Ten moments to forget in 2009

Was it Newcastle's relegation or Tiger Woods' problems? Here are the ten moments to forget in 2009.

1 NEWCASTLE RELEGATED: Newcastle's thoroughly dismal season on and off the pitch petered out in the most pathetic fashion possible, as a Damien Duff own goal saw them lose a final-day decider 1-0 at Aston Villa and go down.

2 CRASH-GATE: Flavio Briatore's Renault Formula One team were found guilty of ordering driver Nelson Piquet Jr to deliberately crash in order to help a team-mate. Briatore was banned for life while his team got a suspended sentence.

3 SAFINA SLUMP: The pitiful strength in depth of women's tennis was best encapsulated on Wimbledon semi-final day when world number one Dinara Safina managed to win a solitary game against Venus Williams in a 6-1 6-0 rout.

4 TIGER CRASH: After a year spent battling back from injury, Tiger Woods made headlines for the wrong reasons after crashing his car outside his home. The subsequent media storm forced the world's best player to ground.

5 ENGLAND BOWLED OUT: Retaining the Ashes seemed a pipe dream in February when England were bowled out for just 51 - their third all-time lowest Test score - by the West Indies in the first Test in Kingston.

6 VALUEV FIGHT OFF: Boxing's ailing heavyweight division suffered another setback when Ruslan Chagaev failed a blood test on the eve of his projected WBA title fight with Nikolai Valuev in Helsinki, forcing the fight off.

7 YELENA ISINBAYEVA: The Russian pole-vault legend was expected to set the Berlin World Championships alight. Instead she failed to register a single successful vault and exited without a medal in last place.

8 BLOOD-GATE: Harlequins were found guilty of deliberately contriving an injury to Tom Williams in order to get a recognised penalty kicker back on the field. Both Williams and Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards were banned.

9 ANDRE AGASSI: Instead of settling into comfortable retirement, Andre Agassi chose to publish a salacious book in which he tarnished his legacy by claiming to "hate" the game, and admitting to the use of crystal meth.

10 RAMZI STRIPPED: Rashid Ramzi, who won the men's 1500m at the Beijing Olympics under the flag of Bahrain, became the highest profile athlete to be stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for blood-boosting drug Cera.