* JOHN ROBERTS wrote for the Daily Express, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Independent, where he was the tennis correspondent for 20 years. He collaborated with Bill Shankly on the Liverpool manager’s autobiography, ghosted Kevin Keegan’s first book, and has written books on George Best, Manchester United’s Busby Babes (The Team That Wouldn’t Die) and Everton (The Official […]

By Ian Herbert 23 February 2010 Top-flight football is truly a world of flat earth news, to coin the journalist Nick Davies’ memorable description of the way the information the mass media delivers has become homogenous and rarely open to question. This week, Fabio Capello has been followed half way around the world to a […]

By Nick Harris 22 February 2010 (with 23 Feb update at the bottom) Portsmouth are bracing themselves for imminent administration as a means to stop them going out of business altogether, and sportingintelligence understands that insolvency practitioners from the chartered accountancy firm Hacker Young are on standby to handle the administration process. Pompey’s owner Balram […]

21 February 2010 America’s Bode Miller has finally won the Olympic gold medal he’s craved for so long, slaloming to victory today at Whistler in the super combined. Miller, 32, has been an object of fascination for years, for reasons good and bad, and was certainly an entertaining chap to try to pin down when […]

NICK BOLLETTIERI is the world’s most famous tennis coach, and the most successful. He’s coached an unequalled 10 players to No1 in the world, from Andre Agassi and Monica Seles to Jim Courier and Maria Sharapova. He’s never been accused of being shy, and he’s certainly not retiring. Ever. Holy Mackerel! . . . . . A handful […]

By Nick Harris 21 February 2010 British swimmers hope to contribute significantly to the home medal tally at the 2012 London Olympics and they underlined their growing international status today by completing a two-day demolition of Germany in a head-to-head meeting in Swansea. With Jazmin Carlin the breakthrough star of the show, Britain won 25 […]

By Nick Harris 20 February 2010 The Premier League has made a U-turn on a decision to allow Portsmouth to sell players because of fears the south-coast club might manage to avoid administration and avoid relegation party because of a measure initially intended to ensure their very survival. Fifa, football’s world governing body, had already […]

19 February Tiger Woods has said sorry to everyone, pretty much, which has gone down well with some observers, who feel he has been truly humbled, and as smoothly as a bucket of cold sick with others. The following full transcript of his apology, which was beamed live around the world, and quite possibly to […]

By Brian Sears 19 February 2010 Occasionally in this life as a statistician, you unearth a statistical gem so lovely that you want to pop it into your anorak pocket, go for a stroll around town in the splendid late-winter sunshine, and share it with everyone you meet. Today, dear readers, is such a day. […]

By Andy Cole 19 February 2010 Snowboarding, skiing, motorbikes, casual texting, impromptu nights out and all manner of other activities that “ordinary” people do without thinking have one thing in common for a professional footballer: they’re out of bounds unless you want to risk getting yourself into serious trouble. It’s a pertinent subject during a […]