Sport
Grand disillusion
There is nothing in world sport, ‘nothing in the history of the human race’, Ramachandra Guha modestly reckons, that can…
Mind your language
‘Try the sports pages,’ said my husband, stirring in his armchair. I was looking for examples of fortuitousused as though…
Rugby must try harder
Remember those lazy, hazy, crazy days of last year’s rugby World Cup, when as perfect a performance by England as…
Farewell to four of the finest
So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months…
Letters
Cancelled procedures Sir: Your leader (‘A lockdown too far’, 7 November) suggests that the Prime Minister should have shown ‘leadership’…
Sit back and enjoy the spectacle ahead
‘At least there’s sport,’ said the woman in the supermarket queue. True enough, and in a welcome sop to an…
Singing the blues
A second lockdown won’t cause me much suffering. I don’t have a shop selling ‘non-essential’ goods (e.g. books) that will…
Thanks for nothing, Pickford
You might hate the Premier League for its determination to suck all the money out of football, but at least…
Football without the crowds is a winner
The Liverpool defence might have decided in a rare show of togetherness to demonstrate what the word ‘appalling’ means, and…
Own goal
BBC sports coverage is becoming unwatchable
In praise of today’s young footballers
You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…
Tennis racket
How grunting helps players win
Test of character
You are, shall we say, a famous commentator, one of a tiny elite in the British media. You are paid…
The ugly side of the beautiful game
So all that sound and fury about Manchester City’s sins signified precisely nothing. Well, a €10 million fine isn’t nothing,…
Cricket balls
The Prime Minister recently blamed the delay in the resumption of amateur cricket on the ball itself, calling it ‘a…
Hats off to Liverpool
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
The turf
Horse racing, it turns out, wasn’t the first sport back in post-lockdown action: that distinction went to pigeon racing when…
Wrestling with ideas
One of the delights of going to stay with my grandparents in the 1970s was that my grandmother was a…
Anyone for a self-isolation Olympics?
In Mr Alton’s absence, I thought readers might want a column about sport. The problem is that I’m largely indifferent…
Knuckling down
Why do we box?
Testing times
Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might…
Race relations
Some years ago I was invited to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone courtesy of a watch manufacturer. As freebies…
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…
