By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 9 October 2011 In early 1999 when Glenn Hoddle’s time as England manager came to an end in the wake of ‘them things’ that he said about reincarnation, the FA hired Kevin Keegan and the Three Lions rollercoaster was set fair for its latest lurch […]
The Editor
-
-
Murphy’s law: why the Sky isn’t about to fall in on the Premier League
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 3 October 2011 Karen Murphy is the landlady of a pub in the Southsea district of Portsmouth and she’s going to become quite famous in the next few days. Her pub is called the Red, White & Blue, which is pictured left and located on […]
by admin -
Why Manchester City’s alleged Financial Fair Play ‘dodge’ is not actually dodgy at all – and might even be an undervaluation of their worth
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 22 August 2011 Manchester City’s storming start to the 2011-12 Premier League season has highlighted their potential and reminded us how much they’ve spent in recent years. I calculate that Sheikh Mansour has spent around £750m since 2008 on acquiring the club, paying off debts, […]
by admin -
Shergar: kidnapped by the IRA, killed, buried in a bog in north County Leitrim
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 4 June 2011 . The winner of this afternoon’s Derby was Pour Moi, ridden home by Mickael Barzalona, aged just 19 and the youngest jockey to have won the race since Walter Swinburn. In 1981, Swinburn, also 19, was aboard Shergar as the Aga Khan’s star horse […]
by admin -
Charge sheet: Fifa’s murky dealings in the Blatter era
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 31 May 2011 . When Sepp Blatter took to the stage in Zurich on Monday, Fifa’s president declared: ‘Crisis, what is a crisis?’ In a display widely reported as “arrogant” and “contemptuous” (and which can be viewed in full here), the 75-year-old Swiss, the head […]
by admin -
Mind the gap: how leaving the Premier League can seriously damage your wealth
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 24 May 2011 So what next for West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham, the three teams who were removed from Survival Sunday in body bags? To hazard a guess based on recent trends and on a hunch, I’d say that in four years: one of them […]
by admin -
‘Sincere good wishes to Wills and Kate, but a 2bn TV audience? Garbage. Only the Olympics and the World Cup are truly global events, and half as big as that at best’
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 26 April 2011 I’m not certain who started it, although Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt had a role in spreading the myth that the Royal Wedding on Friday will be watched by a global audience of 2 billion people. Hunt even cited this figure of 2bn […]
by admin -
In 2003, an illustrious panel of football men, including Sir Bobby Robson, picked Patrick Vieira as England’s greatest foreign player up to then. Here’s how…
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 March 2011 . While I was researching and writing my first book, ‘England, Their England’, a history of foreign players in the English game since 1888 (published in 2003), I’d amuse myself in times of writer’s block by toying with the idea of an […]
by admin -
Q&A on Financial Fair Play and the mountain Man City have to climb
By Nick Harris 8 October 2010 Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations won’t wipe out the tradition of benefactor involvement in football. They will merely lead to bans from European competition for clubs whose owners want to spend lots of their own money building up those clubs. Those who want to spend freely can do so, […]
by admin -
Pakistan spot-fixing: The exposé’s aim might have been noble, but the Lord’s fixing was ordered and paid for by a newspaper
By Nick Harris 31 August 2010 The News of the World’s front page headline on 9 May (below) said ‘Higgins bet on himself to LOSE’ (NotW’s capitals), which might have suggested to some readers that the Higgins in question – John Higgins, the world No1 snooker player – had bet on himself to lose. In […]
by admin
