AUSTRALIA. I have a few problems with Australia. First up there’s the whole ‘red centre’ thing. I’m red/green colour blind. Stood with a thousand people cooing ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ and ‘look at the colours, they’re amazing’ as the sun set on what, to me, looked like a...
WE woke this morning to headlines alternately heralding a tactical masterclass from Mourinho, alongside claims that Brendan Rodgers had thrown bitter barbs in Mourinho’s direction, highlighting his ‘two buses parked’ comment. The reality is different...
IN 1990, I went on my first ever holiday abroad, aged 17. It was a roller coaster ride. I went to Toronto with my sister and her husband, to meet for the first time the Canadian branch of our family. I saw The Simpsons for the first time. I ate Tim Horton’s donuts for...
THE England rugby squad that won the World Cup in 2003 had a team shout they used at pressure moments in games. Eventually it grew and became second nature for them, but early on, they’d all say, “TCUP”. It stood for “Think Correctly Under...
GEORGE Polya – Hungarian mathematical boffin of historical note – once postulated five patterns of plausibility, each of which, he claimed, told us something about the structure of belief in us humans. The starting point for these patterns was the fact...
AFTER THE ARSENAL LEAGUE GAME Roy: Once upon a time there was a Liverpool side that skittled Tottenham 5-0 (going on 10-0) at White Hart Lane, obliterated a resurgent Everton 4-0 (going on 9-0) at home, and marmalised Arsenal 5-1 (going on 12-1), a side that led the...
LIVERPOOL beat Arsenal 5-1. In the days since, celebrated pundits, while shovelling the customary rationalisation onto a newly disoriented Wenger, have actually taken time to point out that in the process, Liverpool put one of the most impressive quarters of football...
WHEN I was at Uni, during a particularly soul destroying moment in a particularly soul destroying lecture, I looked up in my moment of dread and saw the sole of a class mate’s shoe. It took a while to figure out what the lettering said. But eventually I figured...
IN case you missed it, Greg Dyke, the new FA Chairman, said this in a speech last week. “I’ve been planning this speech almost from the day I was offered the job as FA Chairman and I have read with interest recently people arguing that English football needs a...
Your football club, it gets up in the morning, and once it’s just about regained some idea of where it is, it rolls to its feet, picks its boxer shorts out of its arse, and staggers to the bathroom mirror. Maybe it does all this with a little Gareth...
