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

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)

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”)