy from Dunblane Dun Brilliant

First off, apologies for not illuminating your day like July sunshine for over three weeks now. My only excuse is that I've had no proper sport to write about. I could've said a tad more about the Confederation Cup but frankly it's just an excuse to have some international footy when the big tournaments are having the year off. It's a burger in a bun when you're gasping for a steak.

The British and Irish Lions provided a huge talking point to those that are in thrall to the joys of huge steroidal chunks of flesh being slammed against each other. It has its appeal but there are times when it looks like butcher's-shop billiards. 

Which is not to say that the prime Welsh beefcakes on display didn't make a marvellous fist of putting the wobbly Wallabies to the slaughter. Much was made of O'Driscoll's exclusion but Gatland's an unsentimental sod and you kind of knew it'd pay off. It's not like the Aussies are that shit-hot anyway... and as far as I can remember their scrum hasn't been able to push over so much as a Jenga tower for years.

There was the very exciting grand prix n all. Exhilarating, isn't it? Exhilarating in the same way as sticking one's head in a dustbin while your mate clatters it with a big stick is exhilarating. I've not met a single person I could sustain a conversation with after they've admitted loving F1.

On the other hand, Andy Murray winning Wimbledon is downright bloody scintillating. And that's coming from someone who couldn't be arsed much with tennis cos frankly the only decent courts round our way when I was a kid required you to cough up four weeks worth of your paper round money for a quick half-hour. All the lads that played there wore Mumsy-ironed white clothing and shiny Dunlop pumps and were called Giles, Tarquin or Jeremy.

There were no Andys, no Dereks. Just shiny posh nobs. Murray could hardly be described as that. I've always liked him, even when he was a knock-kneed shambling adolescent. That kid that cramped in the second set of a match and looked for all the world like he'd missed his dinner a bit too often always knew that if he wanted to be as good as he could be then Great Britain was no place to learn how.

While we leapt about like loonies at his crowning achievement and the saltires and union jacks got waved with cheery abandon, we all secretly realised that the only people who can take any credit for that victory are the back-room team that Murray has assembled and of course the lad himself. (No, not even Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper had a role to play - though they clearly thought they had, the great dollops).

It is Murray that has transformed himself from enfeebled writher into lithe greyhound. It is Murray that has shorn himself of coaches that could not serve him well enough, and ended up with a dry, deadpan Czech mate to tell him how you get beyond defeat. It is Murray, with the help of Lendl and others, who has sharpened his mind to such a fine state of readiness that even the loss of those three championship points in the final game failed to deny him the sweetest of victories.

He's not a nice polite boy from Oxfordshire who does all the right things. He swears, he rants, he rails against the world. He's a blatant hypochondriac. He doesn't support England when they're playing someone else - he's Scottish, you fecking numpties - show me an honest Scot who does. He's not remotely pretty, so how he got anywhere in the world must be difficult for John Inverdale to fathom.

In short he hates losing, has a bit of a ruthless streak, and, as I've said before, didn't need to cry on Centre Court last year to prove himself to anyone. That German blubberer Lisicki could learn a thing or two from him.

And he has got off the back of British sport not so much a monkey as an entire Planet of the Bastard Apes. I never thought I'd see the day. And I was punching the air with all the Gileses and Jeremies when he did it. (Yep, the Blue Bell was full of 'em on Sunday).

For what we do in Britain is invent wonderful games and then let the rest of the world show us how we should do it. And of all these games, tennis has been the most glaring example of the crapness of our generosity. But now we've got one - and he hasn't been the best of a mediocre bunch either. The blokes around him are unbelievably good. To beat Djokovic in straight sets is almost unheard of. He gets back so much does Novak that there are golden retrievers watching Wimbledon and just shaking their heads in awe and disbelief.

What's more I've even found a court where me and the lass can have a knock-up round our way. Yes Murray's inspired a cynical old scrote like me to get out in the park. Except I think I may have ruptured my Achilles. And I'm not joking. It's a long way back from an injury like this but I think I'll be okay to partner that Pole with the massive eyelashes in the mixed doubles next June. (Radwanska, not Janowicz).

Until then, let's all raise a crutch to Andrew Murray. The boy from Dunblane done brilliant. And we had nowt to do with it.