Sport

I have never been a soccer mom, described in the Washington Post as ‘the overburdened, middle-income working mother who ferries her kids from soccer practice to scouts to school’. That was in 1996, during the American election campaign when Bill Clinton wished to appeal to this stereotype. I admit there have been days devoted to Veronica and gymkhanas, but that is a different matter. I don’t understand why British writers should mind when the Americans call association football soccer. It used not to be foreign usage in this country. As Steve Hendricks, an American from Boulder, Colorado, points out in a well-researched paper on the origins of soccer, Jimmy Hill

I’m struggling to work up much enthusiasm about England’s progress in the Euros. I know, I know, Tuesday night’s victory was the first time England has beaten Germany in the knockout stage of a tournament in 55 years — and the moment Gareth Southgate, the team manager, finally made amends for missing his penalty in the semi-final against Germany in Euro 96. It’s conceivable we might make it all the way to the final, but I’m more excited about watching QPR play Leyton Orient in the first round of the Carabao Cup. Why? One reason is that in the past ten years I’ve become a QPR superfan. Being a QPR

Thank heavens the Champions League final is being played in Portugal, now Turkey’s off the menu (sorry). It will certainly be a damn sight easier to get to than Wembley: have you tried to go round the North Circular these days? And at least the capital will not have to accommodate what is ominously described as ‘the Uefa family’, all 2,000 of them. Pity no one told them about family planning. And where would you prefer to go out for a post-match bite: Porto or Wembley Way? Anyway, then we will see quite how far Chelsea have got inside Manchester City’s head, with two very efficient victories in the League

Anything been happening in football in the past couple of weeks? No? Moving on then… Hang about though. The doomed relegation-free European Super League may have had a shorter life than the average mayfly but it generated the level of fury produced by poking a stick in a hornets’ nest. How justified was all the outrage? The idea that clubs such as City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and the rest of the ‘Shameful Six’ are friendly neighbourhood outfits where you could run into Chopper Harris down the pub has long gone. These are huge international businesses run by Arab rulers, Russian billionaires and US hedge funds. They might have backed down

After the thrills and spills and last-gasp excitements of England’s triple-headed series in India, the attention of the cricket fan moves on. But to where? To Derbyshire’s next game, say — a university match at the county ground, over what promises to be a somewhat nippy Easter weekend. Or perhaps to the Indian Premier League, where the Mumbai Indians, featuring Rohit Sharma and the Pandya brothers, from the recent Test series, kick off the latest edition of the tournament against Bangalore, perpetually under-achieving despite the presence of A.B. de Villiers, Virat Kohli, Washington Sundar and Adam Zampa. Some of the best players in world cricket will be in India, for

For those with neither the time nor inclination to plough through a PhD in the intricacies of the scandals surrounding British cycling, here’s a quick suggestion for Sir Dave ‘Marginal Gains’ Brailsford, head of Team Sky, now Ineos Grenadiers. His former team doctor, Richard Freeman, has been found guilty of ordering packages of banned testosterone for an unnamed rider a decade ago in 2011 but — in a neat piece of Harry and Meghan-style ‘We’re not saying who said what’ — has refused to reveal which athlete. Armstrong said it wasn’t certain that he gained any unfair advantage from doping So since it seems that marginal gains might involve considerably

French rugby has always been well stocked with boeuf but now it has added lashings of exceptionally tangy moutarde and the whole dish is mighty tasty — as evidenced by their brilliant first try against Ireland at the weekend. Covid scares permitting, the team are the stars of this Six Nations — and annoyingly good-looking too. The next World Cup is in France and will be the most glamorous World Cup ever. It might also be an opportunity to get some of your francs on the host nation, at appetising odds of around 6-1. The French defence, discipline and game management is pretty flawless: take a bow Shaun Edwards, who

Alan Bond was a rogue and a rich man, in every way your typical Aussie larrikin. In 1983 he bankrolled Australia’s challenge for the America’s Cup, the blue-riband sailing trophy held permanently until then by the New York Yacht Club. Sensationally, Australia won and that triumph did as much as anything to put rocket fuel under the young country’s confidence and self-belief. Australians still remember the massive crowds pouring out to welcome their winning boat’s return to Sydney Harbour. Now, whisper it, something very similar could be happening for Great Britain across the Tasman Sea. There on the waters of the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, Sir Ben Ainslie is leading