Melting pot

By Janine Self 24 October 2012 First, a scene-setter. One jumbo-sized sofa (red), one TV studio, one journalist-broadcaster-author with a vision. Despite Boris Johnson’s nudge-wink post-Olympic speech, the BT Life’s a Pitch sofa tends not to witness too much in the way of paroxysms of tears and joy. But, thanks to Michael Calvin, a whole […]

By Alex Miller and Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 8 October 2012 Manchester United and Liverpool have the most lucrative kit supplier deals in the Premier League this season, earning a guaranteed £25.4m and £25m respectively from Nike and Warrior – but still trail the sums earned by Spanish giants Real Madrid […]

. Still pining for a festival of sport after the London Olympics and Paralympics lit up the summer? Pine no more. The next Olympics begin in 500 days – in Sochi, Russia, from 7 February 2014. MARK STANIFORTH, left, ardent admirer of all things Winter Games, explains why it’s a big deal, and why there […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 9 September 2012 Isatou Nyang is a single mum of two from The Gambia, a small country in West Africa where the average income is around £1,200 per year, or £23 a week. Nyang, 28, makes about half that much, or around £10 per week, […]

 * ALEXANDRA WILLIS is a multimedia tennis journalist who flits between Wimbledon, SportingIntelligence, the TennisSpace and a few other outlets, while tweeting copiously and trying to improve her (terrible) backhand in her spare time.   .   . By Alexandra Willis 31 August 2012 With two Grand Slam champions on her tennis conquests sheet, a first Grand Slam fourth round, […]

By Micah Hall 26 August 2012 The long saga of Portsmouth football club’s turbulent ownership drama is set to reach a climactic denouement this week, as administrator Trevor Birch chooses between bids from former owner Balram Chainrai and the Pompey Supporters’ Trust. If the Trust succeeds in taking control of their long-suffering club, it will […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 20 August 2012 . The 2012-13 Premier League kicked off at the weekend and this is what it looked like: Each flag on the graphic represents one player involved in one of the nine Premier League games played on Saturday and Sunday, from Arsenal’s Polish […]

* GAVIN FLEIG is the head of performance analysis at the reigning Premier League champions, Manchester City. He heads up a full-time performance analysis staff of 10 people at City alone, with six focussing on developing players and four on first-team analytics. With ‘soccermetrics’ analysis still in its infancy, City are about the launch a […]

* ALEXANDRA WILLIS is a multimedia tennis journalist who flits between Wimbledon, SportingIntelligence, the TennisSpace and a few other outlets, while tweeting copiously and trying to improve her backhand in her spare time. If you happen to bump into her court-side, she’ll probably tell you that she went to Oxford (and not just shopping). . . By Alexandra Willis […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 12 August 2012 In 1999, I met a 16-year-old kid called Mo who said it would mean a great deal to run for Britain. He was one of 110 promising British youngsters at an ‘Olympic futures’ training camp in Florida. I was reporting on it […]