James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
Courtesy of Mark Holland, an interesting piece in the Black Country Bugle about a 1940s Bible class photograph taken in Dudley. Of the thirty or so well-turned out lads present, only one has been identified: Duncan Edwards of Manchester United and England. Mark points out that it was a Methodist class and that this was…
Footballers in the 1960s walked and ran differently. There is a tautness and purpose to the Ramsey England of ’66. It’s best seen in games other than the World Cup ones, simply because the matches with Argentina, Portugal, West Germany et al are so familiar. This is pretty much the post-Greaves side. Talk of “wingless…
Iain Dale commented not long ago that British political blogging hadn’t “yet” made the inroads achieved by its counterparts in the United States. That left some of us muttering to ourselves about how that was because British political blogging wasn’t actually terribly good, and that the bloggers who did show any talent were already writers…
Derby’s victory over Manchester United at Pride Park last night was probably the most cheerful thing to have happened in any field in 2009. How dumb, dull and depressing if United had put on an expensive show and humiliated an already low County side in front of their new manager, the man with the magic…
Here’s a map of the moonside wanderings of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin superimposed on a football pitch. A good defensive display, on the whole, and there’s Armstrong going up for the corner. I think the fact that this is NASA’s superimposition speaks volumes for the growing influence of the game in…
I can’t see any good coming from this. And I can’t see why he did it: after ten years at Burton, he was on the verge of taking them into the Football League. What an amazing, extraordinary achievement to helicopter yourself out from. Yes, his wages will be higher, yes, he won’t have to travel…
The mid-sixties brought a gentlemen’s agreement: Liverpool would do the music, and London would do the football. It might have happened earlier. Most capital cities dominated the football in their respective countries, and London had only missed out because we’d invented the game, and invented it north of Watford Gap. But by 1964, the English…
By 1963, England’s top players would have been well used to foreign travel. They were familiar with the routine and experience of flying, so Ramsey’s first fixture shouldn’t have posed a problem just because it was an away friendly. But it was an away friendly in Paris, that most unfriendly and unEnglish of cities. It…
An early hero of Dick Booth’s brilliant new history of broadcast commentary Talking of Sport is Seymour Joly de Lotbiniere. “Lobby” took over as Head of Outside Broadcasts at the BBC in 1935, and was determined to cover more sports. He was especially keen on live commentary with all its spontaneity and excitement. Some sports…
There are only so many clips available for Youtube to uncover. And those it has come up with don’t answer all of our questions. Such as, has the game we love, the game we suspect has more significance to it than just entertainment, topped out? Have we already seen it at its best; have we…