Shared experiences between people in separate places are quite the thing right now – plenty find the radio a comforting friendBig Del died last week. A fixture in my Brixton local, he hadn’t been in since Christmas and the cancer did for him pretty quickly in the end. Nobody in the pub, not even those closest to him, had known he was ill because he seemed the type who probably didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him.A retired brewery drayman, Del was a sweary old-school Londoner who loved his football, rooted for “those facking Gooners” and was England till he died. We’d even fallen out over it once; nothing serious, a clash of nationalities more than personalities. He knew this...
For those of us waiting for old certainties to waft again on the summer breeze, there is almost certain disappointment. So we must rely on sporting nostalgiaSport means nothing if it is not about passion and connection and nowhere is that more sharply defined than in football, as we have witnessed since coronavirus ripped it from our lives in recent weeks and days. Once, though, it was cricket, the summer game, deeper in history, richer in symbolism, that held the national sentiment in its gentle palm.As Derek Birley relates in his excellent A Social History of English Cricket, when Sir Gordon Home wrote in the September 1939 issue of The Cricketer, he went straight for a contemporary metaphor. “England has...
As the coronavirus crisis deepened this week, it was heartening to see Uefa, Fifa and others show some leadershipCoronavirus – latest updates | See all our coronavirus coverageIn normal times, last experienced in Britain only a week ago, it might have been fanciful to imagine that in some unprecedented global crisis football’s squabbling and often self-seeking administrators would step up and behave like leaders.Of course, faced with an unthinkable pandemic they have had little other choice than to put their sport immediately on hold but as they did so it was almost weird to see them striking the right tone. Related: Premier League, EFL and WSL football will not restart before 30 April Related: Mikel John Obi: 'Players were scared....
For all the creative ideas to get us through this – Fifa marathons, free Football Manager, James Milner’s Instagram – I will never moan again when Super Sunday is ‘only’ West Ham v EvertonWhat the world needs is a vaccine for Covid-19. What it categorically doesn’t need is another person telling you they miss sport. Sadly, right now, that is all I can offer.While we all try to navigate our way through the biggest global crisis in decades and what it means in our homes and across the planet, what percentage of our brains, if any, can be used up on our greatest passions? Related: The forgotten story of ... English football's suspension dilemma in 1947 Of course it goes...
From France’s new stars to the architects of Scotland’s improvement, some gongs for an unfinished Six NationsThe Six Nations, like the rest of rugby throughout the world, has been suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak but, with no action to look forward to in the immediate future, it provides a moment to look back on the past couple of months, which have left the title a three-way contest. Continue reading...