Football
County cricket needs Bazball
It’s freezing cold and everywhere is flooded, so it must be the start of the county cricket season. Surrey, last…
Surprise package: Tackle!, by Jilly Cooper, reviewed
Rupert Campbell-Black (‘still Nirvana to most women’) decides to buy a football club – to the amazement of Rutshire, and no doubt Cooper’s devoted readers
How sport helped shape the British character
David Horspool connects different sports to our historical experience: cricket with class, golf with property rights, tennis with female emancipation and boxing with ethnicity
Surprisingly addictive and heartwarming: Netflix’s Beckham reviewed
If you’re not remotely interested in football or celebrity, I recommend Netflix’s four-part documentary series Beckham. Yes, I know it’s…
A tribute to Alf Ramsey, football’s forgotten hero
England’s 1966 World Cup triumph owed much to the team’s dedicated manager, loved by his players but monstrously treated by those in charge of the FA
What the future holds for women’s football
Well, that’s the end of that. Football, like an unrepentant runaway, stubbornly refuses to come home. Spain, deservedly probably, edged…
Real football fans watch non-League football
How to watch real football
Am I allowed to make fun of women’s football?
I’m loath to write about the current Fifa World Cup because criticising women’s football is textbook ‘misogyny’ – at least,…
Much of the mysteriousness is inadvertent: ITV’s The Reunion reviewed
The Reunion opened in 1997 with some young people being carefree: a fact they obligingly signalled by zipping around the…
What does a supercomputer say about QPR’s chances?
The football season gets under way again on Saturday – or at least it does if your team isn’t in…
The Premier League’s sleeping pill problem
Football’s sleeping pill problem
Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players
Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players
Gruesome British folk sports – from cheese-rolling to Hare Pie Scramble
Harry Pearson’s tour of village games over the centuries even includes a Georgian football match where an Englishman’s severed head was used as the ball
Is Uefa just useless – or is it worse than that?
It’s not clear how many readers of this journal will be affected, but anyone planning a stag weekend in Prague…
TV dramas like Welcome to Wrexham are spoiling sport
The blurred lines between sport and entertainment
Was it murder?
In a beautifully told novel, O’Callaghan focuses on the mysterious death of the footballer Matthias Sindelar in 1939 – possibly as a result of defying Hitler
Rest in peace, Pelé, the undisputed King of football
When Lionel Messi won the World Cup for Argentina earlier this month, it not only filled the last hole in…
In defence of the One Love armband
Wales’ football manager Rob Page was clear about why his team’s captain Gareth Bale would wear the ‘One Love’ armband…