Mihir Bose's Blog, page 74
February 10, 2012
Redknapp should heed Hodgson words ahead of job offer
Short term results too important in the eyes of West Brom boss
PlayUp
Harry Redknapp has such a wind behind his appointment to succeed Fabio Capello, that it seems impossible he will not be the next England manager. However, I was struck by an utterance of Adrian Bevington, head of Club England, during the FA's press conference following the departure of Fabio Capello. He spoke about building for the future and taking England all the way to 2018 and the World Cup in Russia.
It seems inconceivable that Redknapp, soon to be 65, could last that long. If he is appointed then it must be a short term one that takes England to Euro 2012 and, perhaps, Brazil in two years time. England are about to open the national training centre and, with much talk about getting the infrastructure right for long term success, it is possible that Redknapp's appointment will be combined with a younger man who is seen as the long term successor. That could well be Stuart Pearce who has taken temporary charge.
PlayUp
Harry Redknapp has such a wind behind his appointment to succeed Fabio Capello, that it seems impossible he will not be the next England manager. However, I was struck by an utterance of Adrian Bevington, head of Club England, during the FA's press conference following the departure of Fabio Capello. He spoke about building for the future and taking England all the way to 2018 and the World Cup in Russia.
It seems inconceivable that Redknapp, soon to be 65, could last that long. If he is appointed then it must be a short term one that takes England to Euro 2012 and, perhaps, Brazil in two years time. England are about to open the national training centre and, with much talk about getting the infrastructure right for long term success, it is possible that Redknapp's appointment will be combined with a younger man who is seen as the long term successor. That could well be Stuart Pearce who has taken temporary charge.
February 8, 2012
The John Terry affair may be easy to remedy but the scourge of racism is leaving scars on the name of the FA
Whatever the final outcome of the John Terry case, and Terry must be regarded as innocent until his trial is concluded, it has already had a tremendous impact on the English game.
It has made us look at the role played by the captain in English football, and the relationship between the Football Association and the England manager. But the most long lasting impact of the case could be on how black footballers feel about racism in the game.
The way English football has elevated the captain's job to a position that cannot be sustained has always struck me as faintly absurd. A captain in football is not remotely like a captain in other sports like cricket. The very nature of cricket means that the captain constantly has to take decisions, decisions which can change the course of the match. He may consult the coach but the decisions are his responsibility and he has to be in a position to take charge of his players and the game. You cannot have a successful cricket team if the captain does not exercise leadership on the field of play.
It has made us look at the role played by the captain in English football, and the relationship between the Football Association and the England manager. But the most long lasting impact of the case could be on how black footballers feel about racism in the game.
The way English football has elevated the captain's job to a position that cannot be sustained has always struck me as faintly absurd. A captain in football is not remotely like a captain in other sports like cricket. The very nature of cricket means that the captain constantly has to take decisions, decisions which can change the course of the match. He may consult the coach but the decisions are his responsibility and he has to be in a position to take charge of his players and the game. You cannot have a successful cricket team if the captain does not exercise leadership on the field of play.
The Spirit of the Game – The Telegraph review
Peter Oborne gets into the spirit of the Olympics, reviewing Mihir Bose's The Spirit of the Game: How Sport Made the Modern World.
The Telegraph
By Peter Oborne, Chief Political Commentator
Almost exactly 125 years ago, a young Frenchman made a pilgrimage to Rugby School. Armed with a copy of Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays, he headed across the quad and into the chapel, only stopping once he reached the altar beneath which Thomas Arnold, the school's legendary headmaster, was buried.
There, as he was later to write, "in the twilight, alone in the great gothic chapel of Rugby, my eyes fixed on the funeral slab on which, without epitaph, the great name of Thomas Arnold was inscribed.
"I dreamed that I saw before me the cornerstone of the British Empire."...read the full article
Click here for mose information about The Spirit of the Game
The Telegraph
By Peter Oborne, Chief Political Commentator
Almost exactly 125 years ago, a young Frenchman made a pilgrimage to Rugby School. Armed with a copy of Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays, he headed across the quad and into the chapel, only stopping once he reached the altar beneath which Thomas Arnold, the school's legendary headmaster, was buried.
There, as he was later to write, "in the twilight, alone in the great gothic chapel of Rugby, my eyes fixed on the funeral slab on which, without epitaph, the great name of Thomas Arnold was inscribed.
"I dreamed that I saw before me the cornerstone of the British Empire."...read the full article
Click here for mose information about The Spirit of the Game
February 7, 2012
Football must realise it is not above the law
Sense of illegality sadly misplaced in world of sport
PlayUp
Wherever you look these days, football seems to be in the dock. We cannot comment on the individual cases until they are decided, but it has raised the question: what has gone wrong?
Many will argue that surely football, and sport in general, should have nothing to do with the general law of the land. Sport, as one of our leading writers put it, is a parallel universe where the intervention of the lawyers is an unwarranted invasion of this wonderland. The sentiments could not be more beautifully put, but it is a bit like saying sports and politics should not mix.
This was heard of a great deal when the issue of apartheid in sport came up. The argument was made by the white South Africans. They had an agenda as they knew politics defined the world they, and we, lived in. To suggest sport and politics should not mix was like saying sport should be divorced from society. Sport grows out of society and is as much part of it, if not more so than any other activity.
PlayUp
Wherever you look these days, football seems to be in the dock. We cannot comment on the individual cases until they are decided, but it has raised the question: what has gone wrong?
Many will argue that surely football, and sport in general, should have nothing to do with the general law of the land. Sport, as one of our leading writers put it, is a parallel universe where the intervention of the lawyers is an unwarranted invasion of this wonderland. The sentiments could not be more beautifully put, but it is a bit like saying sports and politics should not mix.
This was heard of a great deal when the issue of apartheid in sport came up. The argument was made by the white South Africans. They had an agenda as they knew politics defined the world they, and we, lived in. To suggest sport and politics should not mix was like saying sport should be divorced from society. Sport grows out of society and is as much part of it, if not more so than any other activity.
Sir John Armitt: We've made a magical place in London for the next 100 years
Evening Standard
London is counting down the days until the opening ceremony - 171 to be precise - but the man charged with delivering the Olympic stadia and infrastructure is more concerned with the distant future.
The buildings are in place - albeit at a cost of more than three times the original £2.37billion budget - and although battles remain over the future of the athletics stadium, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority is thrilled by the transformation of Stratford.
London is counting down the days until the opening ceremony - 171 to be precise - but the man charged with delivering the Olympic stadia and infrastructure is more concerned with the distant future.
The buildings are in place - albeit at a cost of more than three times the original £2.37billion budget - and although battles remain over the future of the athletics stadium, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority is thrilled by the transformation of Stratford.
February 5, 2012
Should Britain give India aid?
Channel 4 News
Krishnan Guru-Murthy discusses whether Britain should give aid to India with Mihir Bose.
Click here to watch the discussion (Note: This programme will only be available to watch for 7 days)
Krishnan Guru-Murthy discusses whether Britain should give aid to India with Mihir Bose.
Click here to watch the discussion (Note: This programme will only be available to watch for 7 days)
The Spirit of the Game – The Independent on Sunday review
The Independent on Sunday
by Simon Redfern
Those critical of modern society are fond of harking back to supposed golden pasts. Pre-industrial Merrie England and the imagined court of King Arthur have both been extolled as utopias.
Now Mihir Bose has chosen the Victorian era of Tom Brown's Schooldays as the sporting equivalent. His argument seems to be that Britain, and specifically England's public schools, championed the virtues of good sportsmanship, fair play and pluck, then exported them around the world. But in the 20th century this Corinthian ideal was steadily subverted by greed, commercialisation, politics and the cult of celebrity, leading to a morally bankrupt sporting present...Read the full review
Clcik here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
by Simon Redfern
Those critical of modern society are fond of harking back to supposed golden pasts. Pre-industrial Merrie England and the imagined court of King Arthur have both been extolled as utopias.
Now Mihir Bose has chosen the Victorian era of Tom Brown's Schooldays as the sporting equivalent. His argument seems to be that Britain, and specifically England's public schools, championed the virtues of good sportsmanship, fair play and pluck, then exported them around the world. But in the 20th century this Corinthian ideal was steadily subverted by greed, commercialisation, politics and the cult of celebrity, leading to a morally bankrupt sporting present...Read the full review
Clcik here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
February 4, 2012
The big lie of sport
OPEN Magazine
Sports may be big business but sport did not start as a business. It started with the noble idea of improving human beings. This spirit of the game was unexpectedly illustrated in last summer's Trent Bridge Test. The Indians, having run out the English batsman Ian Bell, withdrew their appeal. Not because Bell was not properly out, but because they felt appealing was against the spirit of the game, Bell having strayed out of his crease thinking play had stopped for tea.
I doubt if Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian captain, has heard of Tom Brown's Schooldays, let alone read it. Yet, that Victorian novel forms the starting point of how modern sport developed. The novel emerged at the height of the Victorian era. What is more, it came even before the laws of most sports that we play had been codified. So, sport acquired a philosophy before the actual rules....Read the full article
Sports may be big business but sport did not start as a business. It started with the noble idea of improving human beings. This spirit of the game was unexpectedly illustrated in last summer's Trent Bridge Test. The Indians, having run out the English batsman Ian Bell, withdrew their appeal. Not because Bell was not properly out, but because they felt appealing was against the spirit of the game, Bell having strayed out of his crease thinking play had stopped for tea.
I doubt if Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian captain, has heard of Tom Brown's Schooldays, let alone read it. Yet, that Victorian novel forms the starting point of how modern sport developed. The novel emerged at the height of the Victorian era. What is more, it came even before the laws of most sports that we play had been codified. So, sport acquired a philosophy before the actual rules....Read the full article
The Spirit of the Game – The Spectator review
The Spectator
by Ed Smith
There was a time when sportsmen fretted about the morality of being paid to play. Now the question is whether you are taking money to win, or taking money to lose. Mervyn Westfield, the Essex fast bowler, was only 20 when he accepted £6,000 to bowl deliberately badly in a county match. Three Pakistani cricketers, of course, are in prison for the same offence. How quaint the old distinction between the amateur who plays for love and the pro who toils to make ends meet now appears.
How did sport become so morally complicated? It was the Victorians, as Mihir Bose explores in The Spirit of the Game, who decided that sport had to be good for you. The Georgians, in contrast, had been content with sport's more obvious pleasures of gambling, blood-letting and licentiousness. The Victorians, with an empire to run, wanted sport to educate the officer class. No matter that Thomas Arnold, allegedly the founder of 'muscular Christianity', didn't even like organised games. With Tom Brown's Schooldays, the idea that Britain became great by playing sport hardened into folklore....Read the full review
Click here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
by Ed Smith
There was a time when sportsmen fretted about the morality of being paid to play. Now the question is whether you are taking money to win, or taking money to lose. Mervyn Westfield, the Essex fast bowler, was only 20 when he accepted £6,000 to bowl deliberately badly in a county match. Three Pakistani cricketers, of course, are in prison for the same offence. How quaint the old distinction between the amateur who plays for love and the pro who toils to make ends meet now appears.
How did sport become so morally complicated? It was the Victorians, as Mihir Bose explores in The Spirit of the Game, who decided that sport had to be good for you. The Georgians, in contrast, had been content with sport's more obvious pleasures of gambling, blood-letting and licentiousness. The Victorians, with an empire to run, wanted sport to educate the officer class. No matter that Thomas Arnold, allegedly the founder of 'muscular Christianity', didn't even like organised games. With Tom Brown's Schooldays, the idea that Britain became great by playing sport hardened into folklore....Read the full review
Click here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
The Spitrit of the Game – The Spectator review
The Spectator
by Ed Smith
There was a time when sportsmen fretted about the morality of being paid to play. Now the question is whether you are taking money to win, or taking money to lose. Mervyn Westfield, the Essex fast bowler, was only 20 when he accepted £6,000 to bowl deliberately badly in a county match. Three Pakistani cricketers, of course, are in prison for the same offence. How quaint the old distinction between the amateur who plays for love and the pro who toils to make ends meet now appears.
How did sport become so morally complicated? It was the Victorians, as Mihir Bose explores in The Spirit of the Game, who decided that sport had to be good for you. The Georgians, in contrast, had been content with sport's more obvious pleasures of gambling, blood-letting and licentiousness. The Victorians, with an empire to run, wanted sport to educate the officer class. No matter that Thomas Arnold, allegedly the founder of 'muscular Christianity', didn't even like organised games. With Tom Brown's Schooldays, the idea that Britain became great by playing sport hardened into folklore....Read the full review
Click here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
by Ed Smith
There was a time when sportsmen fretted about the morality of being paid to play. Now the question is whether you are taking money to win, or taking money to lose. Mervyn Westfield, the Essex fast bowler, was only 20 when he accepted £6,000 to bowl deliberately badly in a county match. Three Pakistani cricketers, of course, are in prison for the same offence. How quaint the old distinction between the amateur who plays for love and the pro who toils to make ends meet now appears.
How did sport become so morally complicated? It was the Victorians, as Mihir Bose explores in The Spirit of the Game, who decided that sport had to be good for you. The Georgians, in contrast, had been content with sport's more obvious pleasures of gambling, blood-letting and licentiousness. The Victorians, with an empire to run, wanted sport to educate the officer class. No matter that Thomas Arnold, allegedly the founder of 'muscular Christianity', didn't even like organised games. With Tom Brown's Schooldays, the idea that Britain became great by playing sport hardened into folklore....Read the full review
Click here for more information about The Spirit of the Game
Mihir Bose's Blog
- Mihir Bose's profile
- 17 followers
Mihir Bose isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
