James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
TV’s football coverage, even on terrestrial television, has never been so thorough. Match of the Day thirty years ago didn’t show every game as it does now, nor were there the extraordinary FA Cup coverage marathons that we now get. But older readers will have lived through, and lived beyond, the time when TV was…
There was a period in the early 1980s when the great clubs of England’s industrial cities gave way to smaller clubs from quieter places. Southampton, Ipswich, Norwich, Watford and Luton all had their great days between Clough’s first European Cup and the end of the Falklands Conflict. To this south-eastern boy, they were home teams,…
There was a period in the early 1980s when the great clubs of England’s industrial cities gave way to smaller clubs from quieter places. Southampton, Ipswich, Norwich, Watford and Luton all had their great days between Clough’s first European Cup and the end of the Falklands Conflict. To this south-eastern boy, they were home teams,…
I never thought I’d read anything like this ever again. But it was in today’s Times. So touched was I – so deeply moved – by the decision of the England team to return to India after the terrorist attacks, that I willed them to win. When England’s young opening batsman Alastair Cook read out…
Martin Samuel criticises the siting of the National Football Museum in Preston on the grounds that The National Football Museum, like all projects of historical worth, has to be based where it is accessible. That is why there is a Tate Modern; not a Tate, Preston. This is uncharacteristically crass. What about Tate St Ives,…
There was a period in the early 1980s when the great clubs of England’s industrial cities gave way to smaller clubs from quieter places. Southampton, Ipswich, Norwich, Watford and Luton all had their great days between Clough’s first European Cup and the end of the Falklands Conflict. To this south-eastern boy, they were home teams,…
Aged five, I’d be there on the brick floor of my gran’s scullery taking apart an old clock with a screwdriver. There were quite a few to choose from as one by one my mother’s half of the family died away and their priceless knick-knacks found their way to our terrace. I still own one…
I got the news earlier in the week that Christopher Nicholson had suffered a bad stroke. He was receiving care in Bedford Hospital. Visitors said he was very poorly and likely to be there for some time. So much energy and drive immobilised. I can’t imagine it. No more can I imagine anyone not knowing…
According to Ruth Gledhill here, The latest Alpha (Ed: obviously the Alpha Course run from Holy Trinity Brompton) has a wonderful first-person account by a top TV psychotherapist of how he and his family began going to church and became Christians after seeing one of the Alpha ads from last year on the back of…
Oliver Postgate died yesterday. Apart from Blue Peter, he wrote everything I saw on television until, when I was at the age of ten, I first saw the evening news. I never cared much for The Clangers but adored Bagpuss, a silly and therefore infinitely wise creature who had overindulged his Good Food Guide when…