IT HAS been a memorable sporting year and I feel exhausted even though I haven’t done anything except watch all the action from my own dugout - the comfy couch.

As we await the start of the next football season, we can look back on so many glorious events - World Cup, Wimbledon, The Open Golf Championship at Hoylake, British Grand Prix, and the stunning Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

There are some events, however, closer to home that also reveal what a nation of good sports we are.

One fine example is the Wirral Race For Life which has been backed by the Globe since 2006 as its official newspaper.

The photos of the day, where 3,000 women raised £160,000, brought a huge smile to so many faces.

They showed how people – individually and collectively - can promote awareness of cancer and raise money for research at the same time.

My own Inferno special medal goes to Bernie Bucket who has beaten cancer before - but now it’s back.

Bernie, with her husband Keith, and some wonderful volunteers, has raised so much money by selling flowers at such events. Team BB are real heroes.

Bernie couldn’t take part in this year’s race as she starts chemotherapy this week. Bernie - you are pure gold.

THE Inferno attended the wrap party for Jimmy McGovern’s BBC series Moving On.

And there was a special guest in the form of Hayley Mills – of the great Mills acting dynasty.

Colin McKeown, producer of LA productions (nice title, la), filmed her in Hamilton Square - for this self-contained explosive episode which will go out in the Autumn. Haley, daughter of the late great Sir John Mills, told the assembled guests that she had had a wonderful time.

And she revealed that she had thought ‘Superlambanana’ must be a local delicacy. It is now.

Colin and the crew commissioned a Superlambanana cake to celebrate the end of filming.

IN a week where we commemorate the start of World War One, I recall a very moving experience in my journalistic career when I was sent to write about the battlefields of France and Belgium.

While there, I wanted to pay my respects at the grave of double VC hero, Captain Noel Chavasse - medical officer with the 10th (Liverpool Scottish) Regiment.

But in pre-internet days I was unable to exactly locate his grave - except for the fact it was in Brandhoek Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium. My last destination.

On the final day of my week-long emotional sojourn, I resigned myself to simply say a prayer in a foreign field for this adopted Liverpool hero – a “gallant and devoted officer.”

And then… just as I was getting on a coach the biting, bitter cold wind swirled my poppy out of my overcoat lapel and I went after it. It had landed on one of the countless white tombstones and I bent down to retrieve it.

There was an inscription I will never, ever forget: “Captain Noel Chavasse – 1884 -1917.”

POLITICIANS clearly have their own nicknames for parts of the UK. Former PM Gordon Brown called one part of the UK – “Southland.” Translated it means Middle England.

But the latest place to get a name check came from Wirral Council leader Phil Davies, who accused David Cameron of living in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land when he said that there was “no need for difficult cuts to frontline services.”

I thought Cloud-Cuckoo-Land was in Switzerland, but here it refers to Westminster. The phrase actually comes from a play by Aristophanes called “The Birds” (all Greek to me).

Translated, it is about a Mr Hopeful and a Mr Trusting who plan to build a perfect city in the clouds. Sounds like minutes from a council cabinet meeting.

AND finally…Following my article on how image is crucial when it comes to party electioneering, I received a comment on the Globe website from someone who simply said of my own photo gracing this apolitical column - “What a smug face.”

Unlike some politicians, I happily took it on the chin.