For once, emotions are genuinely stirred by the story of Rwanda and how the game helped heal its divisionsIt can be hard in England to get a feel for the scale, the power and – yes really – the beauty of the Premier League’s vast global reach. Probably this has something to do with the way it is reflected back, most often through the wild frontier, the cranks’ rodeo, the Hobby Horse Derby of social media.More toxic still is the way the Premier League’s commercial success is so often described as simply this and nothing more, couched in tones of crowing economic triumphalism that reduces its devotees to numbers, eyeballs, units of desire. Related: Back to the future: Bradford bring...
As one half of Saint and Greavsie, the former striker spoke about the sport he loved with enjoyment and wit. We could do with some of that now“I am someone who believes that what we need without a doubt is more of Jimmy Greaves,” wrote the performance poet John Hegley in Greavsie, an ironic yet affectionate early-1990s paean to a then ubiquitous figure. “The more I get of Greaves, the more my life achieves.”The Premier League’s paywall model would soon be bringing down the curtain on one of the more curious and varied media careers of an ex-footballer. ITV’s failure to land broadcast rights to what the victor, Sky, would trail as a “whole new ball game” meant the axe...
Two long nights in Portugal gave me a new-found respect for pitchside reporters and an extra-time craving for a bananaIt’s the 90th minute. Cristiano Ronaldo, on a hat‑trick, cuts inside his man and whacks it in the corner of the net to seal Portgual’s 3-1 win against Switzerland in the Nations League. I am reporting pitchside for the Australian TV network Optus Sport. What an honour, to witness the second greatest player of the modern era shine so brightly in front of his adoring home support.Except I don’t see it. As Ronaldo strikes the ball, I am sprinting down five flights of concrete steps. There is a lot of concrete in Porto’s stadium and I am surrounded by it. A...
The Netflix series is fascinating for many reasons, but primarily for the insight it gives into the plight of players who have fallen just below the standards of the game’s eliteAmong the many joys of the eight-part Netflix series Sunderland ’Til I Die is a glimpse of football that is seldom seen, and little discussed in the media. Not the behind-the-scenes problems faced by managers with limited budgets and a distant owner looking to sell. That’s all fascinating stuff, though not quite as warts-and-all gripping as Premier Passions, the 1998 fly-on-the-dressing-room-wall account of Sunderland’s relegation, in which Peter Reid’s team talks would have made a stevedore blush.No, what was most revealing was the plight of professional sportsmen a rung or,...
The organisers tweaked the format and a lively evening of music and razzmatazz ensued, with a little space left for sportWho knew netball was so popular? Is sliding downhill really a sport? And how unloved must Chris Froome feel at being the best British Team Sky rider never to have won this public vote? These and other questions were asked, but not necessarily answered, as the Tour de France-winning cyclist Geraint Thomas accepted the famous silver four-turret lens camera trophy that is presented annually to the winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Having beaten Lewis Hamilton and Harry Kane into the minor placings at Birmingham’s Genting Arena, the visibly stunned Welshman accepted his award from Billie Jean...