Billie-Jean King’s match against the 1939 men’s Wimbledon champion in 1973 provides the main thrust of a new film but like other sporting movies the facts are often massaged to augment the storyAfter the credits finished rolling at the end of the Battle of the Sexes, the new cinematic re-creation of the events surrounding the famous tennis match in 1973 between Billie Jean King, the world’s No1 female player, and Bobby Riggs, the Wimbledon men’s singles champion of 1939, I asked myself if the staging of the event could really have been as preposterously over the top as it is depicted in the film.The answer, after consulting an eyewitness, was that, for once, Hollywood might have underplayed the reality. Related:...
The league has witnessed a number of high-profile brawls of late. But in a sport focused on violence, players are actually remarkably restrainedOver Christmas of 1914 on the Western front, British and German soldiers climbed out of the trenches and spent a peaceful holiday together. A soccer match between the warring sides is even said to have taken place. The tale of the 24-hour truce endures more than 100 years later because it is so magical and bizarre that two sides that had just been trying to kill each other could instantly flip a switch and co-exist peacefully together … only to then return to their trenches and begin the bloodshed anew.Of course, football is not war (no matter how...
The quarterback has never reached the heights of his older brother Peyton but he was a familiar and reassuring presence in New YorkThis wasn’t how it was supposed to end for Eli Manning. Unceremoniously benched on a Tuesday afternoon in late November after 14 years with the Giants. There’s no good or “ceremonious” way to be benched, of course. Eli’s older brother Peyton’s career concluded in storybook fashion as a Super Bowl champion and that kind of ending was not on the cards for Eli with a Giants team that at 2-9 is nowhere near being a contender any time soon. But Eli’s Giants career definitely wasn’t supposed to end like this, cast aside by a failed head coach who will...
Kansas City have fallen off badly after a good start. They’ll now consider whether to risk bringing in the talented but unproven Patrick MahomesKansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid is not an impulsive man. He learned at the feet of Mike Holmgren, a coach who could be maddening at times in his devotion to an offense he trusted and the players he believed would make it work. Holmgren didn’t bench many players if they had a few bad weeks and Reid has rarely done the same himself.But even Reid can’t sit patient watching his offense stagnate as his team stumbles into an abyss from which it may not recover this season. On Sunday, Kansas City lost for the fifth time...
In LaVar Ball, the president of the United States has finally met his match: a master troll with an appetite for attention even bigger than his ownOn November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a day set aside on the calendar for gratitude, the man who just 10 months prior had been inaugurated president of the world’s leading superpower rose in the early morning hours before a planned day of golfing and tweeted about LaVar Ball, the self-proclaimed “CEO” of a tiny, family-based basketball apparel company in Chino Hills, California. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Related: Donald Trump blasts 'ungrateful fool' LaVar Ball as war of words escalates Related: LaVar Ball, the $495 sneakers and the battle against basketball's status...