I can't recall exactly what tickets to the local Olympics cost - but I do know I ended up with a massive credit card debt, which built up as Sydney 2000 approached.

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That forced me to think about other ways to get tickets since I couldn't afford to keep spending at that rate. The fool who was one of my bosses then had neglected to ask me if I was interested in writing about it so never applied for a pass on my behalf. In those days, a very limited number of journalists writing about sport did not have penises.

And apparently, in those days, you needed a magic wand to write about the Olympic carnival. I did not have that wand and I did not have a boss who recognised that journalistic skills are more or less transferable across subject matter.

I ended up doing many ridiculous tasks to get in to see the greatest show of all time. Sleeping on the streets in queues. Entering pointless ballots. Calling radio stations. Competitions of all kinds. Anything. I had a thing for the rings (and still do, to this day).

My best get? Tickets to see Venus and Serena Williams in the first round of the women's doubles, won through an energy company we used. Mind-blowing. They were thundering, tiptoeing, dancing across the court. The umpire was a boss. We were too noisy, too rambunctious. But most of us in the audience were just enthusiastic spectators who had never seen tennis at this level before. And the Williams sisters flogged their Canadian counterparts. They went on to win the gold. Of course they did.

Which brings me to the present day. I will watch Wimbledon until my eyelids droop. And I watched parts of the unedifying match between Serena Williams and Maya Joint.

Unedifying not because the tennis was bad.........

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