Sport

My friend Simon has a lovely bench in his garden made up of the blue-painted wooden seats he sat in with his dad when they went to Rugby League decades ago. He bought them when the old Swinton ground was knocked down. That’s what a lot of sport’s about: you mustn’t let the past disappear.

First Serb Like this journal’s esteemed High Life commentator, I too have been spending too much time watching the last fortnight’s Australian Tennis Open from Melbourne — but unlike my colleague I found it an absolute revelation, with potentially lethal levels of thrills, shocks, gut-wrenching excitement and great grace in victory and defeat. For most people

Another big fight on Saturday in Vegas: Britain’s welterweight Ricky Hatton vs the accomplished American Floyd Mayweather. Victory for the four-square brickhouse banger from Manchester will, you see, have him headline-hailed back home as Britain’s finest ever — totally preposterous, of course, as were the ditto hosannahs hurrahed from the hillsides just a month ago

Clueless about who, where or what to turn to next, I wonder which was history’s first body to announce a ‘full and far-reaching commission of enquiry’ in which to cover itself with a sub judice blanket until the army of furious castigators either runs out of rotten tomatoes or turns their bombardment of scorn to

Sportswriting lost a glistening luminary when Ian Wooldridge died at 75 last spring. In four decades he produced more than seven million words for the Daily Mail which, aware of his unmatchable worth, rewarded him and his expenses chits with grateful generosity. It was never necessary for Ian, as it was for his impoverished peers,

The to-and-fro of the 2012 Olympic Games’s accounting transparency (or otherwise) continues to be what old sportswriters used to call ‘a ding-dong contest’. The to-and-fro of the 2012 Olympic Games’s accounting transparency (or otherwise) continues to be what old sportswriters used to call ‘a ding-dong contest’. The shrill voice of the government’s Olympic minister Tessa

In need of a positive spin from anywhere, ITV can at least console itself with the plaudits for its exclusive live coverage of rugby’s recent World Cup. The oddity (probably unnoticed by most viewers) was that the channel’s senior commentary team and many of its studio sages had been rented for the tournament from its

With league fixtures into double figures, the autumn’s general-excuse-me overture has finished and the long winter slog is really underway. The eightsome reel at the top of the Premiership comprises natch the four usual suspects (Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea) and a fresh quartet of determined pretenders girding up to press on from highly

Widespread focus of national passions on the conclusion of Lewis Hamilton’s dash for the chequered flag on the Formula One racetrack and rugby’s compelling World Cup muted much of England’s hostile recriminations over its inept football team’s almost certain elimination from the 2008 European championship. The diversions, however, only delayed the deluge of derision, and

By nice fluke, there has been a heady clash of cultures over the past few days, with comparisons anything but invidious. The intriguing bundle of important international football matches has converged precisely with both rugby league’s grand final and the closing stages of rugby union’s World Cup in France. The ubiquitous radio phone-ins and the

Rugby’s World Cup has been surprisingly engaging — hooray for the gallant grandeur of England, France and the other small-fry nations! It has been salutary for the Celts, however, with Wales and Ireland given such a contemptuous bums’ rush that each had to watch last weekend’s quarter-finals on television back in their own homes and

This corner has already broken its fundamental annual rule not to get worked up about football till the clocks are altered at the end of this month — there is ample time ahead to concentrate on soccer’s unending imbroglio of speculation, satisfaction and scandal — and any number of faraway correspondents write to say they

Even before the last splurge of qualifying group games are played in rugby union’s World Cup, consensus agrees the tournament has already turned into a calamity for the four from the British Isles. Even before the last splurge of qualifying group games are played in rugby union’s World Cup, consensus agrees the tournament has already

Spectator readers Alan Magid and Timothy Straker were quick on the draw (Letters, 25 August, 8 September) to champion Mike by P.G. Wodehouse in a matey reproach to Robert Stewart’s assertion in his review of Baseball Haiku (Books, 18 August) that there had never been a significant cricket novel. Spectator readers Alan Magid and Timothy

At any sporting junket involving pretentious national prestige, you can guarantee that the ritzy no-expense-spared ‘resplendence’ of a dire and irksome opening ceremony matters far more than any of the actual sport which follows it. Rugby union’s World Cup curtain-up promises the full phonily festive fanfaronade next Friday (7 September) in the Stade de France

Just about the most warming, sun-beaming day of this monsoon summer was spent in a cuddly western nook of the Malvern Hills at blissful Colwall, watching a languid few hours’ play of a Minor Counties match between Herefordshire and Devon. President of the Devon club is venerable dumpling David Shepherd, not long retired as all

Spend half an hour or so in front of a television on Saturday when Hampshire are in the field at Lord’s in the one-day county cup final. I guarantee some vivid and telling olde-tyme captaincy from the Australian Shane Warne. Spend half an hour or so in front of a television on Saturday when Hampshire

London on Saturday stages a precise convergence of the sporting seasons. At the Oval England’s cricketers play the decider of their compelling and all too short Test series against India, and upriver at Twickenham England’s rugby men have a penultimate dress-rehearsal for their imminent World Cup defence in just a month. But it is the