Scottish sport’s highs and lows of the past 12 months

JANUARY

THE Scottish football year began as it is ending, with Celtic at the top of the SPL following a victory over Rangers. A 2-0 win over their arch-rivals stretched Neil Lennon’s team’s lead to five points. Hearts, in third place following a 1-0 win in the Edinburgh derby, briefly threatened to challenge the Old Firm when they beat Rangers 1-0 later in the month. But a 4-0 rout at Parkhead days afterwards effectively ended their hopes of keeping up with the Glasgow club.

At the bottom of the table, Hamilton were five points adrift of St Mirren and Hibernian, whose new manager Colin Calderwood was busy making a number of new signings designed to transform the club’s fortunes.

On the other side of the world, Andy Murray again reached the final of the Australian Open – and again lost, this time to Novak Djokovic. In New Zealand, Paralympian Libby Clegg won the 100 metres at the IPC World Championships.

FEBRUARY

THE RBS Six Nations Championship began with Scotland losing in Paris, but showing encouraging signs of new life in attack with three tries in a 34-21 defeat. Much of the optimism engendered by that result dissipated a week later, however, when Wales came to Murrayfield and won 24-6. Narrower defeats by Ireland and England would follow before Andy Robinson’s side ended the championship with a win over Italy. After victories in Argentina the previous summer had suggested Scotland were making significant improvements, the Six Nations showed that any progress had stalled.

Athlete Steph Twell, a bronze medallist at the Commonwealth Games the previous Autumn, suffered an ankle break in a cross-country race which would rule her out for almost the entire season.

MARCH

THE Old Firm rivalry became a political football after Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist and Celtic boss Neil Lennon squared up to each other at the end of the teams’ Scottish Cup match, which Lennon’s team won 1-0. Rangers won the League Cup final, however, claiming the trophy with a 2-1 extra-time victory over Celtic.

In Spain, Paul Lawrie ended nine years without a tournament victory by landing the Open de Andalucia. That began a fine year for the 1999 Open Champion, who in December was runner-up in the Dubai World Championship.

APRIL

AT AINTREE, hopes of a rare Scottish triumph in the Grand National rested with Silver By Nature, owned by St Johnstone chairman Geoff Brown. Alas, those hopes were not realised, as Silver By Nature finished 12th, 25 lengths behind winner Ballabriggs.

North of the Border, Lennon and two prominent Celtic supporters, lawyer Paul McBride and politician Trish Godman, were sent parcel bombs as the tensions in Scottish football grew.

At Roland Garros, Andy Murray reached the semi-final of the French Open, losing in straight sets to Rafael Nadal. The king of clay then beat Roger Federer in the final.

MAY

CELTIC’S title hopes were dealt a shattering blow when they lost 3-2 at Inverness. An already fraught Scottish football season then reached a new nadir when Lennon was confronted by a supporter during a match at Tynecastle. John Wilson was later cleared of assault but jailed for breach of the peace.

Rangers claimed the league by a single point. Celtic enjoyed a measure of compensation the following week when they won the Scottish Cup final, beating Motherwell 3-0.

JUNE

ANDY Murray’s Wimbledon campaign got off to a shaky start as he lost the opening set of his first-round tie against Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver. He steadily found form as the championships went on, however, going through the following four rounds with the loss of just one set, to Ivan Ljubicic. An apparently effortless quarter-final win over Feliciano Lopez took him through to a last-four meeting with Rafael Nadal.

His fellow-Scot Elena Baltacha, meanwhile, got through the first round in straight sets, but then lost in three to No 20 seed Shuai Peng of China.

JULY

NADAL yet again proved too powerful for Murray, winning their Wimbledon semi-final in four sets. Murray took the first set and held the advantage in the second until a bad unforced error swung the momentum of the match in his Spanish opponent’s favour. Nadal went on to lose the final, also in four sets, to Novak Djokovic.

Hannah Miley won silver in the 400m individual medley at swimming’s world championships, confirming her status as one of Scotland’s most consistently successful competitors at world level.

AUGUST

AT THE badminton world championships in London, Imogen Bankier and English partner Chris Adcock won the silver medal in the mixed doubles.

Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov deposed manager Jim Jefferies after just a couple of weeks of the new season. Jefferies turned down the offer to stay as director of football. Assistant Billy Brown, also relieved of his post, would re-emerge as No 2 to Colin Calderwood at Hibs. Former Sporting Lisbon boss Paulo Sergio was installed as Jefferies’ successor.

SEPTEMBER

SCOTLAND’S hopes of qualifying for the finals of Euro 2012 suffered a serious setback when an underperforming Czech Republic side claimed a 2-2 draw at Hampden thanks to a last-minute penalty. That decision, coupled with the referee’s refusal of a Scotland penalty claim moments later, provoked much anger. More level-headed assessors suggested that Craig Levein’s side, having only taken the lead in the 82nd minute, should have been able to play out the game without letting the Czechs anywhere near their penalty area.

Levein’s team at least had the character to beat Lithuania three days later, but the damage was done.

At the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, Scotland failed for the first time to qualify for the knockout stages, beating Romania and Georgia in their first two pool games but then losing to Argentina and England. With Andy Robinson’s side having been seeded third in the group, those results were not a major surprise, and there was no significant clamour for the coach’s resignation.

OCTOBER

CRAIG Mackail-Smith scored the only goal of the game as Scotland won in Liechtenstein to take their Euro 2012 campaign to the final game. Unfortunately, the game in question was against world champions Spain, who won 3-1. Victory in Lithuania the same evening ensured the Czechs of the play-off place which Scotland had hoped to claim.

Hearts failed to pay their senior players on time in the middle of the month, thus beginning a financial crisis at Tynecastle which is still unresolved as the year ends. Romanov would put the club up for sale in November, saying he had lost his enthusiasm for Scottish football. So far he has found no takers for his asking price of £50 million.

NOVEMBER

RICKY Burns became WBO Interim Lightweight Champion in his first fight at the weight with a unanimous decision over Michael Katsidis of Australia.

Catriona Matthew, who in September had been the sole Scot in Europe’s victorious Solheim Cup team, won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico.

Hibs, who in the summer had turned down a six-figure sum for Colin Calderwood, relieved the manager of his duties after running out of patience with his attempts to turn the club’s fortunes round. His replacement was Irishman Pat Fenlon, who had been keen on a move to Scottish football since coming within an ace of being appointed Dundee United manager at the start of 2010.

DECEMBER

SCOTLAND coach Andy Robinson moved to address some of the weaknesses which had been evident at the Rugby World Cup, appointing Scott Johnson as an assistant coach in a bid to deal with the lack of experience in his backroom team.

Celtic, who had been 15 points behind Rangers earlier in the season, leapfrogged their rivals with a 1-0 home win which took them back to the top of the table. Fenlon was still looking for his first win in charge of Hibs after a 1-1 draw with Inverness. At Hearts, the expected clearout began when Eggert Jonsson agreed to sign for Wolves, while Ryan Stevenson declared he would not play for Hearts again in protest at the club’s failure to pay players’ wages on time for the third month running.