Will the Olympics ever be politics-free?
Despite Baron Coubertin’s ideals, nationalistic friction at the Paris Games in 1924 had already prompted a Times headline: ‘Olympics doomed’
Pitches in the boardroom: football’s future assured
This is a story of resurrection. A mere three decades ago, club football in England was a professional game largely…
Two legal big hitters consider the appropriate distribution of governmental power in Britain
Sir Stephen Sedley read English at Cambridge and Lord Dyson Classics at Oxford. Both switched to law and achieved high…
The modern celebrity silk: Geoffrey Robertson ticks all the boxes
What makes a barrister famous? At one time, many of the best advocates were also prominent politicians, whose day job…
Emil Zátopek: a legend from athletics’ golden age of innocence
The story of the Czechoslovak runner Emil Zátopek is a tale from athletics’ age of innocence. Without the aid of…
Trials of the century: sex, sodomy, espionage, theft and fraud
Jeremy Hutchinson was the doyen of the criminal bar in the 1960s and 1970s. No Old Bailey hack or parvenu…
How did English football get so ugly?
Bill Shankly, the manager of Liverpool FC in the club’s halcyon days of the1960s and 1970s, once said: ‘Football isn’t…
For Roger Bannister, the four-minute mile was just the start
The title of this reflective and readable memoir refers to the author’s lifetime interests in sport and medicine — tracks…
The vengeance of Alex Ferguson
For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager,…
What makes someone the fastest man on earth?
What makes someone the fastest man on earth? The current tenant of the informal title held by such sporting icons…
