Taking sport too seriously

For kicks, here's an extravaganza of England football chat. First of all, from best to worst, here are all England's men's major championship campaigns since i remember, in 1986. Qualification is taken into account, especially, obviously, when qualification didn't happen! (but occasionally when it did ...) It's more interesting near the bottom, probably: 1990 - It's tricky at the top, but i guess this was the best, just about. England didn't lose til the 3rd place play-off, they really were so close, it was pretty great 1996 - I mean, I'm surprised I've put this above 2018, because it was only the Euros, but the two losses to Belgium are really problematic in 2018, and the Netherlands win was just the best win of all of them. 2018 - Maybe it will come top in a while, but it has to be a little bothersome that England lost three games, and that Panama and Tunisia were quite average. But Sweden and Colombia were lush. And you know, people

Brett Kavanaugh suddenly reminded me of an American Ryder Cup player from the 90s - maybe not of the now, they're a bit different now, more obviously brash and rock starry, less "aah shucks". The 90s guys, the country club guys. I've had a big feeling about the American golfers for a long time. They turn up in my writing and in my thoughts. It was the "Thanks, Doogie, appreciate it" that started it off. Good guys, real gentlemen. Fuzzy Zoeller with the little racist joke about Tiger Woods. That one sneaked out. Poor form. Whoever leaked it. Kavanaugh with the rage of the rarely challenged, the weird sentimentality, the love of sports and manly comradeship. He is furious if you don't think he's a good guy. The Battle of Brookline. Kiawah Island. If you're looking for the guys who've let the world rot, you'll find them at the country club with their warm smiles. The world is run by American golfers with their Thanks, appreciate it

I found this list of the worst cricket commentators. https://www.thefulltoss.com/england-cricket-blog/top-10-worst-cricket-commentators/ It gets to the nub of it pretty successfully, I think. There are a few I think it’s a little harsh on (including Harsha Bhogle) but certainly picks out most of the main offenders. Easier, and perhaps more fun, to scoff than to be positive. But I thought I’d try to share the best of them. If you watch/listen to as much cricket as me, you end up hearing a vast array of voices. Some of them really are very good. They have to work in a pretty wide variety of contexts, and some deserve a little sympathy for the role thrust on them. Eg I used to like Danny Morrison when he was just a little eccentric and over-enthusiastic. The IPL has turned him into a monster. I’ve tried to think about all my years of watching cricket – the only obvious name I’m missing out is Richie B … seems just a bit pointless, and I’m not quite even sure whether he was m

The case of Amir Khan is a strange one. His career has revealed a great deal of unpleasantness, stupidity and hypocrisy. No British boxer since I've followed the sport has been more reviled and ridiculed. Why is that? He became famous, aged 17, winning a silver as Britain's only boxer at the 2004 Olympics. His spectacular hand speed saw him almost snatch gold off one of the world's best amateurs, Mario Kindelan of Cuba. He turned pro the following year, but not before we'd seen the warning signs of him being knocked down in a slightly unedifying fashion by British amateur Craig Watson. Still, ITV went to town on him, successfully bringing boxing to terrestrial Saturday nights. The loathing began early and continues to this date - it is fairly common for there to be a little resentment of Olympian boxers getting the fast track to fame and fortune - call it the Audley Harrison factor. Harrison, a 2000 Olympic gold medallist, was also unfairly ridiculed and revil

I’ve often wondered about all-rounders in test cricket – how much they’re worth, and where exactly is the tipping point between them being worth more than one specialist and less than one specialist. England’s current test team is deemed to have a lot of all-rounders, though I think we should get the past the notion that wicketkeeper-batsmen are all-rounders (in particular keeper-batsmen, like Buttler, who aren’t even keeping). It is a given now that any test keeper worth his place should average 30+, hopefully more like 40 – it’s not really added value. For a couple of decades, England was obsessed with finding the new Ian Botham. In that period, there were a lot of all-rounders given a go, none of whom were up to the job – the likes of Derek Pringle, David Capel, Adam Hollioake, Dermot Reeve, Chris Lewis … Lewis, unlike the other four, was close to being a test bowler level. Dominic Cork and Darren Gough, who were called all-rounders early on in their career, became specialis

There was a guy that used to write for The Independent called James Lawton. He was what gets called a doyen of sports writers. I would imagine him sitting down with a good claret and putting the world to rights with Michael Parkinson and Hugh McIlvanney. He wrote well - opinionated, fruity, forceful, dramatic. I'd often gravitate to his column. I'm not sure I once agreed with a single thing he said in around 10 years of buying and reading the Indy. It seemed like he wrote about Roy Keane every week. He fucking loved Roy Keane. Perhaps I should love Roy Keane. He grew up in the same area of Cork as my father, was a Celtic and Spurs fan as a kid, and of the two ex-Man Utd players I've regularly had people telling me I look like, he is meant clearly far less as a passive-aggressive insult than Wayne Rooney. I found myself in a minor (very minor) twitter spat about Keane recently and thought, since I've already dealt with Graham Gooch this month, I might as well hav

I’m afraid I simply can’t resist adding to the literally hundreds of learned takes on ‘Three Lions’ this week. Nor have I been able to resist listening to it, saying it, or singing it a little. In May and June (i.e. before all this mania began) I participated in a group which sought to discover the greatest Number 1 single of all time – we were all invited to name our favourite for each year, and for some reason, to a certain degree of internal chagrin, I nominated Three Lions for 1996. Which makes a bit more sense to me now. Do I like it? Actually like it as a song? A bit, yeah … I certainly don’t hate it. But, obviously, there’s more to it than that. I do love football, and I did watch Fantasy Football League and the Mary Whitehouse Experience, and I do think shared experience is a powerful thing, and I am susceptible to nostalgia for the summers of the mid to late 90s, and I do care a lot and have read a lot and written a lot about “people’s songs”/“folk songs”. Th

Three main questions occupied me in late pre-pubescence and early adolescence 1. why, with my tremendous banter, am I not extremely popular? 2. do I believe in god and if I do, what am I going to do about it? and 3. how can it be a just and sensible world when David Gower is not in the England cricket team and some people think that is a good thing? Gooch Vs Gower is the defining sporting issue of my youth. It's a classic "two types of people" sporting debate, truer, really, than Messi/Ronaldo, Woods/Mickelson, Federer/Nadal. It's an odd and dispiriting tale really, about a genuine falling out between friends, and about a bad time for English cricket, which set up an even more prolonged bad period. For me personally, it is a good example of when I have imposed a "logical" argument on top of what was originally an emotive one, though occasionally it can be the other way round. When I got into cricket, in 1984, Gower was a) called David b) left-han

Ian Bell's my favourite English cricketer since David Gower. He's the one I emotionally invested in, felt nervous for, rued his failures and glowed at his successes. I'm going to write about the nature of individual sporting fandom in general, about Ian Bell in particular, and then make a case for his test recall. I think my relationship with sport has always been more about individuals than teams. That begins with Gower. Loving Gower taught me early on about the need to make arguments in support of your champion, that there was an army of dolts in the world thinking the wrong things, who needed to know your facts, and if you didn't get to use your facts, you got to hold fast to the truth and nurture your resentment. In the late 80s and early 90s, lots of people thought that it was perfectly sensible that David Gower wasn't in the England cricket team. I used to argue about it at school with several actual people who held that seemingly incomprehensible opinio

Since everyone's talking about who's better out of Ronaldo and Messi at the moment, I thought I'd make myself a hostage to fortune by coming down definitively on one side, and while I'm at it give spurious reasons for who comes out on top in various other great sporting rivalries. Look no further, here are all the opinions you'll ever need. Ronaldo Vs Messi Ok, I'll start with the nub of it. This has become trickier in recent times. For many years, Messi fans were able to say "Of course Messi's better, are you blind and stupid, and what's more have you a completely warped conception of beauty?" But the only part of that that still definitively still holds is the last bit.* And, maybe, just maybe, Ronaldo is almost getting close to being in the argument. Maybe if Portugal win this World Cup, he might even, heaven forfend, have won the argument. But failing that, look here's the thing. Their stats are very, very, remarkably similar.

I've become more interested in football managers than in football, I think. Anyway, some of these work better than others. Pep Guardiola – Beyoncé.            Pure mastery across all forms, overcomes the doubters (including me). Barca was Destiny's Child, Bayern was early solo career, last season was 'Beyoncé', this season was 'Lemonade'. Roy Hodgson - Joe Strummer.      Because he sounds like Joe Strummer, and he’s an internationalist South London renaissance man. Sean Dyche – Ed Sheeran.            Lo-fi, brutally effective, bafflingly successful, ginger. Jurgen Klopp – Nile Rodgers.       Joyful, life-enhancing wizardry, perhaps the only criticism is an occasional lack of depth. Eddie Howe - British Sea Power. Geeky, joyful, clever, consistently strong. Jose Mourinho -   Kanye West.    Self-explanatory. Rafael Benitez – Paul Weller.       Started brilliant and revered, people said he went off the boil even though he was still pretty good, now ge