By Jonnie Baker 1 January 2010 I’m not convinced I know much about football. No, what I mean is, I’m not convinced I understand much about football. Certainly I boast a reasonable knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the game – that the Saddlers are Walsall and Josimar scored a screamer for Brazil while […]

By Andy Cole 31 December 2009 The middle of the most remarkable Premier League season we’ve ever had is as good a time as any to reflect on a great 2009, and a defining decade for England’s top division. Not that England’s top division has a monopoly on magnificent talent, which leads me nicely to […]

By Nick Harris 30 December 2009 Chelsea continue to lose money at a greater rate than any other football club in England, with today’s financial figures showing a £44.4m loss for the year 2008-09. That news was made worse by a reduction in income over the period, down year-on-year from £213.1m to £206.4m, at a […]

Can you identify the sporting arena? We take an aerial view of a ball park, football stadium, marathon course, golf course, Games venue, race track, iconic arena, athletic theatre (some literally theatres), pitch, park, stretch of water or wherever else sport takes place. And we ask you to identify it with the help of a […]

27 December 2009 Pim Verbeek, the head coach of Australia’s football team, has hinted heavily that any player wanting to make it into his 23-man squad for the 2010 World Cup finals will need to be playing club football at a decent level in Europe between January and the summer. “On May 11, I will […]

27 December 2009 As the economic downturn starts to nip at the heels of  Britain’s sporting economic juggernaut, the Premier League, Paul Hayward in the Observer theorises that the hard times equal greater equality. Leaving aside the fact that the current challenge to the ‘big four’ is coming most strongly from teams also owned by […]

By Nick Harris 26 December 2009 Denmark’s Nils Middelboe was attached to the Casuals and Newcastle before playing League football for Chelsea from late 1913. Photographs from the time show an awkward, apparently shy man with long skinny arms and a concave chest. But as his lengthy international career and authorship of coaching manuals showed, he […]

Exclusive By Nick Harris 26 December 2009 The VIP guest list for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will include a pioneering player who played for Coventry City, Cardiff and Barnsley among many stops in a colourful, controversial career that has also included fierce criticism of his native South African FA. Steve Mokone was […]

25 December 2009 Michael Vick is a 29-year-old quarterback with the Philadelphia Eagles but is better known to non-followers of the NFL as someone who was sent to prison for 23 months in 2007 for his key role in a dog-fighting ring. The Ed Block Courage Award is given each year to 32 NFL players, […]

24 December 2009 The best selling newspapers in the world are mainly based in Asia, where it’s already Christmas Day. And the major sports news story on Christmas Day 2009 in the world’s No1 newspaper (Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun) concerns Marcus Tulio Tanaka’s move from Urawa Reds to Grampus Eight.  The top non-Japanese newspaper in the world […]