Home > The Magazine > Columnists

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Spectator Sport

Roger Alton

Wednesday, 30th July 2008

The top ten

You need a PhD in astro-physics to work out what’s going on in cricket at the moment, so time for some simpler fare. Here are 10 good reasons, and I know no sane person should be thinking about this right now, why the next football season could be the most exciting ever.

1. The chance to watch Deco every week at Chelsea: this brilliant, cultivated Portuguese midfielder is one footballer you won’t be seeing fall out of Chinawhite in the small hours. And he plays with a smile on his face too.

2. Over at Manchester City expect Mark Hughes to build up a genuine big-city rival to Alex Ferguson’s United. Hughes was a rough, tough, robust but always fair player and has brought the same to management. Anyway, Ferguson’s been around for ever: it would be good to see him knocked off his perch.

3. With ‘Big Phil’ Scolari at Chelsea, we don’t need the Special One. Scolari seems beyond fabulous, but another top foreigner, Signor Capello, has got to deliver for England soon. Bring on Croatia: the friendlies are over, Fab.

4. It was just reward for the tireless Paul Ince that he has become Britain’s first black Premiership manager at Blackburn. I hope he does well, but he might be losing David Bentley, by a mile his best player.

5. There are few certainties in life, but one eternal verity is that Newcastle will screw up. After some early good cheer, the terraces will be full of weeping fat blokes in black and white shirts. And that includes owner Mike Ashley. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.

6. The beautiful teams, Holland and Portugal, played some stunning ‘sexy football’ with a 4-2-3-1 formation at Euro 2008, allowing for a fluid attacking front four. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone started using it here?

1 | 2 Next page

More articles from: Roger Alton | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Shared Opinion

Hugo Rifkind

If there really is a secret Zionist brotherhood running the world, why aren’t I a member?

Global warning

Theodore Dalrymple

Scratch the surface and there is always tragedy, mixed, of course, with wickedness.

And another thing

Paul Johnson

When the leaves fall is the fun time of year for artists

Status Anxiety

Toby Young

Classlessness means your five-year-old chanting ‘sheepshaggers’ on the terraces

The Wiki Man

Rory Sutherland

A fortnightly column on technology and the web

Thank goodness we can have a run on the pound when we need one

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer looks ahead to next week’s Pre-Budget Report and reflects on George Osborne’s contentious remarks about the devaluation of sterling. It looks like Gordon Brown is getting away with his borrowing binge — leaving the Tories isolated

Twelve steps to market meltdown

Stephen Vines

Stephen Vines says stock markets may seem wildly volatile at times of crisis, but they always follow a pattern

Who put a sock full of cocaine in my drawer?

Venetia Thompson

Venetia Thompson, who has never taken the drug, was shocked to discover a stash in her house. What to do? Her friends’ response was a collective shrug as if it were nothing unusual