Whenever the World Cup comes around, you can bet your bottom dollar that many’ll Plump for Brazil in this super-hyped, global quadrennial, Supposedly playing their football with an infectious joie-de-vivre Not found in any English text-book, German Textbuch or French text livre. And of course the swaying of the Samba is an image that always […]

Protect us, Lord, from former players spouting their clichéd tripe when some team’s had a routing. Whether they’re on radio or tweeting, they know why this or that team took a beating and send me off to go and check the grouting. There must be laws of decency they’re flouting, laboring each boring point they’re […]

Eight years old and through on goal, the striker understood his role. With cool aplomb, he tapped it round the keeper and then went to ground. The goal a-begging but he chose to emulate death’s final throes. I stared, then turned my face away from that dear game I used to play.

There’s airtime to fill, column inches to write. There must be new headlines from morning to night. We must be the place where the lads get their kicks, where the mono-dimensional fan gets his fix. No matter that there is a lack of hard news – just wheel out an old pro and ask him […]

I heard them curse the lack of silverware, those diehard fans from lonely Ross-on- Wye, still yearning hopelessly for football’s heir. I gazed upon the concrete bridge to Skye, that distant island ‘rescued’ from the brink, no longer counted in with Man and Wight. I dreamt of Agincourt again to drink the stirring sight of […]