James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
These Olympics get even better when you consider the medal table from the point of view of the erstwhile British Empire. And not just because you have to shift some medals across to account for Hong Kong: there’s Empire swimming star Michael Phelps and Empire runner Usain Bolt to enjoy too. And our victorious Empire…
Football always comes back like a bull in a china shop, but this year, with those marvellous Olympics still going on, it has returned with all the grace and timing of rubbish thrown over the fence. The news that John Terry has retained the England captaincy only reinforces the hunch that we are going through…
I really, really don’t know what to make of this. What do you think? (ht the Graun, obviously) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8oN58cyp2c] (Using Dutch syntax in English as part of an attempt to learn Dutch? No easy language, after all…)
Long-term readers will know that I’ve been searching for pre-War colour photography of English football. So far, I’ve found almost none. That “almost” refers to the Friese-Greene trip to Cardiff in 1924, which took in a visit to Fratton Park, where the Cardiff City captain was filmed standing motionless in the stands. The skipper’s baby…
London is waking slowly this morning to clear skies, fresh air, minimal traffic and a sinking feeling that there’s just no way we’ll be able to match that in 2012. Four years away, and municipal humiliation looks unavoidable already. Like everyone else, I think that that was the very best opening ceremony I have ever…
I can remember finding 1985 too modern-sounding a year for me to be alive in it. 23 years on… What would you have predicted about the next quarter-century of football, given 1985 as a starting point? The big theme of the year was hooliganism, even before Heysel. No one at the time had any clear…
I’ve now the greatest respect for those people on the Guardian or at the BBC who do those minute-by-minute text updates of matches: I tried to do the same thing with the DVD of the 1957 FA Cup Final and simply couldn’t keep up. So this isn’t a liveblogging of the 51 year old game,…
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…