Month: October 2006

I need something to distract myself from Chris Oakley’s execrable contribution to the Guardian’s football pages this morning (really – it would help if it were funny, but it’s like being trapped in a lift) so, completely off the cuff, I’m going to name my books and people of the footballing year 2006. If someone…

Some fun snippets taken from the Gillette Book of Cricket and Football (ed. Gordon Ross 1963): Middlesborough were beaten 9-0 by Blackburn Rovers on November 6th, 1954, and kept the same team the following week. Six players who figured in the same position with Football League clubs in London have represented England in Test match…

I just want to draw this to your attention – a conversation in The Times between Jonny Wilkinson and Michael Owen. Pure More Than Mind Games material: “For a long time I interpreted this training regime as a double strength,” Wilkinson says. “I would go into a game feeling I doubly deserved to win.” Owen…

Whilst I work on something longer, two additions to the sports psychology summary: The difference between sports psychology and psychotherapy/psychiatry is well illustrated by the fact that some of the attributes of top sportsmen are regarded by psychotherapists/psychiatrists as undesirable. Top sportspeople devote themselves entirely to their sport – neglecting family, social life, career. Some…

Footballers as trainspotters? Perhaps. I can still remember my surprise when I learned that most pop band musicians were insecure geeks and not the sex gods their publicists wanted them to be. David’s is an interesting article, but comes hurtling off the rails at exactly the place you might expect it to. Here are the…

The first floodlit league match in England took place in 1956 – Portsmouth v Newcastle (the home team lost 2-0, and for a variety of reasons, the game was a miserable experience for almost all concerned). Back then – and for the seventy years preceding – kick-off on a Saturday afternoon had been at 3p.m….

Some thoughts generated by this short but extremely revealing interview in the Telegraph with the former Republic of Ireland defender Paul McGrath. You can build up a frightening and heartbreaking checklist from it in moments: Heavy drinking built into his life by his mid-20s Resorting to drinking Domestos and bleach At least four suicide attempts…

An email to the Football365 Mailbox suggests that Mourinho’s kicking up rough about Petr Cech’s treatment at Reading was all about distracting attention from his team’s preparation for the match against Barcelona. I agree… to some extent. When it comes to getting ready for big games, Mourinho is Clough’s man. Keep your players distracted, be…

Interesting article on the Guardian’s Sport Blog on what they perceive as a gap. 8% of the British population come from an ethnic minority (4% asian, 2% black, figures which in my view combine unlike with unlike in a most unhelpful manner) but nothing like 8% of football crowds are non-white. The comments contribute an…

One reason often given for the decline in the murder rate in the United States is improved emergency care: people now survive injuries that twenty years ago would have killed them. The same may or may not be true of football. There are signs that the sheer physical demands made by the modern game are…