Your window to the world of sports. Review on Sportstar

My earliest memories of Sportstar is when I was a kid and was fascinated by the pictures of athletes in the magazine which at that time my cousin used to read.Although I was too young to understand what was written I still was very excited about picking up one and browsing through the pages.I had a big collection of all the centre-spreads and used to paste it all over my room which was very irritating for my parents.Since then I have been a huge fan of Sportstar and my affinity towards it has only grown in all these years.

This weekly is published by the Chennai based Hindu group of publications and to my opinion is the best sports weekly in this country.It is filled with reviews by eminent writers like Rohit Brijnath(My personal favourite), Nirmal Shekhar, Amrit Mathur, Harsha Bhogle and sports legends who turn up as guest columnists like Sunil Gavaskar, Prakash Padukone, Pargat Singh, Gary Nashville and many more.Since the early nineties it has been my one stop guide to whatever is happening in the world of sports.Remember in those days there was no ESPN, no Star Sports, so what an average Indian sports fan got to see was cricket, some grand slam tennis matches(which were ridiculously interrupted to show the evening news), action from the olympics and a football world cup every four years on good ol Doordarshan.Even then they covered sports like Formula1, league football in Europe, NBA, Tour De France and all the grand prix events in Athletics.

The best thing about Sportstar is the substantial approach adopted by the writers.For example if they review a test match they cover it in such detail with full scorecard and pictures of key moments that you get a very good feel of what actually happened there.Same is the case with any other event, be it tennis, hockey, football, athletics, swimming or any other sport. The issue always starts with the cover story of the week which is always a delightful read with insightful inputs into the personalty or event they take up for the week.You read them and get to know why people like Federer, Schumacher, Jordan, Lara, Warne, Sampras, Woods are considered "Legends" .It is then followed up by all the events from the sporting world of the week which are put neatly in sections followed by the reviews from the columnists.At the end of the issue they never forget to give some coverage to local happenings like spots meets in India, Ranji matches etc.So it's not just all hero worship but clear and sincere sports journalism.

The most awaited ones are those where they preview some major sporting events like world cups or olympics, which educate the reader on whom to look out for and the year end specials where they sum up the whole calendar year so that you cath up on anything remarkable you have missed.All in all Sportstar has definitely been my window to the sports world and it is always a pleasure to go through the pages and at the price it comes, it's a real steal.So if you are a real sports fan and have missed some action or want some no-nonsense coverage of any major happening, now you know what to ask for at the news stands.