Sydney, sport and the Herald have been inextricably linked over 185 years by what could be termed an edgy pragmatism.

The NSW capital is a can-do city, one that gets the job done, as the 2000 Sydney Olympics demonstrated.

Despite dire predictions of choked roads and long queues, Sydney earned the "best games ever'' tag, which had been denied those before (Atlanta) and after (Athens).

As AOC president and IOC vice president, John Coates, says, "Winning the bid to host the 2000 Summer Olympics, together with the Games themselves, saw Sydney at its pragmatic best. It was a take-no-prisoners approach. Anyone who didn't perform was gone by the opening ceremony. There was no thought of obligation to social connection."

(Maybe an obligation to political connection with Labor powerbroker, Graeme Richardson, appointed mayor of the Olympic village).

Sydney also hosted the 1938 Empire Games, with a world war only a year away.

The thoroughbred racing industry said a sprint between two-year-old horses would never work, yet Rosehill's Golden Slipper is now the world's richest race for two-year-olds.

The city's sport is more confrontational than in the other Australian capitals, being the birthplace of rugby league (1908) and the stage of the world heavyweight boxing contest the same year, when Sydney was the only world city willing to take a risk on a black American (Jack Johnson) beating a white one (Tommy Burns).

The Herald has reflected both the city and the sport with that same bold expediency, delivering the news with colour and compact.

The first Herald sports report, in 1831, covered a horse-race meeting and began with the public having "light hearts and heavy pockets" and ended with "heavy hearts and light pockets."

Today, the paper takes pride in its coverage of the serious issues, such as salary cap rorting and drug use, with many a leading sports administrator telling this writer, "The Herald does the big stories really well."

It follows that the relationship between the city's sports bosses and its journalists is more aggressive than in say Melbourne, where the dominant sport of AFL has positioned itself as a de facto civic religion, with everyone worshipping the code.

The Herald both damned the new sport of rugby league when it was founded and then barracked for its administration during the Super League war.

On August 7, 1907, the SMH predicted rugby league would fail, declaring, "the union will fight to the bitter end to uphold the principles of football by amateurs only and in this respect, they will receive the support of the general public."

But by 1913, when commenting on rugby league attracting 20,000 crowds regularly, the Herald admitted, "the growth of this sport is one of the most remarkable in Australia.''

In 1995, when rugby union turned professional, the Herald sympathised with the Kerry Packer-backed rebels.

But, of course, Rupert Murdoch, our publishing opponent, was the common enemy, simultaneously financing both the rugby union establishment and the Super League rebels.

The Herald had the city on its side when it covered the massive march to the Town Hall of people who condemned the decision of the merged News Ltd/ARL administration to boot South Sydney from the competition.

So, if the Herald can be fickle over a 90-year period, so can the citizens of the city on a weekly basis.

Sydney is the city of the one-night stand but Melbourne is the home of the painfully durable marriage. So it is with sport.

Melbourne families remain glued to the one AFL team through generations. Sydney people drift between codes and teams. Typical is author Tom Keneally, whom I call the Vicar of Bray after the English clergyman who changed his religion with every reign from Charles I to George I. Tom followed Wests and then St George and watched the 1963 grand final between these clubs, which produced the famous Gladiators photo, taken by Fairfax's John O'Gready.

He is now a passionate Sea Eagles supporter, has flirted with the Swans and admits to watching the Waratahs.

Some will declare this is simply ecumenicalism, born out of the city's geographic advantages. The sparkling harbour, abundant playing fields and mild climate offer choice, compared to passionate commitment to one code in a chilly city.

The AFL team, the Swans, transplanted themselves to Sydney in 1982, nearly died under private owners but support surged when they made the 1996 grand final. They have won two premierships since, take pride in being Sydney's team and are secure in their home at the SCG.

The club's leaders privately opposed the AFL's decision to start up a new team in Sydney's west, the GWS Giants.

Originally based at Blacktown, the Giants moved to Homebush, with most of the players living locally. Now, however, with their long-term contracts, the Giants have moved across the Gladesville Bridge and bought residences in the eastern suburbs.

It has made a mockery of the AFL billing the clash between the two teams as a "Battle of the Bridges."

The Giants have not been embraced in the west, the same way the new soccer team, the Wanderers, who play and live at Parramatta, is loved.

Sydneysiders have a nose for a rort.

When the racehorse Fine Cotton was substituted for Bold Personality at Brisbane's Eagle Farm in 1984, Sydney punters knew it was a ring-in, recognised the real identity of the runner and fingered the organisers, all before the horse returned to the enclosure.

Sometimes, this in-built cynicism can detour the city's sports followers.

Sydneysiders were slow to embrace State of Origin rugby league, unlike Queenslanders.

But Brisbane has always been more parochial. If the Blues had been as dominant the past decade as the Maroons, State of Origin football would have died north of the Tweed.

This is not to say Sydney doesn't celebrate its champions, particularly when stardom comes quickly.

Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall were teenage Davis Cup heroes.

Sydney-born swimmer Ian Thorpe, at age 14, became the youngest male ever to represent Australia and, with three gold and two silver medals, was the most successful athlete at his home Olympics.

Balmain-born Dawn Fraser, voted the greatest female Olympian ever, won three successive gold medals in the 100 metres.

Kay Cottee was on the front page in 1983 when she became the first around-the-world, non stop, woman sailor.

Hurstville-born Jack Brabham won the Formula One driver's world championship three times and was the only driver to win in a car of his own construction.

Sydney's magnificent golf courses include the Australian Golf Club, which hosted the inaugural Australian Open in 1904, and 30 years later, Royal Sydney produced a monumental upset when local pro, Bill Bolger, beat the world's best golfer, Gene Sarazen.

The city can also celebrate, following Australia's longest, most unforgettable, sporting minute in September, 2000, when Cathy Freeman won the Olympic 400-metre title.

Similarly, the 2003 Rugby World Cup, centred on Sydney, set stellar standards for organisation and partying.

And the night at Homebush when Australia qualified for the 2006 soccer World Cup, defeating Uruguay in a penalty shoot-out, there were scenes of communal kissing and hugging in the corporate boxes.

Sydney businessman John Singleton quipped, "It was like being in a brothel with everyone still with their clothes on."

When the first officially recognised English cricket team toured – three years after the first Herald – the standard of the local game was such that the tourists played against teams of 15 to 22 men.

Yorkshireman Roger Iddison said, "Doan't think mooch of their play but they're a wonderful lot o' drinkin' men."

But there was little camaraderie during the 1932-33 Bodyline series, with Sydney staging the first test, when local hero Don Bradman was absent owing to ill health.

Australia won the second test in Melbourne, with Bradman making 103 in the second innings and leg-spinner Bill O'Reilly, who later wrote for the Herald, taking five wickets in each innings.

England's ace Bodyline bowler, Harold Larwood, scored an aggressive 98 in the final test in Sydney and was given a resounding ovation by a capacity crowd, who did not blame him for his captain's tactics.

Ostracised by the English establishment, Larwood returned to live in Sydney.

The Australian authorities were slow to adopt limited overs cricket and it took billionaire Sydneysider, Kerry Packer, to establish World Series Cricket in 1977. Fifty thousand people streamed through the SCG gates to see Ian Chappell's team play Clive Lloyd's West Indians in a day-night game.

Packer, like many a Sydneysider, loved his cricket but he loved money more.

His Nine TV network subsequently won the broadcasting rights to cricket and his feud with the Australian Cricket Board ended.

In another 15 years, when the Herald will celebrate its 200th birthday, the work of the sports journalist will mainly be read on-line.

The trend to soap opera stories, such as footballers being arrested and jockeys caught gambling, will continue but the Herald's commitment to the serious issues will endure.

Herald sports journalists, now connected via sophisticated technology, will continue to pool information, presenting the news in colour and with candour, taking pride in the praise of "doing the big stories really well."

Roy Masters was a first grade rugby league coach for 10 years. He joined the Herald in 1988.