Football
Football focus
Part canvas, part sandwich board, club kits don’t always work – but their designs can be addictive
Why the England team is so unexciting
During a riveting session at the Cheltenham Literary Festival with sporting brainboxes Mike Brearley and Matthew Syed, discussion touched on…
Why English footballers are so useless
It is late in the evening. You’re in a bar. You’ve had quite a bit to drink but you are…
What has the Premier League ever done for us?
Football’s back, I’m afraid, and, in the imperishable words of David Mitchell, every kick in every game matters to someone,…
Football wants the ‘somewheres’ to get lost
Some years ago, when Millwall played West Ham United, the Millwall fans sang the following song (to the tune of…
AFL and the biased politics of sport
Politics thrives and prospers on power. Power seeps through winning over the masses. Where are the masses in Australia? Watching…
Barometer
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
Why Juan Villoro is the best football writer you’ve never heard of
Football, unlike cricket, has for the most part been ill served by its writers. For every Brian Glanville and Ian…
A blueprint for English cricket
No place for the faint of heart, Headingley, and certainly not for some sketchy Sri Lankan batsmen at the back…
Losing the plot
If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…
The Foxes have little to teach us
A few years ago a motivational speaker brought out a smart little book called Legacy: What The All Blacks Can…
The fairytale factory
Leicester City’s triumphs demonstrate once again sport’s capacity to replay archetypal stories
Low life
What consolation in life can Arthur and I find after that defeat at the hands of Manchester United in the…
Let’s refocus the Panama story on the bad stuff that really matters
There were moments last week when I was ready to give up journalism and retrain in a less unsavoury profession…
Letters
What might have been Sir: Harry Mount points out that Boris Johnson is two years older than David Cameron (Diary,…
Cricket needs the West Indies
In the north of Antigua, just by the medical school, is a neat little cricket ground. It was a bit…
Don’t cry for John Terry
Just when you were thinking that the Premier League had become a much nicer place without José Mourinho in it,…
Game over
If sport loses the public’s faith – and it’s starting to – then all its power and glory will fade
Three sides to our success
In the middle of Oxford is a socking great cinema: once the Ritz, it’s now an Odeon multiplex. Back in…
High life
This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year…
Musical maestros and football managers have more in common than you think
You don’t have to be a follower of Liverpool Football Club, or football at all, to spot the difference. Two…
The Davis Cup will be one final flourish for Andy’s Barmy Army
There’s nothing quite like a sporting celebration, but the lash-up after Britain’s (almost) inevitable victory in the Davis Cup tennis…
Barometer
A marathon of cheats Russian athletes may be stripped of the medals they won at the 2012 Olympics, but what…
Germany’s dark night of the soul
The migrant crisis is testing the country’s post-war idea of itself
Was BBC1’s Rooney hagiography more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
