Football
Gareth Bale’s megabucks are not a pretty sight
I must have missed the memo when it became compulsory for major football matches to operate as a marketing opportunity…
English cricket’s new tournament already looks doomed
Difficult to know quite what to make of The Hundred, which has the feel of being knocked up on the…
Alastair Campbell’s mix of football and terrorism makes for an accomplished thriller
Alastair Campbell is a man of many parts. Journalist, spin doctor extraordinaire, diarist and now novelist. For this, his third…
For Putin, the World Cup is not about football but global respect
Authoritarian regimes love grand international sporting events. There’s something about the mass regimentation, the set-piece spectacle, the old-fashioned idea of…
Once you get over its political correctness, Netflix’s Godless is a cracker
Boy came to me the other night in a state of dismay. ‘Dad, I just turned on Match of the…
As West Ham go for dull David Moyes, football badly needs more Pep talks
So West Ham took the least surprising option and sent for David Moyes. Same old same old. I have a…
Death hovers over the scrum
Rugby’s autumn internationals are almost upon us and dark thoughts hover over lovers of the sport. One day soon a…
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
