Sport on the Internet

END-OF-year reviews in print and the traditional print media are flavour of the season - escaping them is not always easy. The Web, with its massive storage capacity, can more than match double-page magazine spreads or hour-long television compilations for depth of coverage. However, its interactive nature means that you won't be bombarded with unwanted material when you log on, but will have to search out the material you want to see. And sometimes it takes a bit of unearthing.

For round-ups of individual sports, the main site covering the sport is a good first port of call. However, if you log on to the Lord's front page, for example, you might get sidetracked by progress (or lack of it) in England's third Test against South Africa in Durban.

If the present is too much to contemplate, you can always go straight to the 1999 Cricket World Cup News Archive pages instead, where news, features, photos and audio are available. For a wider month-by-month coverage of cricket in 1999, head instead to the Lord's Archive, where the domestic and international scenes can be reviewed.

For general sports reviews, the PA NewsCentre 1999 Sport Calendar has metamorphosed from a site for looking ahead for fixtures into one for looking back at results and events. Month by month, and day by day, it recounts the year in a number of sports. As well as words, there is a monthly photo gallery dating back to 13 January with Swansea's squad celebrating their 1-0 victory against West Ham in a 1999 FA Cup third-round replay.

CompuServe provides content only for those who pay a monthly subscription, but in its sports channel it is currently flagging attractive and comprehensive season reviews of the 1999 Formula One season with full race details, reports and photographs, and a similar package looking back at the rugby World Cup. A pull-down menu system leads to further retrospectives in a variety of competitions and leagues covering football, golf, tennis, cricket, rugby, snooker, boxing and rowing.

Virgin Net no longer charges a subscription, but it still provides original content. On its portal, the archive for 1999 is in the features section of the sports channel. It is arranged alphabetically by sport, from athletics to tennis. A total of 73 features, with tennis and boxing being well catered for, are on site.

Football gets most coverage, with articles from early in the year such as "Ten mistakes Glenn Hoddle has made in his present life" to recent events such as Michael Owen's teenage years coming to an end this month in an article that ponders "Man-size problems".

Most of the features come complete with hyperlinks to relevant material elsewhere on the Web. The Virgin Guide to Hanover's end-of-season tennis world championship event, for instance, contains pen-portraits of the leading men and what the year has held for them, but it also links to external sites. The Tim Henman entry, for example, leads to the home page of his official fan club.

Site Addresses

Lord's Home Of Cricket

http://www.lords.org/

1999 Cricket World Cup News Archive http://www.lords.org/worldcup/archive/index.html

Lord's Archive

http://www.lords.org/ecb/archive/index.html

PA Sports Calendar 1999

http://www.pa.press.net/sport/calendar/main.html

CompuServe

http://www.compuserve.co.uk/channels/

Virgin Net Sport

http://www.virgin.net/sport/