James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
The “internet” symbol on my router lit up last night for the first time. It still won’t actually CONNECT me to the entity of that name, but that must come soon, and when it does, I’ll be back properly. They’ve demolished the nineteenth century pavilion at the Edinburgh Academicals ground. When you are surrounded by…
Before: After: I’ve always admired the kind of man who can find himself a hairstyle and just stick to it. I hope that’s what I’ve done. But I can never match the expression with which I came into the world, although I feel it on the inside most days. I was born at eleven o’clock,…
I’m not one for heroes, but there are those whom I admire, and some of them threatened to go on for ever. There aren’t many who can shock, depress and upset you by dying at the age of 96. “Hard Times” was always my favourite of his, and of that, the interview with Jerome Zerbe….
What with Christmas decorations shouldering their way back into our malls and high streets, it’s obviously time once more to hand out the most prestigious award in Victorian sport today: The More Than Mind Games Victorian Sports Personality of the Year. The award goes to that sports person, active between the years 1837 and 1901,…
Until very recently, my brother-in-law ran a business that must have featured the world’s most charismatic workplace. It held Europe’s only indoor Mustang dynamometer – a rolling road for racing cars, essentially, which you could stand beside with your ear defenders strapped on tight watching whilst another warpainted drag racer clawed its way to 200mph….
In Scotland, the feed from Manchester went to the Sportscene studio, and at full time the viewer was duly delivered to an operating theatre emptied of everything but two chairs. Sitting on these were our host, with his comic horror-film expression and Vietnam War eyes, and John Hartson. Hartson was about twice his size, which…
No one’s a prophet in their own.. and, once again, England’s press have watched England in a manner reserved just for England. During the 2006 World Cup, I tried watching other teams play with that English press attitude, and found it an enlightening experience. Even in that extraordinary Argentina-Serbia game, the striped side put passes…
The interview over, I followed her out of the room, asking as I went, “Is everyone in Edinburgh English?” “Yes,” she replied, “But it’s different in Glasgow.” A Central Belt of two halves, then, and the Kris Boyd affair is another that splits neatly down the middle. Boyd’s always known his own mind. When he joined Rangers…
There was no way into Scotland v Norway: the Antiquary spilled guys out onto the street clutching radios, the Baillie was full to the doors and people craning for a glimpse of even one of their many screens. The Standard’s crowded front yard told a similar story, so we pushed on for the Cambridge and…
Jim White, according to his potted biography, went to Manchester Grammar School and then chose Bristol University. And here’s the consequence of that: a man in middle age still completely and utterly at home with being a complete fan, uncaring, if not unaware, of the dignity-stripping absurdity of the fan’s prostration and snowblindness. A bad…