I had been secretly and sadly proud of holding my own in the ILX Premiership Predictions League, until I realised that my lower-mid table place is in fact the worst of anyone who’s joined in all four rounds. Despite nodding heartily along to Da[…]

The Flamingo, The Pushme-Pullyu and the Mao – all pieces in variant chess according to this site. I’m fond of house rules and rule variants in theory but they often seem rather forced: most games have players for whom knowing and tweaking[…]

Chelsea Headhunt Kenyon: so far so boring. Global brand, best in the business, carry on, nothing to see here. Except I think, though I’m not sure, that Chelsea’s outgoing Chief Executive, Trevor Birch, was the fellow I heard the other nig[…]

Are you a real fan? The ultimate question to anyone at a football match or who defines themselves as a football fan. It’s a question that’s never answered in the negative and is usually rhetorical. Real fans never get asked it, and if yo[…]

Watching the England game in the pub on Saturday, we saw Wayne Rooney score that goal, and a predictable cheer went up. When the replays were going on I looked around me and was surprised at what I saw.
In response to one of the less explicable piec[…]

Sporting Trophies and what they say about the organisations that commissioned them – An occasional series
Number 1 – The FIFA World Cup

Sporting trophies don’t appear to have figured much in the way of criticism; like much of sport[…]

You’re not from round ‘ere: I’m delighted to see FT’s sports coverage kick off with a fine article by Dave Boyle. He’s right to be sick of the jeering insistence on authenticity which runs through so much football cultur[…]

Last week I went to The Oval to watch the first day of the last test between England and South Africa. Now a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people (if you consider the populations of any non-commonwealth country and lots of them too) do not under[…]

I have been involved with an organisation called Exeter City Supporters’ Trust. It’s a group of fans of our little club set up a few years ago with the aim of representing us to the board of the club, amongst other things, and aspiring to[…]

THE BUZZ.[…]