Spectator sport
Footballers have made a pig’s ear of Covid rules
It’s the Portuguese piglet you feel really sorry for. The diminutive (ready cooked) porker — a festive delicacy all over…
Why 2021 could be sport’s greatest year yet
The best thing about sport in 2020 was that any happened at all. And how good much of it was.…
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 Graham Cowdrey, cricket’s king of the dressing room
So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months…
Sporting spectacles to look forward to in lockdown
‘At least there’s sport,’ said the woman in the supermarket queue. True enough, and in a welcome sop to an…
Thanks for nothing, Jordan Pickford
You might hate the Premier League for its determination to suck all the money out of football, but at least…
Football is better without the crowds
The Liverpool defence might have decided in a rare show of togetherness to demonstrate what the word ‘appalling’ means, and…
DeChambeau’s the one to watch in the Masters
José Mourinho, it was surprising to read, recently said how relieved he was that the Amazon Prime cameras were out…
Foden and Greenwood’s ingenious Icelandic rendezvous
You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…
Zac Crawley, a cricketing giant
Crowds, Covid and sport: could it get any crazier? I don’t mind about golf: no idiots yelling ‘Get in the…
The absurd self-pity of Stuart Broad
You are, shall we say, a famous commentator, one of a tiny elite in the British media. You are paid…
The magnificence of Carlos Brathwaite
We know about the endlessly jaw-dropping greatness of Ben Stokes (a peerage soon, surely), the furious power of a supercharged…
Was there ever any transparency in football?
So all that sound and fury about Manchester City’s sins signified precisely nothing. Well, a €10 million fine isn’t nothing,…
Klopp’s childlike enthusiasm – and incalculable savviness
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
Billy the kid, football’s star of the future
Sadly it looks as though the 2020 Six Nations may have to go down with an asterisk and an explanation…
Is it time to consign VAR to Room 101?
Thankfully, Tyson Fury is as good at boxing as he is terrible at singing. But he really should pick on…
What the Premier League could learn from ski racers
What we have learned in the past few weeks: 1) Don’t play rugby in a howling gale, even though for…
The Barmy Army showcase the best of English character
Not everyone likes the Six Nations — a recent well-received book on the state of rugby union described it as…
Sport needs more men like Vincent Kompany
Anyone still vaguely tempted to subscribe to that lazy and stupid cliché about footballers just being overpaid idiots should have…
Roger Alton’s highlights from a magical year in sport
We don’t half take a lot for granted. We may look up to the Aussies, kowtow to the Americans and…
Only now are we seeing what an extraordinary figure Bob Willis was
Maybe it’s just an age thing, but the death of Bob Willis has left me — and, I am sure,…
Why Ben Stokes should win Sports Personality of the Year
Oh those lazy, hazy, Stokesy days of summer: how long ago they seem now. When England won the cricket World…
England’s rugby team are embarrassingly sore losers
Sports events come and go, but good manners, as William of Wykeham might have put it, last for ever. Or…
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…
The joy of Japanese-style rugby
Proud son of Wexford he may be, and of doughty farming stock too, but the heart sinks at the prospect…
