This Winter Olympics, don’t knock our fearless Fridge Kids
At this time of the year, well-meaning folk of otherwise sound mind start to get very sniffy about the impending…
More Ashes tours like this and long-form cricket will be in trouble
So will the sight of poor Joe Root at Sydney, pale as a ghost and barely able to stand, heroically…
Less women’s sport might sometimes be more
The credit sequence for the tennis flick Battle of the Sexes has this very British warning: ‘Contains occasional scenes of…
Why Ben Stokes should be picked for Perth
And so to a cloudy, chilly Adelaide, more like London in October than Australia in the early days of high…
Let’s give young Ben Foakes a chance to sweep out the Ashes
So the Ashes has finally got over the line, and not a minute too soon. At the time of writing…
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…
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…
All power to the NFL knee protest
The history of sport and political protest in this country would be a slim old volume. It would feature quite…
Why did you do it, Roy?
Poor old Roy Hodgson, why did he take on Crystal Palace? He was having lunch at a Côte in a…
Which way will Lord’s leap?
In the rarefied circles of the sporting establishment a decision will soon be made affecting not just the future of…
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,…
England’s new heroes were real Test Match specials
The weather forecast last Saturday promised 100 per cent likelihood of rain. I like that formulation: it doesn’t leave much…
Cricket needs a top-to-bottom overhaul: here’s how I’d do it
No place for the faint of heart, Headingley, and certainly not for some sketchy Sri Lankan batsmen at the back…
Revealed: the true and unrepeatable secret of Leicester City’s success
A few years ago a motivational speaker brought out a smart little book called Legacy: What The All Blacks Can…
Leicester City are the most brutally efficient winners since 1970s Leeds
It’s always good to see a great con trick in action. Take Boris Johnson: not really the lovable quick-witted scamp…
Well done Danny, but Jordan will come back
Well here’s a thing: we’ve just had the first English bloke to win the Masters. Sure, an Englishman has won…
Reasons to be cheerful about cricket, football and the Grand National
Well the sun is out, the sky is blue, and poor Boris Johnson is taking such a pounding from Matthew…
The noble suffering of Maria Sharapova
The return heavyweight bout between England and Wales lived up to its billing as the most thumping rugby match of…
Two big hitters leave the crease: Brendon McCullum and Hugh McIlvanney
Two great men have just bowed out from their chosen trades and it is bloody sad. The New Zealand cricket…
The angry young bowler who could take the West Indies back to the top
In the north of Antigua, just by the medical school, is a neat little cricket ground. It was a bit…
John Terry’s ‘farewell’ is a load of hypocritical old tosh
Just when you were thinking that the Premier League had become a much nicer place without José Mourinho in it,…
There are three sides to success at Oxford United
In the middle of Oxford is a socking great cinema: once the Ritz, it’s now an Odeon multiplex. Back in…
Every Test match should have a Ben Stokes (or even a Chris Gayle)
On Sunday morning a friend texted: ‘You watching the big bash, or the domestic stuff down in Australia?’ On one…
From the dismal to the delightful: the year in sport
So long, then, to another thrilling year of sport in which the full range of human possibility — from the…
