Roger Alton is a former editor of the Observer and the Independent. He writes the Spectator Sport column.
People who think that life is always about money will have a hard job explaining the Ryder Cup. Top golfers earn serious cash these days, and fairly so-so golfers do too. But once every two years they play for nothing; nothing, that is, beyond the honour of winning. If you think that all sportsmen care
What with all the whoring, coke-snorting and match-fixing, it has been a tricky few weeks for those of us, ahem, who look to sport for moral guidance. Incidentally, it’s worth remembering that all those stories which, quite rightly, have set huge waves rolling across the news and sport agenda appeared in the News of the
When the South African captain Hansie Cronje was accused of match-fixing ten years ago — the beginning of cricket’s current crisis — the overwhelming reaction was shock, even disbelief. We clung to the hope (at best) that the whole story might be fabricated, or (at least) that Cronje was a rare rogue in an otherwise
There’s a chant they sing at Anfield to the tune of Yellow Submarine — ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers…’. And so they should. The doughty old Scouser has emerged as something of a hero. There was his gift of £10,000 to Andy Burnham’s Labour leadership campaign, one of the most startling acts
Well, at least one Rooney did well this summer. That’s Martyn of course, one of the second tier of Britain’s medal winners at the European Athletics Championships who played a blinder to pick up an individual bronze and a relay silver in the 400 metres. The meeting was a simply glorious celebration of multi-ethnic harmony in
Quite the best piece about any sport you’re likely to read in a long time is a vibrant profile of Roger Federer in the New Yorker the other day by the octogenarian art critic Calvin Tomkins. In the course of it the Fed observes: ‘The problem with experience is that you become content with playing
The veteran Himalayan mountaineer (70 next year) and now indefatigable fundraiser for his Nepalese charity, Doug Scott, held a packed audience spellbound at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington last week describing the moment he was swept from west ridge of K2, second only to Everest in height but far more dangerous. ‘I thought, this
If anything can, even temporarily, fill the gaping hole left by the absence of 24 from our screens, then I suppose a World Cup will just have to do. My 10-year-old godson got it about right the other day, returning from Tesco with a stash of England-branded Mars bars. ‘I don’t know what all the
There was a remarkable picture in the Independent’s sports section the other morning showing a lone cyclist tearing up a mountain road in the Italian Alps. The high pastures were thronged with people — thousands of them — and most are cheering like crazy. The eye is caught by a green, white and red tricolore,
The last Wednesday in May will never be the same. What always used to be an annual highlight, the European Cup, now Champions League Final, has been brought forward to the weekend before — on the say-so of ever-tinkering Uefa chief Michel Platini so that more children, who won’t have to go to school the
What have Alan Sillitoe, novelist and gritty chronicler of working-class life, who died at the weekend, and Michael Mann, big-screen film-maker and gritty chronicler of Americana on the edge, got in common? Each have been responsible for a great movie about running. Sillitoe’s short story ‘The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ (1959) was made into
J.L. Carr, that fine English writer, teacher, sports-lover and eccentric, once wrote a book called How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup. It was about a village team which eventually got through to the Cup Final, beating Glasgow Rangers at Wembley. It sold a couple of thousand copies and was eventually remaindered, though Carr
Sooner or later, and certainly before the end of the current F1 season, you hope that the men behind Mercedes Sport, techno-whizz Ross Brawn and cigar-chomping Norbert Haug, will take Michael Schumacher to one side and say: ‘You know Michael, it’s been great having you here, but Corinna’s not such a bad old stick to
It’s a sad old story when the most enjoyable moments of last weekend’s Calcutta Cup battle at Murrayfield were the frequent TV cutaways to Scotland coach Andy Robinson giving an Oscar-winning performance as the world’s angriest man. In his playing days he was known as ‘Growler’ but there wasn’t much growling here: near demented hysteria,
Should Britain be setting out to ‘own the podium’ at the London Olympics in two years’ time? I mean — we can’t own it every single event, can we? The last time I looked we weren’t exactly overblessed with weightlifters, and we might have to question our chances in Greco-Roman wrestling. I wouldn’t back us
If the impresario, former Corrie and Carry On actor, Everton owner and all-round good-guy Bill Kenwright never does anything else, the nation owes a big debt of gratitude to this last of the old-style football club chairmen for hanging on to his manager David Moyes like a limpet. Moyes is a shining light in the
When you sit down next weekend (13 February) to watch the first competitors blast through the starting gate of the men’s downhill, the blue riband event of this year’s Winter Olympics in Whistler, I hope you will spare a moment to think back to a clear but windy day in Switzerland more than 80 years
If shrinks don’t have a term like disproportionate response — you know, getting jailed for clearing the snow off your path or some such madness — then they certainly should have. We need it to do justice to the lunatic levels of hoo-ha, from players, commentators and fans, over Graeme Smith’s referral and phantom snick in the
New Year starter for ten: who said this? ‘When you hear people on TV talking about you in the same breath as people like Steven Gerrard or Freddie Flintoff, you look at it as if they’re talking about someone else. It’s weird. It’s very humbling and gives you a lump in your throat.’ No, not
Forget the Spectator Parliamentarian Awards, or the Oscars for that matter, it’s the annual Spectator Sports Awards that count. Indeed in Hollywood, the Oscars are known as the Spectator Sports Awards of the film industry. Our judges have been busier than Rachel Uchitel’s lawyers sorting out our shortlists, and now finally a roster of winners