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The journey to Edinburgh concertinas down into a short and minor series of motoring vignettes. Crowded Brum at 7a.m., the world weaving from lane to lane without lights. A stop for horrid coffee and a dreadful burger in a cafe at Knutsford Services. The mines of Wigan, the machine shops of Preston. Lakes, then a…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHLNjiTtshI] I’m off to Scotland in the morning. Not like this – who do you think I am? Chris Dillow? In my little car with its greasy windscreen and Vostock driving position, starting before sunrise.. a prelude to a later, nastier trip in a big white van full of books and booze and the odd…

In this recent post, I said: After 1910, in any case, the Southern League and the Football League came to an agreement which regularised retain-and-transfer across both organisations. Had that not happened, it is interesting to speculate that a post-1918 Southern League might not have taken advantage of depression in the north of England and…

6.15a.m. Kensal Green station. Then, Euston, St Pancras, Brussels; then the ICE through Belgium and the Ardennes to Cologne; too long in the melting heat around the Dom waiting for our connection, then Bielefeld, Hanover; then hammering down across the German plains at 150mph, spilling out into the quiet of Friedrichshain from Ostbahnhof at 8.30p.m….

Back from Berlin, and as promised I have photographs to do with the man who I consider to epitomise the history of English football. But before I give you my nomination, I want to expand on the suggestions people took the time to make in comments on my original post. Peter Jackson nominates two players,…

I’m off to Berlin for a week, in part to take photographs for a forthcoming post on a Scottish Edwardian footballer. While I’m gone, oblige me with your opinion. If you had to name one player who, in your opinion, epitomised the history of English football (not necessarily its ethos or its greatest moment or…

We all have our Platonic Pub ideal. Orwell’s Moon Under The Water comes closest to what most have in mind. But that’s a fictional tavern, and we know that when fictional taverns have the electricity applied to their nipples to bring them to life, terrible things result. Some Platonic Ideals have remarkable shadows, however. The…

When I first came across his blog, Damian Counsell was a research scientist in Cambridge. Then, in August 2005, it all changed. The Rosalind Franklin Centre closed down, and he moved to a new career in a totally different field, and to a different home, in Brighton. Damian is now regarded by discerning people as…

Completely OT, but George linked to this video, and I’d like to raise him: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N32RrjwWYic&rel=1] That’s all. Back to your pints and red-tops, gentlemen.

I’ve long fought against the idea that England’s top players are arrogant primadonnas who think they have a divine right to a place in the national team. I’ve even resisted, from time to time, the idea that the English way of playing is irretrievably backward. But the evidence of this clip is overwhelming. From 45…