James Hamilton on Sport History and Psychology
In Holland, football is a thinking man’s game. When the Dutch talk about it, the concepts to which they always return are ‘techniek’ and ‘tactiek‘. ‘Passie‘, or passion, was a quality they associated with unsophisticated footballers from other countries. In Korea, Hiddinck learnt that it was actually pretty important. Even when speaking Dutch, he tends…
Here’s an astonishing Pathe lineup of – almost entirely – Victorian English streetscape. Because the bulk of this was shot in 1896-7, the camera was too bulky to manouvre but too new to be recognised for what it was, lending these scenes an intimacy, almost an anonymity, that Mitchell and Kenyon would neither seek nor…
Interesting unused rushes from the Depression era are rare, so I thought I’d post these five minutes of them here despite their lack of sports content. Pathe don’t know when or where: visual clues suggest to me South Wales c. 1937-9. At any rate, the lack of post-War cues is glaring enough, and those are…
At the age of 31, Alfred Wainwright, chronicler of the fells, did what you might expect and took a walking holiday. Beginning at Settle, he went north via Appleby and Hexham, following Hadrian’s wall for a spell before returning to Settle by way of Ronaldkirk and Askrigg. There was more than usual to escape from:…
Further to Gabriele Marcotti’s article on why “soccer” is not an Americanism, (thankyou Ross for the link, btw) I’ve noticed something really quite interesting about the way the word has been used by the heavy press. Take this clipping from the Daily Telegraph (24th February 1978): (contra that heading, it is the Telegraph). Calmly and…
I wish I didn’t have to introduce Alfred Williams (1877-1930), but I probably do. Yet he deserves to be more famous than Percy Grainger: In 1892 he went to work in the Great Western Railway works in Swindon, principally as a hammer-man, and remained there until 1914. Williams began studying in his spare time in 1897…
Brian Phillips: Back in May, before I knew that academic statisticians were eavesdropping on my thoughts, I mused on Sport Is a TV Show that “judging the footballing abilities of two football teams is so difficult that football itself is often a bad way to do it.” Read the rest here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIiBcMwNE0A] For my money, the lesser of the great ’60s tranche of managers, but the better man of the lot of them. He reminds me of my Uncle John RIP.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGwO6cUknU] Apologies for the relative silence here. The book – 2-3 years away at best – is taking up most of my erstwhile blogging time. Congratulations are in order to Tiberius for this, which is long overdue.
Just like its Denis Law equivalent, it’s accompanied by the Beatles: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKBEL29P2Lc] Enjoy. I particularly like the Rodney Marsh/Best interchanges towards the end. In the early ’90s, my lunchtime pub was the Phene Arms in Chelsea, which happened at the time to be Best’s local too. I have three principle memories of Best there, and…