Will Tao Geoghegan Hart’s Giro d’Italia win get more people in Britain cycling? October 27, 2020 Tao Geoghegan Hart’s surprise victory at the Giro d’Italia on Sunday was just the latest success story in a golden era for British cycling. Coinciding with the unprecedented Olympic medal tallies of Team GB and the Grand Tours won by Sir Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas has been a surge in people picking [...]
Champions League trends in six charts: Goals, possession, set-pieces and most effective goalkeepers and forwards October 27, 2020 How many goals per game do you get in the Champions League? How are those goals being scored? And is it all changing? Uefa’s technical report on last season’s Champions League answers all those questions and more. It’s a goldmine of insights that reveals how football is subtly shifting at the very highest level. The [...]
It may not feel like it but the greatest year of sport is almost upon us October 26, 2020 As we fast approach the end of the year we should all allow ourselves to look forward to crawling out of the dark cloud of Covid-19 and into 2021, the greatest year of sport ever. Euro 2020, the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, Twenty20 cricket World Cups, the Women’s Euros, a Ryder Cup, a Rugby League World [...]
Drop in drama comes at bad time for Premier League’s pay-per-view push October 26, 2020 Who remembers the good old days of a few weeks ago, when the Premier League was all goals and madcap scorelines? Leicester smashing five at Manchester City was soon eclipsed by Tottenham’s six-goal romp at Manchester United and then, giddily, Aston Villa putting seven past champions Liverpool. Gameweek Two had set the tone, ushering in [...]
The City A.M. Weekend – how to have fun in the age of Covid October 24, 2020 During these testing times it’s more important than ever to take pleasure in the things London still has to offer, and more important than ever to support the people out there offering us the chance. In this new regular column, we update you on the ever-changing restrictions and give you a list of ways to [...]
Premiership final: Why I’d love to see resurgent Wasps spoil Exeter’s double dream October 23, 2020 If you had to put your mortgage on a team to win the Premiership final then, based on their entire 2019-20 campaign, it would have to be Exeter. The Chiefs proved that they are the best team in Europe by lifting the Champions Cup last weekend. Completing the double with victory over Wasps in Saturday’s [...]
New: Covid breach means England – Barbarians clash OFF October 23, 2020 England’s long-awaited return to action will have to wait after the RFU confirmed today a planned game against the Barbarians at Twickenham this Saturday has been called off. Twelve Barbarians players broke the ‘bubble’ in place before the game to eat at a central London restaurant earlier this week. The RFU has now confirmed there [...]
FC Nordsjaelland: How a Danish club’s global outlook has helped it to weather the Covid crisis October 23, 2020 An Englishman with no experience of running a football club and no track record in Scandinavia was always going to attract scepticism when he took over one of Denmark’s top teams. Throw in a wildly unconventional ownership model and radically idealistic notions of how the sport should be run and it is no surprise Tom [...]
Pixie review: Tarantino meets Sligo in charming Irish heist October 23, 2020 Certain images can sell a movie almost without context: Jack Nicholson grinning through a hole in a door, or John Travolta and Uma Thurman doing the twist. Pixie may not be as iconic as those movies, but its accompanying show of Alec Baldwin, dressed as a priest and brandishing a firearm is certainly enough to [...]
The Secret Garden review – death by 1,000 adaptations October 23, 2020 Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel The Secret Garden has been adapted numerous times for film, television and the stage, with the most recent being a 1993 version produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Times have changed, but the allure and magic of The Secret Garden was enough for the producers of the Harry Potter and Paddington [...]