England cricket chiefs set to make decision on Ashes participation October 4, 2021 The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) plans to decide this week whether to send a team to Australia for the men’s Ashes this winter. The series is in doubt because of Australia’s strict Covid-19 protocols, although talks are continuing between both countries. A major sticking point has been whether players’ families can accompany them, [...]
Premiership: Five things we’ve learned as the east Midlands rise again October 4, 2021 The east Midlands are on the rugby rise again and more clubs than ever are competing for European places, here are five things we learned from this weekend’s Premiership action. The east Midlands heartlands are back The east Midlands duo of Leicester Tigers and Northampton Saints now occupy the top two Premiership spots. The pair [...]
Liverpool 2, Manchester City 2: Neutrals win stalemate between clinical Reds and blunt Blues October 3, 2021 As they caught their breath following this whirlwind contest at the top of the Premier League, Manchester City supporters could be forgiven for feeling conflicted. Glass-half-full Blues will point to the fact that they twice came from behind at Liverpool, where they have won just three times in 49 league games. Pessimistic City fans, on [...]
Where to eat, drink and sleep in Manchester this Tory conference October 2, 2021 Conservative Party Conference, which starts tomorrow, is a useful opportunity for the London bubble dwellers amongst us to be reminded of the promise beyond the M25. It sometimes feels as if Manchester is more familiar to football-crazy kids in the Far East than to denizens of this country’s capital city. So for out of the [...]
No Time To Die: Daniel Craig signs off in style October 1, 2021 Fifteen years after first donning the tuxedo, it’s time for Daniel Craig to take his final bow as James Bond. He arrives just as cinema is crying out for a hero: No Time To Die’s several delays (starting in March 2020) were a constant reminder of an industry still reeling from the last 18 months, [...]
A house in St John’s Wood with a garden to die for October 1, 2021 ‘Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, / Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues’ – so begins Rudyard Kipling’s 1911 poem, The Glory of the Garden. Over a century later, England’s towns and cities are not quite so green, and houses with decent-sized gardens are harder to come [...]
Why Spain’s LaLiga believes Uefa and other leagues should follow its lead October 1, 2021 Spain has a long and rich tradition of shaping how football is played. It has given us the great Real Madrid sides of the 1950s; Pep Guardiola and his all-conquering Barcelona; the national team who swept all major men’s international tournaments from 2008 to 2012; tiki-taka. Britain may be the birthplace of the game but [...]
Ollie Phillips: Steve Borthwick succeeding Eddie Jones is written in the stars September 30, 2021 Two of the most likely contenders to succeed Eddie Jones as England coach face off on Saturday when Steve Borthwick’s Leicester Tigers host Mark McCall’s Saracens. Speculation over who could get the job when Jones departs in 2023 resurfaced this week when England forwards coach Richard Cockerill ruled himself out of the running. Borthwick and [...]
QPR launch bond in bid to part-crowdfund new £20m training ground September 30, 2021 Queens Park Rangers have launched a bond in a bid to partially crowdfund their plans for a new £20m training ground. The five-year bond is aimed at supporters and retail investors and will pay five per cent interest plus a 25 per cent bonus should QPR be promoted to the Premier League by 2026. “Supporter [...]
Why athletics needs a silver bullet in the form of private investment September 30, 2021 The results are just in, and they don’t make for easy reading. World Athletics posted a small financial surplus in 2020, but only because Russia coughed up a fine for its doping misdemeanours. W hat’s worrying is the long steady decline in the reserves of track and field’s governing body. For the sake of the [...]