Rest in peace Shane Warne, one of the great cricketers, and one of the great commentators. Along with a handful of other retired bowlers, like Richie Benaud and Michael Holding, he caused me to watch far more cricket on TV than I would have if certain former England batsmen had been commentating instead. News of… Continue reading Dead at 52, and a list
If you follow European football, or the Premier League here in the UK, you will regularly come across stories about fees and wages. These stories confirm that football finances are very different from the financial realities that most of us deal with. Earlier this month I read a news story about French side PSG which… Continue reading £157m for one player for one year
In December 2020 I posted this piece about the BBC “Sports Personality of the Year” (or SPOTY for short). Here are 20 questions about the award, 10 of which have multiple choice answers. The answers to all of them appear at the end of this Post. The Questions Before Emma Raducanu won it in 2021,… Continue reading 20 questions about “Sports Personality of the Year”
Last month, in this piece, I wrote enthusiastically about playing football again with a bunch of guys who are mostly my age. After a break for Christmas and New Year the Friday night fixtures are back on, but after self-isolating for 10 days with Covid during that time I am even less match-fit than before.… Continue reading Memories of football in Hyde Park
Over the last two weekends, as usual at this time of year, three TV shows have concluded with public votes (by phone, text and online) to determine the winning contestants: “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”, “Strictly Come Dancing” and “Sports Personality of the Year”. For the fourth year running, ITV’s “The X Factor” was not part of… Continue reading Votes For Women
Yesterday evening, for the first time in over a decade, I played a game of football with people my own age. I have been talking for years about getting involved but always made my excuses, and of course for much of the last 20 months the pitches have been closed. In September my son and I watched… Continue reading Back amongst the goals
Most weeks there are news stories about the chronic health problems and deaths of sporting legends. This week we learnt that former England cricket captain Ted Dexter had died, and that former Middlesbrough, Leeds and England footballer Alan Peacock was diagnosed with dementia in 2018. Like Denis Law, who announced his dementia diagnosis earlier this month, he wanted to raise awareness of the issue. I have supported Leeds United since childhood, and the roll call of former… Continue reading Football in the afterlife, and a Leeds United starting XI
Rabona is a word I have been meaning to write about for several months. I had never heard it before March 2021, but it has entered into the vocabulary of football-watchers, taking its place with Panenka. I could try and describe both techniques, but will use a couple of Wikipedia entries instead. As you can read here, “the Rabona is the technique of kicking the football where the kicking leg is crossed behind the… Continue reading Word of the week: Rabona
The Premier League began last weekend. As I’m sure you know, it is the top division in English football. This is the League’s 30th season. If you are under 40, or do not follow football closely, you might not remember its predecessor, Division One of the Football League. None of the current squad members played in that division. If they had, they would be at least 46 now, and the oldest player… Continue reading The 50th Premier League team
The Tokyo Olympics finished yesterday. We had got used to the Olympic Breakfast programme every morning on BBC1, catching up on the overnight action, and we’ll miss it. The show usually involved news of gold medals for Team GB, right up to yesterday morning when Jason Kenny (Keirin, cycling) and Lauren Price (boxing) completed the medal tally to leave GB fourth… Continue reading Word of the week: Sayonara
The Compartments 