I can’t ride a bike. Not in the technical sense of can’t, more so the physical act of. My last knee operation left me with a leg that I can’t bend beyond 110 degrees, if you view a straight leg as being 180. To ride a bike, to push the pedals round, you really have to be able to bend your knee past 90 degrees. So why then, am I writing a post about professional road racing as a joyous, audience participation sport? Why, for the backdrop; naturally. I’m not the first to highlight the joys you can have from adapting the route of a road race, and putting it in to a more social context. The wine writer, Juel Mahoney, produced an excellent reference
Sport Archive
Bit of a departure from the usual stuff on here. Was given free rein to write a Nostradamus influenced preview for the forthcoming Spurs season. The repetition and length also lends itself to the Epic poetry of Homer etc.. Though that makes it sound fairly highbrow – when all it really is, is a chance to let my overly active imagination run riot – whilst taking the proverbial out of Spurs players along the way. Big thanks to Spooky at Dear Mr Levy for letting me bring the quality of his site down somewhat. The Tottenham Prophecy – Part One The Tottenham Prophecy – Part Two The Tottenham Prophecy – Part Three
I’m stood on a railway platform in Hexham, Northumberland. It’s 8.30am and I’m waiting for a train to take me to Newcastle. It is the start of a journey that will eventually take me to Bury, Lancashire; passing by the outskirts of Leeds. The city where I live – the city I left yesterday to travel up here. As I stand there, my mind starts to flood with questions I already know the answer to. Why am I really making a journey others would have happily backed out of? Why am I leaving my family behind when I could be spending a day relaxing with them? What must Amy’s friends think of me for travelling all the way up here, only to disappear the very
I was once told that through sport, I lived a double life. I disagreed. My view was that what I did was no different to how others involved in amateur sport lived their lives. I had a decent job, a part-time hobby and a dedication to the sport I played. But then if I introduced myself to anyone new. Told them what I did. How I made my living; where I would be on a Friday night – what I would then be doing on a Saturday morning – a lack of understanding would permeate through the rest of our conversation. They simply refused to believe me. The job meant working at different European sites. The hobby was as an events reviewer for DJ Magazine.
Post on the so called demise of footballing heroes – who shroud themselves in expensive suits; courting favours and votes in exchange for the right to kiss the hem of their cloaks. In Bed With Maradona – No More Heroes
A guest blog for the Dear Mr Levy website. A site dedicated to the trials and tribulations (with the occasional happy, positive post) down at Tottenham Hotspur FC Here I am allowed to dream; to slip back in to my childhood and remember a time when Spurs were once a European force. Oh what a night that was…. European Dreams
This piece was written as a response to Iain Macitntosh’s article on In Bed With Maradona. It is intended as a counter-argument to the view that football is fun. For it is my genuine belief that football is fun, there are just far too many current examples of football being as far detached from fun as you can possibly get. Football is fun. Football. Is. Fun. See, as three words it is easy to say. But as a viewpoint, is it really so easy to accept; to simply agree to and move on? I imagine football is fun if you are playing keepie uppie in the corridors of Barcelona’s training complex, whilst waiting to interview one of the top three footballers on the planet. Or
At what point did my life become nothing more than a collection of labels or tags by which I am instantly recognised by? I don’t mean the simple police style IC1 Male. More the often, somewhat lazy and disparaging label that identifies me not as an individual, but as part of a wider network of people I barely have anything in common with? I understand being classified by my job title. It’s what I do for eight hours a day, five days a week. I also understand being referred to by my relationship choices – that of husband, married man or father of one – for I am all three. What I don’t understand, is when I am classified not by my actions, but more
“The aim of English cricket is, in fact, mainly to beat Australia.” Jim Laker Today is the day that the Ashes start. It’s not the first test, it may not even be the first game for a number of the squad, but it is the start of – what is viewed by many as – the only thing to really get excited about in the cricketing world. I don’t want this blog to be specifically sports based. There are plenty, no doubt better offerings out there for your specialist needs. However, I do want to mark this occasion, the start of the 66th Ashes Series (the series of cricket matches played between England and Australia), with a few thoughts on why it should mean so
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