For days in the build up to Easter, we had been bombarded, but hardly excited, by previews of the BBC's exclusive double-bill of the Varsity Boat Race and the Davis Cup.

On paper it titillated the anticipatory nerves as much as the now normal diet of synchronised swimming from Saigon or kite flying contests from Karachi. The weekend definitely had the look of love-30 about it.

This judgement was spot on after the First turgid offering, the annual procession from Putney to Mortlake by 16 muscular men and two midgets in slivers of wood the width of a vaulting pole.

First we endured hours of a "what they ate for breakfast and what coloured socks they wore," preview, interspersed by earnest recollections and forecasting by excitable men in silly caps and anoraks covering Gucci suits.

Then, at last we were off and predictably enough, first out of the gate won.

There were memorable moments, however, but after the race. First we had an exciting wet T-shirt competition when the diminutive Cambridge cox struggled from the Thames after the traditional ducking.

And it lasted long enough for the director to cut to another shot as Miss Sharif, shirt clinging as tightly as she had gripped the tiller, had a long walk back after her colleagues - most more powerfully built than Lennox Lewis - had almost thrown her on to the Surrey bank opposite.

Next we saw a procession of these muscle men hopelessly failing to remove the cork from the celebratory champagne.

It doesn't auger well for the future of industry, diplomacy and finance in this country if the undergraduates of today can't uncork the champers, although a subsequent inquiry might well reveal that the thrifty Scots running the race sponsors, Aberdeen Asset Management, chose to use a dummy bottle.

It was certainly love-15, but happily there were more bubbles at the NEC and the last two days of the Davis Cup saw the BBC, the British team and the fans at their very best.

Such a gripping finale was bound to inspire and the support generated by the 9,000-plus crowd was certainly worth a set or two and would have helped win Euro 2000 and an Ashes series in other arenas.

Painted faces, union jack hats and flags gave it a Last Night of the Proms atmosphere and while what most of us feared as the inevitable eventually transpired, it was a great event for sport and television.

The partisan crowd was impeccably behaved, especially as it contrasted so dramatically with the middle-aged, middle-class corporate domination Wimbledon's feature courts.

At the NEC everyone squealed, shouted, roared and cheered and yet there was a pin-dropping silence as the service ball was tossed in the air.

In the end it was 40-15 to the Beeb and I wished that I had video taped the tennis as I did the Boat Race.

Oops! Given the game way, but I do recommend you try it next year. As the flag drops push picture search and the whole race takes less than two minutes.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.