Football

Rugby must try harder

5 December 2020 9:00 am

Remember those lazy, hazy, crazy days of last year’s rugby World Cup, when as perfect a performance by England as…

Cheering for Jürgen Klopp: Liverpool FC’s manager can do no wrong

21 November 2020 9:00 am

As his biographer, I feel obliged to quote John Updike’s wise sayings — among them the first rule in his…

Farewell to Graham Cowdrey, cricket’s king of the dressing room

21 November 2020 9:00 am

So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months…

What’s the difference between ‘gifting’ and ‘giving’?

14 November 2020 9:00 am

Boris Johnson, the Telegraphsuggested last week, is understood to have a personal interest in rewilding, ‘recently gifting his father beavers…

The joy of red wine

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Everything is happening so fast. First we were put under a night curfew. A few days later M. Macron announced…

Sporting spectacles to look forward to in lockdown

7 November 2020 9:00 am

‘At least there’s sport,’ said the woman in the supermarket queue. True enough, and in a welcome sop to an…

What I’ll miss most in Lockdown II

7 November 2020 9:00 am

A second lockdown won’t cause me much suffering. I don’t have a shop selling ‘non-essential’ goods (e.g. books) that will…

Thanks for nothing, Jordan Pickford

24 October 2020 9:00 am

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

10 October 2020 9:00 am

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

26 September 2020 9:00 am

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

12 September 2020 9:00 am

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

29 August 2020 9:00 am

Crowds, Covid and sport: could it get any crazier? I don’t mind about golf: no idiots yelling ‘Get in the…

Letters: What cycle helmets can tell us about face masks

1 August 2020 9:00 am

Masking the truth Sir: Matthew Parris is right to laud the importance of embracing the scientific method (‘Why should opinion…

Will masks mean the end of smiling at strangers?

25 July 2020 9:00 am

I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This…

Why isn’t the government learning the lessons of ‘red wall’ towns?

18 July 2020 9:00 am

A rare illness has broken out in Westminster. Last week a case of what was known before Brexit as ‘consensus’…

Was there ever any transparency in football?

18 July 2020 9:00 am

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

4 July 2020 9:00 am

Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…

Letters: Police must focus on deterring crime, not responding to it

4 July 2020 9:00 am

Deterring crime Sir: Rod Liddle is right to highlight the politicisation of the police as a source of their inadequacies,…

The National Theatre’s live-streaming policy is bizarre

16 May 2020 9:00 am

The National’s bizarre livestreaming service continues. On 7 May, for one week only, it released a modern-dress version of Antony…

Billy the kid, football’s star of the future

14 March 2020 9:00 am

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?

29 February 2020 9:00 am

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

15 February 2020 9:00 am

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

1 February 2020 9:00 am

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

18 January 2020 9:00 am

Anyone still vaguely tempted to subscribe to that lazy and stupid cliché about footballers just being overpaid idiots should have…

England’s rugby team are embarrassingly sore losers

16 November 2019 9:00 am

Sports events come and go, but good manners, as William of Wykeham might have put it, last for ever. Or…