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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….

As you know, Match of the Day started in August 1964, and ITV’s answer, The Big Match, in 1968 (running until 1992). It’s usually the case with long-running television series that some, at least, of the footage is lost or destroyed along the way. I’ve often thought what an excellent digitial TV channel could be…

..or at any rate, two ways that have already been tried! Ours: And then, there’s this, which is just magnificent: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF6BhzMZOTE]

“Eleven Roaring Lions” was a phrase used by a recent commentator here to describe the England team he saw as having been let down by Sven Goran Eriksson. Of course, it makes them sound more like WWF wrestlers than footballers, but there you are: that’s exactly the kind of thinking that British football is stuck…

You’ve heard it said that packing the Premiership with foreign players is harming the England national team by preventing our own boys getting the experience they need. Sam Allardyce takes a different view: ‘This is not a football problem, this is a country problem and a massive one,’ Allardyce said. ‘We cannot get the curriculum…

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