There is always compromise, always managed space – but banning exercise in this country would be a disasterYou can take our pubs and our shopping centres. You can wall us up behind the front door with Netflix and newsagent wine. But don’t take away our glimpse of the sky, that proscribed 30 minutes of brain-soothing, body-stretching exercise.Judging by the experiences of Spain, Italy and France, this is the next stage for the UK. Quite how long we can put off a complete ban on personal exercise is open to question. But a concerted effort is required here because, with the weather this week forecast to reach as a high as 23C, this really could be a tipping point. Related: English...
It is 100 years since Britain’s sports grounds were last used to treat the sick – none of us expected it to happen in our lifetimeIn the last months of the first world war, a ship arrived at Manchester from the US, its passengers deathly ill. They were mostly southerners, infected with a powerful influenza that had overtaken them on their transatlantic journey and quickly turned into pneumonia. The matron of a nearby Red Cross hospital, Mrs Geldart, heard of their plight and took them in, at no small risk to the health of her own – mostly voluntary – staff. For the next 12 weeks her hospital struggled and suffered through the deadliest trial it had faced in four...
Belts are being tightened across the UK, but it should not be the taxpayer that picks up the bill for a gold-laced leagueUnder the shadow of coronavirus, new rules are being made and unmade. Things that were unknown and alien a week ago are now, increasingly, part of our daily lives. But some things do not need explaining. They remain instinctual; they feel right, or plain wrong. And the issue of Premier League clubs furloughing their staff is one of them. Related: Football clubs' good deeds go a long way but shutdown exposes financial faultlines | Paul Wilson Related: Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe takes 'significant voluntary' pay cut Continue reading...
The health, safety and lives of players, staff and spectators so obviously override mere Wimbledon. How could that ever have been in doubt?Hung juries have taken less time than the All England Club to convict a villain as bang to rights as coronavirus. When the club’s board emerged from three days and several hours of teleconference pondering on Wednesday afternoon to confirm that the 134th Wimbledon championships would, indeed, be cancelled, because the killer is still stalking not just the pleasant environs of London SW19 but the entire globe, the question was: what took you so long?There was a carefully worded statement of the obvious. When Ian Hewitt, the new chairman, said: “This is a decision that we have not...
Amateur pastimes provide fair entertainment when the alternative is staring at the wall or, worse, watching the newsIf you know one thing about CB Fry, it’s that he was a man of many talents. He made a Test century against Australia, tied the world long-jump record, took a five-wicket haul at Lord’s, won a cap for England at right-back, started an FA Cup final for Southampton and played three games on the wing for the Barbarians.His CV reads like a schoolboy’s daydream. But there is nothing in it quite so unlikely as his ability to make a standing leap on to a mantelpiece. Fry is the man who declined the throne of Albania and tried to forestall the war by...