Football

Surprise package: Tackle!, by Jilly Cooper, reviewed

16 December 2023 9:00 am

Rupert Campbell-Black (‘still Nirvana to most women’) decides to buy a football club – to the amazement of Rutshire, and no doubt Cooper’s devoted readers

How sport helped shape the British character

2 December 2023 9:00 am

David Horspool connects different sports to our historical experience: cricket with class, golf with property rights, tennis with female emancipation and boxing with ethnicity

Surprisingly addictive and heartwarming: Netflix’s Beckham reviewed

28 October 2023 9:00 am

If you’re not remotely interested in football or celebrity, I recommend Netflix’s four-part documentary series Beckham. Yes, I know it’s…

A tribute to Alf Ramsey, football’s forgotten hero

2 September 2023 9:00 am

England’s 1966 World Cup triumph owed much to the team’s dedicated manager, loved by his players but monstrously treated by those in charge of the FA

Kissing

26 August 2023 9:00 am

Letters

26 August 2023 9:00 am

What the future holds for women’s football

21 August 2023 1:13 am

Well, that’s the end of that. Football, like an unrepentant runaway, stubbornly refuses to come home. Spain, deservedly probably, edged…

Real football fans watch non-League football

19 August 2023 9:00 am

How to watch real football

Magic tricks

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Five short stories with male narrators – including a seahorse and a vampire – revolve around masculinity’s contradictory demands and the wish to belong

Am I allowed to make fun of women’s football?

12 August 2023 9:00 am

I’m loath to write about the current Fifa World Cup because criticising women’s football is textbook ‘misogyny’ – at least,…

Much of the mysteriousness is inadvertent: ITV’s The Reunion reviewed

12 August 2023 9:00 am

The Reunion opened in 1997 with some young people being carefree: a fact they obligingly signalled by zipping around the…

What does a supercomputer say about QPR’s chances?

5 August 2023 9:00 am

The football season gets under way again on Saturday – or at least it does if your team isn’t in…

Letters

5 August 2023 9:00 am

The Premier League’s sleeping pill problem

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Football’s sleeping pill problem

Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players

Gruesome British folk sports – from cheese-rolling to Hare Pie Scramble

3 June 2023 9:00 am

Harry Pearson’s tour of village games over the centuries even includes a Georgian football match where an Englishman’s severed head was used as the ball

Diary

27 May 2023 9:00 am

Is Uefa just useless – or is it worse than that?

27 May 2023 9:00 am

It’s not clear how many readers of this journal will be affected, but anyone planning a stag weekend in Prague…

TV dramas like Welcome to Wrexham are spoiling sport

20 May 2023 9:00 am

The blurred lines between sport and entertainment

Was it murder?

20 May 2023 9:00 am

In a beautifully told novel, O’Callaghan focuses on the mysterious death of the footballer Matthias Sindelar in 1939 – possibly as a result of defying Hitler

Diary

13 May 2023 9:00 am

Letters

13 May 2023 9:00 am

Rest in peace, Pelé, the undisputed King of football

30 December 2022 10:15 am

When Lionel Messi won the World Cup for Argentina earlier this month, it not only filled the last hole in…

In defence of the One Love armband

22 November 2022 1:17 am

Wales’ football manager Rob Page was clear about why his team’s captain Gareth Bale would wear the ‘One Love’ armband…

Football’s problems run far beyond the Qatar World Cup

6 November 2022 11:18 pm

Are there any redeeming features of the Qatar World Cup? Perhaps one: the tournament has a sane and logical format.…