James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
..watched from behind the sofa by yours truly, who kept flicking channels to keep the tension at bay. I can’t remember a better demonstration of the difference between belief and “passion”, although the commentators, who’d go on to miss the final whistle, were throwing the second word around freely enough. And why not, on a…
At Craven Cottage last Saturday for the visit of Harry Redknapp’s relegation-threatened Portsmouth. These days, just about every football ground has some kind of memorial to its glorious dead, from the Munich plaque at Old Trafford to the Shankly Gates and Billy Bremner’s statue. Is it just me, or is football carrying just a bit…
In the end, I spent two hours being interviewed to camera by the team from Mentorn TV for their forthcoming drama-documentary “The Real Sven.” Although some of the questions referred to the points I’d raised in my earlier interview, there were new ones that were to do with the Sven outside football – his love…
For the thirty-one years that divided England’s narrow loss to Brazil in the 1970 World Cup Finals and the 5-1 victory over Germany in Munich, there were three kinds of England international. The first kind were against minnows, nations with little football history or few players to call upon. England almost always won these matches…
In the Netherlands, a Muslim football team and a gay football team played each other to prove that after all, it is possible for us all to just get along. (Hat tip: Norm). The Muslims won 4-0: The soccer tournament was organized as part of a conference on fighting discrimination against immigrants who come out…
One of television’s highlights for me in 2004 was the BBC series “The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon“. Mitchell and Kenyon were film makers in the early years of the twentieth century, and what looks to be their entire archive of footage has been rediscovered in amazingly good condition. It’s fasinating stuff. Imagine all…
I make no bones about being depressed at the prospect of the next England manager. We have enjoyed five years of Sven Goran Erickson, during which the expectations we hang around the national team have risen spectacularly. Under him, we went into the 2004 European Championships pretty much expecting to win, and, Brazil aside, we’re…
I saw my first FA Cup Final in 1976. I was seven years old, and only caught it by accident, tuning in while looking for something else. The match was already long into its second half, and I’d missed all of the game’s goals. Being British, I found myself cheering on the losing team, and,…
What follows is a thinkpiece I created for IMGTV in relation to their August 2005 programme, “Being Jose Mourinho”. An attempt to answer three questions: what sort of man is JM? what sort of man does what he does? and how does he do it? Football is a game full of men who are motivated…