Sport
The joy of a day spent bagging almost no birds
The highlight of my country calendar is when I’m lucky enough to be invited to what even the host describes…
Letters: How to squash a Speaker
No special protection Sir: Rod Liddle’s joke that the election might be held on a date when Muslims cannot vote,…
Labour thinks that its trump card is Trump
On Wednesday morning, I was hoisted into the air of Whitehall on a cherry-picker. A century ago the proto-Cenotaph appeared…
Seven things we’ve learned from the rugby World Cup
New Zealanders can teach the world a lot about sportsmanship. Steve Hansen after last Saturday’s All Blacks defeat by England…
It’s not just hooligans – hipsters also love a football shirt
When I was young, from about the age of nine to 13, I went through what my parents recall with…
Are childhood vaccination rates dropping?
Who speaks what The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, included a little Punjabi in his speech to the Tory conference. How many…
How many people have swum the Channel?
Journey’s end Holidaymakers are being flown home after travel company Thomas Cook failed. The idea might have horrified the company’s…
Bring out the biltong for Labuschagne, an Ashes hero
Funny, the things cricketers put on their bats. England’s Jos Buttler has ‘Fuck it’ written at the top of his…
Why nail-biting sports matches are good for mental health
Why do we need tie-breaks and photo finishes? If competitors have been nip-and-tuck all the way, why can’t they just…
I admit it: I enjoyed the Women’s World Cup
I was asked on to the BBC Today programme — my old manor — last week to talk about the…
Why croquet beats cricket
People say cricket is the quintessential English game. Those people are wrong. Cricket may have a longer pedigree, but it’s…
Sports journalism in Britain is being attacked by an American predator
Forty years ago the football transfer market went crazy: the British record was broken four times in 1979, more than…
Sunday night on the Beeb was an orgy of virtue-signalling and third-rate sport
After its new costume drama You Go, Girl! (Sundays) about how amazing, empowered and better-than-men women are, especially if they…
The joy of jousting
Emperor Maximilian I liked to say he invented the joust of the exploding shields. When a knight charged and his…
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, master of the seas and model Englishman
Something very odd happened on the Today programme the other morning. Amid the mountains of bombast that usually fill the…
I watched Jadon Sancho grow up. That’s why I know he’s Britain’s next footballing megastar
How much is Jadon Sancho worth? Fifty million? A hundred million? As the speculation mounts, the numbers keep growing. Jadon…
Meet Chris Gayle, the coolest man in sport
It can’t be a coincidence that two of the coolest sportsmen on the planet are from the same place, Jamaica.…
The balletic, bum-baring rituals of sumo
An early morning in late November in the peaceful glades that surround an ancient temple complex. A Shinto priest in…
A short history of ice skating
In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…
Farewell to cricket as the archetypal English game
At the beginning of August this year, the England test team played what is supposed to have been the 1,000th…
The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it
Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I…
Twenty20 is making cricket great again
Blame it on a marketing survey. In 2001, the England and Wales Cricket Board commissioned the biggest piece of market…
Two perfect kicks from Johnny Sexton destroyed England’s rugby’s dream
Which would you least like to see coming towards you? An Uber driverless car, Ant McPartlin in his black Mini…
Toby Young: I’ve been unmanned by a tennis brute in bright pink
As regular readers will know, Caroline has developed a fanatical interest in tennis and is currently captain of the ladies…
The straight dope
It’s not easy to get hold of Ángel Hernández, the legendary Mexican chemist who for a decade provided illicit performance-enhancing…
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