The secret of Gary Lineker’s success
The Leicester-born striker was neither exceptionally skilful nor assiduous; but he worked out how to score goals, and later excel in broadcasting, through intelligence and calm resilience
The feel-good football story of Watford Forever
From the age of six, Reggie Dwight followed Watford FC’s fortunes avidly – and when he became the multimillionaire Elton John decided to do all he could to improve them
The ruling passion
Simon Kuper finds little to connect the strongmen of the past and present apart from their contempt for their own supporters
When violence was normal
Football hooliganism led to a shocking number of deaths, as did the many infrastructure disasters caused by negligence, while riots and street fighting were endemic
What Macron wants
When Liz Truss said ‘the jury’s out’ on whether France was a ‘friend or foe’, Emmanuel Macron publicly corrected her:…
A real game changer
The moment before the fall of women’s football can be precisely dated. On Boxing Day 1920, Dick, Kerr Ladies FC…
There never was fair play
Sports history, writes Wray Vamplew, is sometimes ‘sentimental, reactionary and built on the implicit assumption that the sporting past was…
Levitating basketball players: investigating the psychic in sport
Years ago, a friend persuaded me that a reviewer should almost never give a book a bad review. Most books,…
Have we reached the limits of computing power — and might that be a good thing?
Arguably, the statue in Trafalgar Square should not be of Nelson but of Henry Maudslay. He had started out as…
Hitler’s charm offensive at the Berlin Olympics was a sinister cover for his main offensive
The British diplomat Robert Vansittart had been warning against Nazism for years, so it was a surprise when he and…
George Blake, the spy who stayed out in the cold
I suspect George Blake, the MI6 officer turned KGB double agent, would enjoy toddling over to the Hampstead Theatre to…
Always the Superbrat
John McEnroe’s father calls. In fact, he calls McEnroe’s manager’s phone, presumably because dad doesn’t have a direct line to…
Lessons and games
‘Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend. Sorry to tell you that, mate,’ the Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios remarked to his opponent…
Frontier territory
In Ali’s Café, just inside Turkey on the Bulgarian border, Iraqi and Syrian refugees spend their days drinking tea. Now…
Frontier territory
In Ali’s Café, just inside Turkey on the Bulgarian border, Iraqi and Syrian refugees spend their days drinking tea. Now…
Knowing the score
When I come home from work and stick my key in the door, there is a pitter-patter of tiny feet…
