James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
Of course, it used to be the double. Between Aston Villa before the turn of the century (20th century) and Bill Nicholson’s Spurs, no side won both League and FA Cup in the same season. It’s become a little less remarkable since then. But English clubs have been competing for the European Cup since 1956,…
Completely OT, but George linked to this video, and I’d like to raise him: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N32RrjwWYic&rel=1] That’s all. Back to your pints and red-tops, gentlemen.
From this morning’s Guardian: “We coaches cannot understand how England, with the players they have, could fail to qualify for the European Championships,” said Capello, who has long been proud of the psychological work he does with his players. “How could players of such a high level perform so differently with their national team to…
I’ve long fought against the idea that England’s top players are arrogant primadonnas who think they have a divine right to a place in the national team. I’ve even resisted, from time to time, the idea that the English way of playing is irretrievably backward. But the evidence of this clip is overwhelming. From 45…
He left with such grace, patriotism and politeness. The manner of Steve McClaren’s departure would make a proper Englishman proud, but there were none of those in the press conference. I felt it was an error to let Ericksson go; now, here we are again amidst the tangled deckchairs as iceberg after iceberg slips through…
The emotions in question right now are those engendered by what has so far been a cack-handed performance by Scotland against Italy. I turned Radio 5 off in the car just after kick-off, sickened by all the “rain in their faces, cold air on their skin” comments from the BBC team. A pity: the Italian…
Of course it can: eat nothing but crisps and drink nothing but cheap lager for only one week, and you’ll see the world in an entirely new way. I’m interested in the opposite direction, of course. And I’m turning myself into a guinea pig for five days to see how far I can go in…
I was reading some newspaper or other on a late train home last week when I came across the opinion, expressed by an established football journalist, that all football pitches were the same and that home/away advantage was a mystery. Of course, it isn’t so, and all the reasons why it isn’t so are fairly…
In three parts, the life of John Edward Thompson Milburn. Before he became a football journalist on the fringes of the young Brian Clough’s circle, he could play a bit: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyVSTcbitk&rel=1]
There is something repellant about the idea of Christopher Hitchens, of all people, having to waste his time in the company of “stop smoking” companies and the rest of the self-improvement industry. Waste your time on his account here and here. I spent a year of my life researching the smoking problem, and I was…