Spectator sport
Rugby union vs league – or Barbour-clad southerners vs the whippet brigade
Leader in the clubhouse for top rugby try by an Englishman in 2018: Oliver Gildart. Oliver who? Oliver Gildart, only…
The terrible injury toll of modern rugby
Eddie Jones’s sorrows as England’s rugby coach certainly keep coming in big battalions. Now the giant battered No 8 Billy…
Teamwork? It’s not the American way, even in the Ryder cup
For a nation which gave us a brilliant TV show called Band of Brothers, the Americans find it hard to…
Is there a limit to what the human body can do?
Has the world gone mad? There’s Beauden Barrett, the world’s best stand-off, and rugby player of the year seemingly by…
So farewell, Alastair Cook: a wonderful cricketer and exemplary sportsman
I first became aware of Alastair Cook in the Ashes summer of 2005 when he was named the Young Cricketer…
The baby who could transform English cricket
Alice Cook’s impending third child could turn out to be the perfect delivery for England. Already the expectant father Alastair…
Sport will not survive if it keeps being sold to the highest bidder
It’s just too hot and too early to get worked up about football, so the two highlights of the late-summer…
A friendly purr from a fallible Tiger Woods
So in the end it was a fallible Tiger that won all hearts at the Open, not the glowering, red-shirted…
The true winner of this World Cup? Russia
Like most people with any taste, I like the odd vodka, I love Crime and Punishment, I enjoy Turgenev and…
Never mind VAR – this is a fabulous World Cup
Let’s talk about VAR, why don’t we? We love the World Cup though the football is getting bonkers. The scoring…
As our World Cup hopes grow, let’s not fret about the brilliant Belgians
Here’s a question: name some famous Belgians. Well there’s Kevin De Bruyne, Vincent Kompany, and Eden Hazard. And if that’s…
Gareth Bale’s megabucks are not a pretty sight
I must have missed the memo when it became compulsory for major football matches to operate as a marketing opportunity…
Lord’s next week is the place to be
Good for Ed Smith. The new national selector can’t just rock a fine pair of sunglasses, he can make bold…
English cricket’s new tournament already looks doomed
Difficult to know quite what to make of The Hundred, which has the feel of being knocked up on the…
I love this Pep-mania, but don’t forget Klopp
Fittingly, it took a dire performance from a dismal and dreary United against the worst team in the Premier League…
Cricket’s ball-tampering scandal has been nothing but a tearful pantomime
I haven’t seen so many men crying since the end of A Tale of Two Cities at the Scala Cinema…
Two perfect kicks from Johnny Sexton destroyed England’s rugby’s dream
Which would you least like to see coming towards you? An Uber driverless car, Ant McPartlin in his black Mini…
Knighting Bradley Wiggins so early was just asking for trouble
The incomparable Roger Bannister, whose passing marks the end of our links with a vanished age of sporting innocence, could…
Hate the Winter Olympics? Here’s why you’re wrong
Despite the best efforts of this column (and the BBC), too many Brits regard the Winter Olympics with the same…
This Six Nations could be anyone’s – and it couldn’t be more exciting
‘It’s never easy going to Rome,’ observed Anthony Watson after the traditional mauling of a hard-working but outgunned Italian side…
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…
