Elite sports have plenty to offer in the war against coronavirus | Emma John
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...