Month: February 2007

I’m going to have to spend yet more time away from screens – so one more post and then back in a week or so. I can’t be the only one finding rich veins of comedy in poor Steve McClaren’s plight over Beckham. After all, had his dropping from the England squad really been entirely…

Thanks for all the kind good wishes. I’m on the mend, and hoping to catch up on my email over the next few days. What follows might be somewhat garbled. This isn’t a footie blog, and it’s not a fan blog. In fact, quite a lot of what I write here reflects a cynicism and…

UPDATE: I’ve pulled this post, as I’m sincerely very tired of whole “chippiness” thing. The link to it is as thoroughly unwelcome as the sentiment that gave rise to it in the first place.

From Brian Micklethwait’s Normblog profile: My favourite London team is Spurs, because I fixated on them in 1961 like a baby goose. But, unlike ‘real’ football supporters (who often strike me as deranged and whom I enjoy teasing) I do not hate the other clubs, and in particular I do not, like a ‘real’ Spurs…

Terry Venables adds his tuppence-worth to the debate about foreign players in the Premiership: “The academy system is something that hasn’t really borne fruit in the way we wished it did,” he said last night. “There are a lot of players coming from around the world, which makes it difficult for local boys. When I…

You can blame it on the Russians and Oliver James. Sport’s endemic superstition means that most hypnotherapists get to deal with sportspeople regularly. They turn up thinking you can hypnotize them into saving those extra ten shots on the back nine, and – if it’s me they’ve appointed as witchdoctor and guru – go away…

Is there still a drinking culture in British football? I thought that had begun to fade away, driven out by shame and Arsene Wenger and Tony Adams’ courageous refusal to hide. Nicky Campbell, writing in the Guardian, thinks not. And thinks he knows why. He’s on the right lines: I was astonished by something Gordon…

There were those connected with Austrian football in the 1930s who thought they’d overtaken England long before 1953. Not long after Brideshead indeed – as though the poor, misconceived R101 airship took with it a footballing version of the Ashes as well as the cream of our idle aristocracy and our pioneering airmen. But that’s…

1933 – Tourist Trophy Donnington Park UK 1934 – Indianapolis 500 1934 – Monaco Grand Prix 1934 – German Grand Prix 1934 – French Grand Prix Includes the first Auto Unions, and some fabulous spills. Modern life feels incredibly dull and lifeless up against this. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pnGtPAdsuM] It’s worth clicking through the video to Youtube itself…

At the Coppa Acerba, seen here in colour in 1937, Bern Rosemeyer lost a wheel on his way into the pits. It doesn’t seem to have worried him, as the interview shows. Followed by coverage of the Donington Grand Prix of the same year: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhLDaEBZMv4] There’s a specific attitude to fear there that’s worth exploring….