There’s a full programme of midweek Premier League fixtures this week, every match screened live on BT Sport. Last night’s away wins for Leeds United (at Newcastle) and Arsenal (at Southampton) occupied nearly four hours of our time, but they were the results we wanted. We were happy too about the away wins for West… Continue reading English Managers in the Premier League
The town of Crawley, in West Sussex, has been in the news over the last few days. Their local football club, Crawley Town FC, hosted Leeds United in the FA Cup Third Round yesterday and won comfortably, 3-0. Leeds are three divisions and 62 league places above yesterday’s opponents, but it didn’t look that way,… Continue reading Word of the week: Crawley
Last Sunday night Lewis Hamilton won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award for the second time, a deserved winner after his record-breaking season in Formula 1. The Sports Personality of the Year (or SPOTY, as I shall call it from now on) has been awarded annually since 1954, when athlete Christopher Chataway was the first winner. The first SPOTY… Continue reading SPOTY research
Yesterday, in the All-Ireland Hurling Final, Limerick beat Waterford comfortably to win their second title in three years. It was the first time in its history that the final has been played in December. It was also the first time that these two counties, from the province of Munster, had met in the final. Waterford last won… Continue reading Word of the week: Waterford
Usually at this stage of the sporting season my attention is focussed on just one of the teams I favour: Leeds United, who have returned to the top division of English football after 16 seasons in lower divisions. The All-Ireland finals in Gaelic sports (hurling and Gaelic football) are usually in September. Even when there… Continue reading Kilkenny, Leeds, Dublin (2020)
On this date in 1972 US athlete Dave Wottle won the 800m final at the Munich Olympics. I remember it well. It was the first Olympic year when I knew what was happening. I had been looking forward to the athletics events all summer but we missed some of them. We were on holiday in… Continue reading Olympic memories: Munich 1972, Wottle with the throttle
Last night Bayern Munich beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final to win the trophy for the sixth time. As I wrote on the eve of the match, here, it was only the second time that a German team had taken on a French team in the final, and once again it was the… Continue reading Champions League finals and first-time losers
Tomorrow night, Sunday 23 August, many weeks later than usual, the final of the Champions League takes place. Bayern Munich will take on Paris Saint-German in Portugal for Europe’s premier club trophy. It will be the second time that a German team has played a French team in the final. The last time was in… Continue reading Champions League finals and teams from Spain, England and Italy (“The Big Three”)
Live sport has been back on our TV screens for many weeks now. Before that, for over two months at the height of lockdown here in the UK, there was no top-level sporting action available. I even cancelled my subscription sports channels, a rare display of proactive behaviour, as I noted in this piece in March.… Continue reading Word of the week: Ronnie!
If things had gone to plan (and that phrase must have been uttered billions of times in the last five months) we would now be enjoying the Summer Olympics from Tokyo. Like most sporting events in this year of COVID-19 it has been postponed, in this case to July and August 2021. In place of… Continue reading Olympic memories: London 2012 and London 1948, the closest any of my family has come to taking part
