REVIEW By John Roberts 31 October 2014 During Everton’s celebratory dinner after winning the League title in 1963, Harry Catterick, the club’s manager, mentioned to Roy Vernon, one of his stellar players, that he was considering writing an autobiography. “I don’t want it published until after I’m dead,” Catterick added, to which Vernon replied dryly: […]
Blast from the past
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’11 goals, two hat-tricks, three pens, one red and several punch-ups … it was the greatest final ever played on American soil’
* Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber recently announced plans to extend his organisation’s geographic reach by adding five new franchises by 2020. The new entrants will boost MLS to 24 teams – a haunting reminder for older American fans who witnessed the North American Soccer League’s swift demise after peaking at 24 franchises in […]
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125 years ago this Saturday, a Scottish draper from Aston Villa wrote a letter that made history (and football as we know it)
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 26 February 2013 It was 125 years ago on Saturday, or 2 March 1888, that William McGregor, then the president of Aston Villa, wrote a letter to a small group of other football clubs, floating the idea that they should organise a league. In doing […]
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Wales, Bale, Giggs & Co: from historic outcasts to the heart of Team GB
By Steve Menary 22 May 2012 It seems almost certain now that the number of Welshman ever to have played Olympic football for Great Britain will double or treble this summer – from two in total at present since 1908 to five, six or even seven. The Welsh have been the worst represented of the […]
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‘Finney would no more have tripped an opponent, or pretended to have been tripped, than he would have left a tap without washers during his day job as a plumber’
* 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 Centenary History). As Matthew […]
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Thirty years on from the Falklands: Sport, war and playing in the Cup for Tott-ing-ham
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 2 April 2012 Today marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. As Sportingintelligence contributor Matthew Barrett, a specialist on the subject of sport and war, details on his own blog today, tensions between Britain and Argentina continue to simmer, with sporting repercussions. […]
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‘Ed Weston lived life a little differently from most of us, on a separate key and with the volume up’
* By Helen Harris 28 March 2012 Ed Weston was an ‘endurance athlete’ and a ‘sporting superstar’ many decades before either of those phrases was coined. If he’d been alive today, his athletic achievements would be covered in the sports pages of the broadsheets and his private life would be on the front pages […]
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Sportsmen of the Titanic: tales of loss, love and a 21st century bust-up over long-dead players’ image rights
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 25 March 2012 THERE were five sportsmen on board the Titanic when it sank on 15 April 1912, although their stories are unlikely to be given much if any attention during the eponymous ITV drama series which starts this weekend and will air in 80 […]
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Bobby Davro’s dad: ‘Austerity Olympics? In 1948 we bulked up on sherry and ate ham from Down Under’
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 5 December 2011 Bill Nankeville is perched on the edge of his chair, explaining the ‘austerity’ tag routinely attached to the 1948 London Olympics, in which he ran for Britain in the 1,500 metres. ‘We ate stodge, ran on grass that became mud, didn’t do […]
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Adventures around George Best: Waggy, Thin Lizzy, Parky, 10cc, Bernard Manning and the gang who chased the Krays out of Manchester
* 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 […]
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