James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
A few days after her death, my grandmother comes in through my bedroom window after lights out. I am six years old. She does so again on other nights. The dream always follows the same path. Malevolent twilight and her body framed against it, her back turned to me. The head slowly coming round; and…
Say this for David Pearce’s novel The Damned Utd – it was the first really unembarrassed cultural treatment that the national game has ever had. Fever Pitch broke the ground. But Fever Pitch was gauche, blushing, unsure of its reception. It was essentially uncontroversial, and that is what has set The Damned Utd apart: the…
Wishing you all warm fires, an unlimited supply of good wine and food, and whatever it is for you that would make all this splendid and memorable. Thank you for your superb company in 2010. Here comes 2011. Brace, brace, brace!
Following on from our look at Billy Graham’s 1955 address to the BWA at Highbury, Phil Wilson (Doveson2008 of Flickr) sends word of colour FILM of Highbury in the form of a British Pathe newsreel from 1956. FOOTBALL BALL MANUFACTURE (aka FOOTBALL STORY) <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> <p> Also featured are Webber Bros…
This weekend, Sir Alex Ferguson will surpass Sir Matt Busby’s record as the longest serving manager in Manchester United history. He’ll go on to serve his full quarter century next year, and eventually retire (or die in office) as the greatest manager of modern times. However, Sir Alex did not have the opportunity to manage…
UPDATE: Doveson2008 kindly returned to the original slide, rescanned it and provided a great deal of additional information besides. Armed with that, Matthew and I have been able to pin down the exact time, date and occasion on which this photograph was taken. It’s c. 6.30pm on Friday, 22nd July 1955. The Baptist World Alliance…
You might remember this map – showing the walking routes of the Apollo 11 astronauts superimposed onto a standard-sized football pitch. On MTMG previously… The original map is actually taken from one of NASA’s own excellent sites – here – but still everyone treated it as something of a joke. Not so. Astonishingly, this turns…
Here’s another surviving piece of pre-War colour film, one of precious few to come down to us that feature the old country. From the look of it, I’d say it was a well-preserved example of the Dufaycolor process (some remaining Dufaycolor has darkened very badly indeed). But Dufaycolor didn’t come onto the general market until…
When I heard the news that the Russian Federation would host the 2018 World Cup despite a near-perfect bid from England, I remembered my Russian. My Russian was one of the very few great men I consider myself to have met. You won’t have heard of him, and I won’t give you his name. Our…
I’ll be writing some short pieces for new cultural group blog The Dabbler – the first, which tracks the declining intelligence of English football managers, is here.