Football
Football wants the ‘somewheres’ to get lost
Some years ago, when Millwall played West Ham United, the Millwall fans sang the following song (to the tune of…
AFL and the biased politics of sport
Politics thrives and prospers on power. Power seeps through winning over the masses. Where are the masses in Australia? Watching…
The many, many resting places of St Thomas à Becket
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
Why Juan Villoro is the best football writer you've never heard of
Football, unlike cricket, has for the most part been ill served by its writers. For every Brian Glanville and Ian…
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…
The Royal Ballet is literally losing the plot
If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…
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…
Sport is a fairytale factory – as Leicester City remind us
Leicester City’s triumphs demonstrate once again sport’s capacity to replay archetypal stories
My life in West Ham matches
What consolation in life can Arthur and I find after that defeat at the hands of Manchester United in the…
Stop chasing the PM’s taxes: focus on the bad stuff that really matters
There were moments last week when I was ready to give up journalism and retrain in a less unsavoury profession…
Spectator letters: What might have been for young Boris and Dave
What might have been Sir: Harry Mount points out that Boris Johnson is two years older than David Cameron (Diary,…
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,…
This could be the year that sport starts to die
If sport loses the public’s faith – and it’s starting to – then all its power and glory will fade
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…
2016 will be a vintage year for tech billionaires and jihadis
This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year…
Musical maestros and football managers have more in common than you think
You don’t have to be a follower of Liverpool Football Club, or football at all, to spot the difference. Two…
The Davis Cup will be one final flourish for Andy’s Barmy Army
There’s nothing quite like a sporting celebration, but the lash-up after Britain’s (almost) inevitable victory in the Davis Cup tennis…
Should the first modern Olympic drug cheat get to keep his gold?
A marathon of cheats Russian athletes may be stripped of the medals they won at the 2012 Olympics, but what…
Angela Merkel will survive – but will the soul of post-war Germany?
The migrant crisis is testing the country’s post-war idea of itself
Was BBC1’s Rooney show more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
I've loved football for decades. Now I dread the start of the season
I’ve spent years defending football from middle-class disdain. But I can’t do it any more
Listen: the gaffe from Nicola Sturgeon that everyone missed
It’s not surprising that politicians have such an on-off relationship with the broadcast media. One slip. One casual comment. One…
Patrick Marber’s Red Lion at the Dorfman reviewed: ‘the woman next to me yawned a lot’
For nine years Patrick Marber has grappled with writer’s block (which by some miracle doesn’t affect his screenplay work), but…
Charles Moore’s notes: A warning from Prince Charles’s lost speech
Two beautiful volumes in a cloth-bound case reach me. They are Speeches and Articles by HRH The Prince of Wales…
