Football

A football regulator would be an own goal

26 April 2025 9:00 am

It’s that time of the year again in football when the Championship sweeps all before it: it’s full of joy…

The Premier League is rubbish

12 April 2025 9:00 am

Of the 73,738 benighted souls who pitched up at Old Trafford on Sunday for the Manchester derby – presumably even…

Boxing belongs in the Olympics

29 March 2025 9:00 am

If there is anything more pointless than signing a five-year contract to be Emma Raducanu’s coach, it is the effort…

The real reason for Scotland’s Six Nations defeat

1 March 2025 9:00 am

The confused world of Duhan van der Merwe must seem more confused than usual after last weekend. The Scotland winger…

Colombia is a better place to watch football than Loftus Road

22 February 2025 9:00 am

I’ve just returned from Colombia, where I’ve been visiting my daughter. She’s doing a modern languages degree and has to…

Football doesn’t need a regulator

13 February 2025 1:50 am

Kemi Badenoch has come out against the Football Governance Bill, and not before time. In November 2021, Tracey Crouch, the…

Can anyone stop France in the Six Nations?

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Winter’s almost done and spring’s on the way. We can tell because the Six Nations is about to muscle into…

The secret of Gary Lineker’s success

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The Leicester-born striker was neither exceptionally skilful nor assiduous; but he worked out how to score goals, and later excel in broadcasting, through intelligence and calm resilience

The unnecessary complexity of the World Test Championship

18 January 2025 9:00 am

Have you booked your tickets for the World Test Championship yet? Did you even know it’s on? What seemed like…

I’m not the only football-obsessed composer

4 January 2025 9:00 am

I was in Sweden a few weeks ago, where my music was presented in Stockholm in the most recent International…

Could Thomas Tuchel be the one?

4 January 2025 9:00 am

You would have to be living a very sheltered life not to have noticed that the Premier League this season…

The best (and worst) of this year’s sport

14 December 2024 9:00 am

It was quite a year for some of the worst of sport – America’s golfers, already among the richest and…

The BBC vs Gregg Wallace

7 December 2024 9:00 am

The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in…

A father’s love: Childish Literature, by Alejandro Zambra, reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The Chilean writer contributes obliquely to the fledgling genre of fatherhood literature, combining family vignettes with literary criticism and a ‘diary’ addressed to his infant son

Gary Lineker isn’t that bad

17 November 2024 4:30 pm

It’s a crying shame that we will no longer hear the insightful and original opinions of Gary Lineker. No more…

Who would be a goalkeeper?

16 November 2024 9:00 am

There’s a whiff of hauteur in Robert McCrum’s history of the penalty kick – his great-grandfather’s brainchild of 1891, which proved such a momentous change to football

Did I deny my son a shot at the Premier League?

9 November 2024 9:00 am

When my youngest son Charlie was seven he was talent-spotted by a QPR scout who saw him playing football in…

The glaring mismatch in English football

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Your starter for ten: who was the last English manager to win the top flight of English football? Treat yourself…

Will Keir Starmer get me banned from football games?

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Last Saturday, I made the 400-mile round trip to Burnley with my 16-year-old son Charlie to see Queens Park Rangers…

Erik ten Hag cornered himself

29 October 2024 9:50 pm

‘I’ve proven in my career that I will always win,’ Erik ten Hag told the press last month. ‘In the…

Why can’t China play football?

21 September 2024 9:00 am

It would be tough for any country to lose 7-0 in a World Cup qualifier, but when the losing team…

From tragedy to mockery: Munichs, by David Peace, reviewed

14 September 2024 9:00 am

The devastating crash at Munich-Riem airport in 1959 haunts Manchester United fans to this day. Peace defies anyone to read his novel and use ‘Munichs’ as an insult ever again

Mickleover: the real home of cricket

7 September 2024 9:00 am

Readers concerned that the seemingly imperious march of Bazball across the cricket firmament has blotted out the more, er, traditional…

Sven-Goran Eriksson was an England great

27 August 2024 2:58 am

Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has died aged 76, was an unlikely choice for the England job in 2000. He was inexperienced…