Following his look at violence on and off the Edwardian football pitch, James Hamilton now looks back to at two remarkable figures of the Victorian era of soccer... It’s impossible to scan any list of Victorian and Edwardian footballer’s deaths – like this one... - James Dunlop, St Mirren -- 1892 (tetanus from ... Read More...
Sport
Following his look at Edwardian football hooligans, James Hamilton continues his latest Row Z series on the reality of vintage soccer by turning to the violence and bad behaviour on the pitch... Two things get in the way of many otherwise decent attempts to write football history. Cloying nostalgia, that polyfillas ... Read More...
Having recently demolished some of the most popular football myths, James Hamilton begins another three-part series for our Row Z feature, this time looking at death and violence in Victorian and Edwardian football. The first part reveals that football fan violence was far from an invention of the Thatcher years... It’s ... Read More...
Much praise has been righteously showered on Out Of The Ashes, Tim Albone and Lucy Martens’ film about the Afghan national cricket team, screened as part of BBC Four’s Storyville this week (Catch up with it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ydj1r). All of the big and obvious themes are there, but what makes it ... Read More...
For years hence there will be gnarled Geordies huddled over schooners of broon and Red Bull, claiming they were there in the auditorium when Sid Waddell uttered the immortal phrase: His eyes are bulging like the belly of a hungry chaffinch.* And their wide-eyed children’s children will be perched on their ... Read More...
James Hamilton continues his 'The Football Fan Delusion' mini-series by recalling the 'Golden Age' of the 1970s with rather less fondness than the average English football fan... Even in football, there’s almost always been a golden age. In 1919 the FA Committee – mourning the Great War deaths of sons and ... Read More...
In our occasional feature we invite guests to select the six cultural links that might sustain them if, by some mischance, they were forced to spend eternity in a succession of airport departure lounges with only an iPad or similar device for company. Today's voyager is Owen Polley, who blogs as ... Read More...
In a special mini-series which we're calling 'The Football Fan Delusion', sports psychologist and blogger James Hamilton challenges some of soccer's most popular assumptions. This week he tackles the English myth of Passion and Commitment... I’m not sure when or where I first heard the phrase “passion and commitment.” Sometime after ... Read More...
One morning, earlier this year, I spent a good few minutes standing in front of a large billboard close to Putney Bridge, trying to fathom out why models wearing curiously Continental, colour coordinated and perfectly clean clothing were made up to look as though they’d been in a punch-up. When ... Read More...
“I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have", wrote Andre Agassi in his autobiography Open. It seems that many top sportsmen hate the only thing they’re good at. Stan Collymore used to say he didn’t like ... Read More...
