* In 2009, Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger likened being a football manager to living on a volcano: any day could be your last. Three years on and his view has surely been reinforced this season, a campaign in which he endured sustained discontent from some fans and some sections of the media for the first […]
Melting pot
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RIO FERDINAND: United’s desire for success, why the nationality of the England manager is irrelevant, the joy of Federer, and why Maradona still tops Messi
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 22 April 2012 AS the Premier League title race comes to the boil, Rio Ferdinand has spoken about the culture of success at Manchester United, ‘the desire’ for glory that pervades Old Trafford, and why he hopes that United’s blend of experienced winners and fearless […]
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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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‘Basing your opposition to DRS on the fact that it isn’t foolproof is akin to sticking to a homeopathic potion because the $10bn medical facility doesn’t cure everyone’
* Is the Board of Control for Cricket in India really a bastion of trenchant conservatism? Judging by its steadfast refusal to adopt the Umpire Decision Review System (DRS), the answer would seem to be yes; then again, it has been in the vanguard in embracing the all-singing, all-dancing, Brave New World of Twenty20, with […]
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Football: it’s only a matter of life, death and money
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 March 2012 During this equivalent week 16 years ago – or Monday, 11 March 1996, to be precise – I went to my dad’s funeral in the afternoon and then did something we’d done together so many times: I watched Southampton. It was an FA Cup quarter-final at […]
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The alternative best Olympic nations: Jamaica, Estonia, Mongolia, NZ, Georgia … and Australia
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 1 March 2012 In the week in which we passed the 150-days-to-go to the London 2012 Olympics, Sportingintelligence has considered which nations are the best at winning gold medals when size of population is taken into account. We’ve used the medals tallies from the 2008 […]
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ALEX WILLIS: ‘The Spanish are reeling at the Spitting Image-esque doping slurs’
* ALEXANDRA WILLIS is a multimedia tennis journalist who flits between the All England Club, 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 […]
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‘Crashgate seemed like a gift to Romain Grosjean. It was actually a poisoned chalice’
* MARK THURSFIELD is a journalist and PR advisor, working across sports from skiing to motorsport. After founding his own sports magazine in the 90s, he worked for Eurosport TV then Sportal.com – the first major sports site of the dot com boom – before setting up on his own in 2001. He also plays […]
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