Top division football clubs cross their collective fingers during international fixture time. Having loaned out their most precious assets – their players – the hope is that they will return injury-free so that normal service can be resumed in the domestic league. It’s an honour to represent your country but it’s not risk-free and clubs…
Some reporters had the first half of Sunday’s Forest v Brentford game as a tame affair, like an end-of-season wind-down. But the golden rule in sports reporting is never to put your pen away until the final whistle is blown. Action-packed after the re-start, we got to learn a lot about both sides and, for the…
Who hasn’t been confined to the ‘naughty corner’ or missed a playtime for punishment at school? The agony of hearing your mates shouting and laughing outside and the thump-thump of a ball being kicked around whilst you’re forbidden the fun cuts deep in childhood. We’re social animals and any type of exclusion, unless it’s some…
A week before ‘Transfer Deadline Day’, the following exchange took place prior to the billionaire Chelsea owner, Todd Boehly, being interviewed on the radio. Reporter: What impact has austerity had in football? Boehly: Austerity, never heard of him. Who’s he? Reporter: I mean – Boehly: Is he available? Let’s get him quick! By the time…
League tables can – and do – play havoc with the imagination. Dreams get ignited and nightmares flare up. Only two games into the Premiership season and the media would have us jostling for our team as ‘top four’ contenders or ‘relegation material’. And it’s still August, so still time for sunshine-lazy days and wallowing…
Mention of August 12th in some sections of society will have fingers twitching and tweed jackets brushed-down and ready. Welcome to the first day of the grouse-shooting season, the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ as participants would have it. A calendar highlight of the year for the aristocracy in decades past, it’s now money more than pedigree that…
What do football supporters do all summer? Flick through TikTok, tittle-tattle and back-page gossip, I suppose, but it hardly fills the gap left by the game’s close-season. So it’s out with the bikes and maps and a couple of mates finding a week to spare and we’re set for the first leg of a well-known…
As the gates clunk shut at grounds around the country to signal the end of May and another football season, players will head off for well-earned rests to every popular destination you’d find in a travel agent. Aside from participation in the FA Cup and European finals, teams are now left free to lick their…
As the final whistle – finally – blew (how long can nine minutes of added time feel? Answer: infinity!) scenes of ecstasy filled the City Ground stands and our TV screens. On a balmy Saturday evening Forest secured Premiership status in their last home game of the season. Fans and players alike let loose an…
Imagine finding that Forest’s fixtures until the end of the season had them face alternate home and away games against Southampton! The south-coast club is the only team the Reds have beaten twice and six points in the bag is excellent business. Reality has it that Forest’s fate – and survival in the Premiership –…
Never mind the pomp and paraphernalia surrounding the coronation of King Charles III this weekend, courtesy of the royal family and sponsored by his subjects (that’s us). We football fans know there are plenty of other concurrent crownings going on in the world as the game comes to its domestic league climax and champions are…
Twenty teams in the Premier League: twelve managers sacked … so far! What’s going on? Read on. Children pat out sandcastles from coloured buckets on a sunny day at the beach. A cluster of senior citizens shuffles dominoes across a pub table. Teenagers high-five a strike at a ten-pin bowling alley. A family throws a…
I blame Manchester United – in part, at least – for the early demise to my blossoming career as a sports journalist. It’s a tale full of intrigue, with accusations of fraud and dodgy money-making. The saga would have sat comfortably in today’s Westminster world of law-bending and money for honours culture but this was…
Tradition has it that pranks, hoaxes, tricks and jokes should come before midday on April 1st. Any fool knows that. But not Wolverhampton Wanderers apparently or some pubs around the City Ground area. ‘We’re full,’ said a few. Others had queues just waiting to get into the place, never mind get a beer. Still, good…
When Dad plants the programme on our kitchen table, he gives me a Cheshire-cat grin. ‘Here you are. Luton Town versus Nottingham Forest. FA Cup final at Wembley. May 2nd 1959.’ Over a Sunday breakfast fry-up, he picks out pages, names and photos. I can’t read (I’m five) and I don’t know what a football…
A Friday evening Sky TV fixture and it’s Nottingham Forest 1 – Newcastle United 1. Then the visitors score a late winner before … . Pause. In a different sort of fixture we had the fallout from the Gary Lineker v BBC ‘Match Of The Day’ shambles. Unscheduled but it’s taken up – and continues…
‘This was the decisive moment when …’. You can apply your own ending. It’s the time of year when that sentence starter gets rolled out by football punters and fans alike as they try to read the runes taking us to the end of the season. The first weekend fixtures of March gave us plenty…
‘A week is a long time in politics’ goes the famous saying, reflecting the fast pace of change in Westminster circles. What with revelations, reputations tarnished and resignations, you wonder that there’s any time left for governing! The same can be said about the world of football: so much gets packed into a week full…
Gareth Southgate is the most successful manager of the England men’s team since 1966 and he’s about to be the subject of a new play, called ‘Dear England’, at our National Theatre. Joseph Fiennes will star and the story will cover Southgate’s career from his infamous penalty miss for his country as a player to…
