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
Regular readers of this Blog will know that there are two sports teams that I follow more keenly than any others: Leeds United (English football) and Kilkenny (All-Ireland hurling), known by supporters and non-supporters alike as The Cats. Over the course of 10 seasons, beginning in 2006, Kilkenny won 8 All-Ireland titles, an unprecedented run… Continue reading Kilkenny lose to Cork, just like the old days
Last month, sorting through a large plastic storage box full of cards, invitations, old paperwork and newspapers from significant dates, I found this: It’s a notebook dating back to 1947 containing my father’s handwritten records of his athletics achievements: distances and times in the events he competed in at various meetings all over Ireland. He… Continue reading My family’s 74-year span of athletics times
Over the weekend here in London, there was victory for the England international team and an Italian defeat in a final. Unfortunately for all of us who wanted England to win the rescheduled Euro 2020 football tournament, the Italian defeat came in a tennis final (Matteo Berrettini lost to Novak Djokovic in the men’s singles… Continue reading The weekend’s sport: an Italian defeat in a final, an England win, and my choice of beer
If you are old enough, and into your football, you will remember the 1990 World Cup, hosted by Italy. The first World Cup I was old enough to follow was Mexico 1970, still the best football tournament I can remember. 20 years later “Italia Noventa” came close to matching it. There was so much to… Continue reading The final we wanted, exactly 31 years later
A sporting Saturday. You may recall “Harry and the Hendersons”, a 1987 film released here in the UK as “Bigfoot and the Hendersons”. I recall both titles but never saw the film or its TV spin-off. Last night England beat Ukraine in the quarter-final of the European Football Championship. The competition was due to take… Continue reading Henderson and the Harrys
The English football season is almost over. There are play-off finals in the coming week to determine the final promotion places in the second, third and fourth tiers of the professional game. In the top division, the Premier League, last Sunday’s final round of fixtures settled the few remaining issues, mainly related to European qualification. The relegation places had been confirmed with three matches to spare, and Manchester City were crowned… Continue reading All the things that didn’t matter, last season
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 Compartments 