Sport

The exquisite vanity of the male sports writer

8 February 2025 9:00 am

A good place to catch the highbrow sports journalist in action is the ‘Pseuds Corner’ column of PrivateEye, where he…

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 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…

Luke Littler’s bland entourage

11 January 2025 9:00 am

Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler, born two weeks after the first iPhone was unveiled, stormed the Professional Darts Corporation world championships…

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…

Who says Test cricket is boring?

30 November 2024 9:00 am

Under a dark sapphire sky, tearing across grass as green as a lick of new paint, Mitchell Starc raced in…

The towering talent of Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii

16 November 2024 9:00 am

When it comes to dishing out God’s gifts, you feel the Almighty could be a little more even-handed. Take Joseph-Aukuso…

I listened to a solid week of Woman’s Hour…

16 November 2024 9:00 am

I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and…

I hope Mike Tyson teaches Jake Paul a lesson

15 November 2024 4:30 pm

Tedious narcissist blowhard Jake Paul will fight Mike Tyson on Saturday in a meaningless freakshow in Texas that will likely…

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…

The hypnotic competitiveness of Sir Ben Ainslie

19 October 2024 9:00 am

Sailing’s very own ubermensch Sir Ben Ainslie has every right to be considered the world’s most competitive bloke. Those who…

Meet England’s octogenarian matador

19 October 2024 9:00 am

It’s a sunny October morning at a bull-breeding ranch north of Seville, and 82-year-old Frank Evans is preparing to step…

The ladies who punch

12 October 2024 9:00 am

Double jab, right, hook body, duck, right… Right, left, right, upper, four hooks… Ten straight punches… And ten more… Twenty…

At Las Vegas’s Sphere I saw the future of live arts

12 October 2024 9:00 am

Does Elon Musk have a good eye for the aesthetic? Earlier this month, the Tesla magnate took a break from…

Sorry, but you’ve got to love the Springboks

5 October 2024 9:00 am

There may still be some poor benighted souls who regard the Springboks as the bane of rugby union. If you…

Why play the Saudi anthem before an all-British boxing match?

28 September 2024 9:00 am

For only the second time in my life, I went to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last weekend. At least,…

It may be too late to save trail hunting

28 September 2024 9:00 am

There’s a grumble, often repeated among country folk, that ‘hunting people got hunting banned’. What they mean (I think) is…

The art inspired by the 1924 Paris Olympics was a very mixed bag

28 September 2024 9:00 am

George Orwell took a dim view of competitive sport; he found the idea that ‘running, jumping and kicking a ball…

Why women’s golf is better than men’s

21 September 2024 9:00 am

In the exhilarating event of Somerset managing to sneak past Surrey and being on their way to claim their first…

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…

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…

Will there ever be another cricket captain like Richie Benaud?

31 August 2024 9:00 am

The thrilling fourth Test of 1961 at Old Trafford showed Benaud at his enigmatic best, in sharp contrast to his English counterpart, the uninspiring Peter May

The simple beauty of the Hundred

24 August 2024 9:00 am

Time to come clean: I really like the Hundred. This is the sort of view that normally makes people look…