2003 The final word: Tom Humphries/LockerRoom Fasten your seat belt Nellie, time for the annual This Was The Year That Was trawl: 365 days or 52 weeks or 12 months or four seasons - or just seven deadly sins. How novel! LockerRoom gleefully throws open the confessional.

Pride: Lots of it. Humility is always the first casualty of big-time sport. In the US this year, gridiron goons have been secreting little props around the ground for later use in carefully choreographed touchdown celebrations. Entire congregations must still their cheers till the goon remembers where he put the mobile phone or the towel or whatever it is he will be using in his little Marcel Marceau routine.

Of course, there is a cost further down the line. The absence of humility, the showboating, the trash-talking, the preening, the devout worship of self: every ounce of it moves big-time sport further off into the Universe of Disconnection wherein it shall float about like a missing Mars exploration craft or the sport of boxing.

Boxing? Whatever happened to the science of punching other people? Leave aside the crooks who run the game and the alphabet soup of titles which they use as weapons. Boxing ran out of genuine articles. Every Joe Schmoe who could throw a hook nicked a little of Ali's routine till it all became pastiche anyway. What was unusual about Ali was his poetic touch and the fact that braggery was a little-practised art among young black guys from Louisville in the 1960s. From there on the slide till we got to the lumbering tongue of Lennox Lewis.

Pride, those excessive, toxic levels of it which fill a body up, causing levitation which places the body above the concerns and reasoning of ordinary people. That was the undoing of Carl Lewis. Always somebody lying in the long grass waiting for you when you put it about like that, Carl. And Dwain Chambers and that loose-mouthed generation of Linford Wannabees? Did you ever believe any of them? Pride has to be at the root of the original decision of Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery to brazen things out and use the services of Charlie Francis, former coach to Ben Johnson.

So that's athletics and boxing, certified humility-free zones, and we've just started the alphabet. Thank heavens for Ross Munnelly of Laois who, having scored the greatest and most important goal of his career in the Leinster final this year, thought immediately "short pass" and without ado went and marked his man. Not since Kevin Foley slayed the Dubs in 1991 has there been such quiet dignity about the place.

And what about Tyrone? All that proud talk about the ingenious tactic of taking Peter Canavan out and putting him back in again in the All-Ireland final. The pride that comes with hindsight. If Conor Gormley hadn't made that most miraculous block on Stephen McDonnell the "I stepped out and I stepped in again" routine would be a key part of the prosecution evidence.

Envy: A fine year. The nation of Australia, still uncomfortable about their relationship with their former jailers and deporters, could have done as this column likes to and shrugged indifferently about the matter of England winning the Rugby World Cup. Anybody who could still muster some interest after a month deserved to win the thing, or to be reminded of the adage that a well-placed bomb in the main stand at Twickenham would set back the cause of British fascism by half a century.

Instead, the Aussies went all green-eyed and petty, adding immeasurably to the pleasure of the insufferable English.

Then there is the matter of Croke Park. Almost complete and quite magnificent, it is the only national landmark to have emerged from the squanderfest of the Celtic Tiger years. And around the fringes of the current discussion as to whether the GAA will open the place one can hear the bitterness-laced opinions of the envious.

Especially those soccer people still not over the fact that some Brother leathered them for playing soccer years ago. Wake up lads. Brothers leathered people. That's what they did. Those who played only GAA were leathered for something else. Hostility towards Croke Park is an envy thing, not a repressed "six-of-the-best" thing.

And while we're talking, what wrath, immense bitterness and envy did the great and poisonous herd of aficionados of Manchester United bring to bear on the most holy apostles of the club that is Leeds United in the year of our Lord two thousand oh three.

Yup. An abomination before their Red Devilish eyes was the managerial savvy, the sheer boardroom nous which served the Pharisees of Yorkshire so well. The sale, in the marketplace, of the Gaul, Cantona, was dismissed as a piece of double luck (away Gauls count double etc., etc.) in that Cantona fell into disgrace soon after by kicking the aficionado at Selhurst Park and Leeds got a million sovereigns. How to explain, then, the miracle of Rio?

Think briefly of the inestimable shame which would be visited on a club with the values and integrity of Leeds United were its centre-half to be found in the marketplace of Harvey Nicholls when he had been asked to deliver his most holy waters into a little bottle. Yes, most lightly did Leeds United sidestep that mess of doo-doo, thus preserving their moral integrity. For sustenance they also trousered many pieces of silver to help pay Robbie Fowler's wages while he is at Manchester City.

And finally, Australia again. Guilty of envy themselves, we must confess to being envious of them. Home of sun, sand and surf, sporting paradise, etc., etc., they have abducted Setanta Ó hAilpín. There were no guarantees (look how the GAA sat on Jayo till the life almost went out of him), but the lad could have been the greatest boon to hurling since, well, that business with the hound and the sliotar. Australia won't appreciate him like we did.

Gluttony: With sorrow and a girly vale of tears we must disclose that the Mark Viduka Award for He Who Hath Ably Consumed All Pies, Until Thereof Was Scarcely a Smidgin Left will not be awarded this year.

In Dublin, those who trade in low scandal and gossip (see ye later, lads) say the great Johnny Magee has been asked to return to the fold in the New Year with a more modest backside attached to his immense self. It shall be so and an era shall be closed, a landmark lost.

In sub-continental Richard Dunne, we have found the source of much disappointment, too. Has there been a sundering of the ways between Dunney and the tabloids, they who have fattened themselves together on nights out and photographs of nights out? Of alibis needeth Dunney none when people inquire as to the fate of All The Pies. And Páidí Ó Sé, sylph-like and suave in the twilight of his reign in Kerry. Sorry.

Darren Clarke, thou hast fluctuated but no longer art thou doughier than a bag of doughnuts. The buggers of the abomination that is rugby hath abandoned the path of pot-belliedness and hath donned attire that is skintight and unmanly. Werbenuik!

Jimbo Keaveney. Smokey Joe. Niall Connolly. Chunky O'Brien. Gone. Not forgotten. Like the pies, like the pies.

Anger: Oft is told the story (almost certainly apocryphal, but nonetheless worth repeating) of the stable lad who was being dismissed from the employ of a certain trainer. On the cusp of the yard gate the stable boy turned and in great anger noted that, "Mister. Only two things ever came out of Wexford, strawberries and tight bastards. And Mister, you're no strawberry." Red as a strawberry and stern as a judge grew the countenance of Alex Ferguson upon learning there was a canyon of understanding between himself and Cubic Expression (who own a goodly chunk of Manchester United) on the matter of Rock Of Gibraltar's disputed stud fees. Indeed, by manner of pretty conjuring, as Sir Ferg had it, much of the joy had been made to disappear by non-strawberry, non-Wexford types.

For this matter there is no apparent remedy. Sir Ferg is esteemed as an oracle among the disciples of Man U and great are his business commitments therein. However, he hath alwaysbeen a proud man and hath no inclination to exit the scene like a recalcitrant stable boy. Hell knoweth no anger like that of a Glaswegian scorned. (Refer to last February and the tragic saga of his flying boot.)

Lust: As old fashioned as frankincense and myrrh. In the beginning there was Man, and soon it came to pass that there was Man the Sports Hack and mightily did Man the Sports Hack make drooly, politically incorrect copy about Chris Evert and Gabriela Sabatini and Anna K and any sportswoman with a cracking bosom. Much were these athletes diminished by these diverse slights.

And from the east - or from some non-direction-specific source - there came the wonder of political correctness, or manners, as some people called it. But sport was impervious and it was possible for a commentator to ask Ronaldo "Kylie or Britney?" and for Ronaldo's face to be clouded by a thought and then lit by a grin and for Ronaldo to answer, "Both. Together. Heh, heh." And this was considered ample proof of Ronaldo's fine and nimble wit.

This has been a year when that old louche lust that sport always permitted to fester within locker-room talk grew into something else. The sports star's warped sense of entitlement, the testosterone- and privilege-skewed view of the opposite sex, the feeling of invulnerability. Lust has been replaced by violence, and though, strictly speaking, one has nothing to do with the other, have not the seeds of licence been planted when hacks drool over starlets and the QPR manager speaks of a game lost in terms of birds and picking up ugly ones but not getting to take them home, etc?

It's all at law and the consequences have yet to be determined. We shall discuss not, then, the alleged misdeeds and pending outcomes of the rape trial of Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers or the intentions of the assorted footballers awaiting possible charges in connection with the Grosvenor House Hotel episode, or the world of Jody Morris, charged after an incident with a 20-year-old woman in a lay-by near Wetherby, and we shall just hope that women in sport won't just be victims on rap sheets next year.

And please let there be less of the sexual objectification of the half-full glass of water that is Tim Henman. In fact, let there be less Tim Henman, full stop. This was the year Tim Henman didn't win Wimbledon. Again. He lost to the mighty Sebastien Grosjean in the quarters. He ain't gorgeous and he ain't that talented. He's Tim, nice but dim. Return him to obscurity.

Sloth: Since The Creation and snag-listing thereof, this column has been a stakeholder in David Duval. Once, in Florida, it came to pass that the slender one asked that he and I not stifle our nascent friendship by making him submit to formal interview. Nay - most generously David allowed that he would answer informal inquiries on the journey to and from his car each day. From clubhouse to Chevy - this would be the pathway to enlightenment.

More sensitive than an Established Broadcaster was he. Were he composing a lengthy parable or constructing a complex thought when he reached his car, he would often complete the thought, enter his vehicle and depart at speed. Forsooth, I knew exactly why. The sooner he left the sooner he could be back to continue our sparkling discourse. In this way we proceeded until we had completed a satisfactory investigation of his thoughts, feelings and philosophy. In my heart I sensed he yearned to reciprocate by asking some questions of me in return but didn't know how.

Many score days and major tourneys passed, and lo, it came to be that at Lytham and St Anne's little Davey Duval ascended into heaven as British Open champion. I went to him and beseeched him not to forget the little people and I sought most earnestly and shamelessly to build on the foundations of our fast friendship. I tell you that I gladhanded David Duval like a groupie when he won his first major and thereafter he was struck by a foul distemper and hath lost his lustre. The contagion of sloth and palsy which I have carried this many years has become his.

Gas man, all the same. At Lytham, roguishly, he affected an inability to distinguish me from the fig-leaf-wearing creationist figure Adam. I seized his sleeve and squeezed his hand, whereupon the malignancy which now plagues him may have begun.

We lost touch when I took up my bed and moved house soon after that, but great and sorrowful was our dismay last week when the world rankings came in and Duval had slipped outside the top 200. Get thee out of the dressing gown and slippers, Dave. Abandon ye the GameBoy. Extinguish the telly. Get out there and practise.

Greed: Soccer suddenly woke up last year and realised it was suffering from the side-effects of greed. Clubs pushed to the threshold of administration or beyond. Players' wage demands suddenly denounced as criminal and astronomical. Ah, they paved paradise. Always the same. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Nobody complained when Rupert Murdoch was handing the drug out first, saying, "C'mon what harm would it be, try a little obscene wealth. Maybe you'll like it." And now he has the game where he wants it and the satellite dishes where he needs them. Times will get worse and we'll hear more speeches like this from even more modest talents: "I have always loved football. Of course I also love my family, I have a wonderful life, but football is everything to me and joining Real Madrid is a dream come true. I'd just like to thank everyone for welcoming me. Gracias. Hala Madrid!"

And what of Kilkenny? Last month, by beating the noble men of St Vincent's, Dublin, in extra-time of the Leinster Junior Club Hurling Championship final, Piltown of Kilkenny won the last provincial hurling title available to the county. In a remarkable show of greed, Kilkenny swept the decks in Leinster hurling this year, not leaving a single morsel of glory for anyone else. Surely, if there is to be hope anywhere else, a little charity is called for? Throw us something, for God's sake.

Greed. What a bloated festival of nothingness the Rugby World Cup is. Like it or not, as a game, the festival is an AB1 marketing type of gig and therefore has been elongated and stretched like Paul Gascoigne's thong. It started off on Friday, October 10th, with bells and whistles sounding (the cup, not the thong) and Australia duly filleted Argentina 24-8. That was the most competitive game for weeks, and when it all finished yesterday or whenever, even the doughty AB1 viewership had become petrified into a Pompeii of poses of boredom.

Greed. It's the sub-theme of all sport. From the embarrassment of the Eddie Jordan court case to the shafting of the GPA's videogame deal in exchange for an inferior Aussie model, to the almost unseemly cashing in on football All-Ireland wins.

Heavenly virtues? Two to be proud of, genuinely proud. First, that unknown soldier, the heroic whistleblower who lifted the telephone and spilled the beans that started the avalanche that will yet become the biggest sports scandal ever. THG and Balco and the consequences which have yet to unfold will become the biggest story of 2003 and beyond. For those who just love the show for the sake of the show, that will be a pity. For those who love sport, it will be salvation.

Second, Jonny Wilkinson turning down £1 million from Hello. We're sick of him already, but well done on that.

2004? Let's work on seven heavenly virtues.