EVERY time I see that a magazine or newspaper has a feature on the (fantastic) sports photographer Stuart Roy Clarke, I smile. Because I usually know what’s coming. Stuart Clarke, for those who don’t know, concentrates mainly on taking pictures of football fans rather...
ANDREW FAGAN (Joe’s Grandson) and Mark Platt have delivered a thorough and fitting biography of a true footballing gent. It concentrates as much on football as the man himself clearly did; what drips from every page is Joe Fagan’s love of the game. It’s there as...
£330,000. By Peter Carney, March 2001 LAST Thursday an ex South Yorkshire policeman, Mathew Long, was awarded £330,000 for the suffering he has been caused by late onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don’t know the full details of the role this man played on the...
AMONG the seemingly positive phrases in football’s lexicon, ‘versatile’ is one many fans treat with trepidation. ‘Morale-boosting win’ is another – superficially good news but more pregnant with subtext than Demi Moore watching season four of The Wire. A...
HERE’S a question for you – who does the best tapas in Liverpool? Now a few years ago that might have been like pondering over the identity of Everton’s current best striker or the least annoying cod-reggae shitburst by East Coast George Osbornes Vampire Weekend...
STATISTICS. They’re a recent phenomenon in the game of football, and I’ll be honest, they drive me up the wall. I mean, remember the fuss two years ago? FIFA risking the wrath of national footballing establishments across the globe by introducing the...
I wrote this in The Times in 2009. A lot of people will not have seen it. I’m not sure I can say anything to add to it. Nothing has changed since I wrote it. I still go back there, too often. God knows what the people who really suffered go through. THE last time I...
JUSTICE can be delayed but not avoided, the truth hidden but never truly buried, the facts obfuscated but never fully erased. RESPONSIBILITY. It’s the word on everybody’s lips in response to the rioting which spread around the UK last week. Particularly keen on the R...
WHAT I’m about to write is true. In 1996, the night before a big audition, I had a dream. It was a Thursday night I think. THIRTY SEVEN, THIRTY SEVEN, THIRTY SEVEN, THIRTY SEVEN, THIRTY SEVEN, that’s all I could remember of this dream. The Number 37, that’s all it...
BARCA. These days we’re reading more and more on the subject of Barca. Guardiola this, and La Masia that – every trophy they add to the cabinet comes with fresh proclamations of their righteousness – it’s not only fashionable to do so,...
