Sports Poets Society

ACTION IMAGES/REUTERS Chivers’ intelligence on the pitch enhanced his deceptive strength Martin Chivers was a Spurs legend with a poet’s heart Tottenham totem shone under Bill Nicholson’s tough love with majestic goals in League and Uefa Cup wins He was an exhilarating sight for fans and an intimidating one for opponents 9 Jan 2026 - The Guardian Keir Radnedge The Martin Chivers route from record signing to Tottenham legend was anything but simple. White Hart Lane needed time to learn to love him and Bill Nicholson, who paid Southampton £125,000 in 1968 for Chivers, never understood either the player or the man until years later. Yet it says everything for the curative power of time that the pair walked out arm-in-arm at Nicholson’s second testimonial against Fiorentina in 2001. Chivers arrived at Spurs with a headline-grabbing century-plus goals for Southampton. Initially he appeared weighed-down by the fee and the expectation. This was a time when English football was only slowly co...

Santiago  Bernabéu  (R) oversees Luis del Sol signing  his exit from Real Madrid to join Juventus in 1962 Madrid appointed  Bernabéu  as provisional president. He told his wife: “Don’t worry, it’s only for a year.” By the time of his death in 1978, that year had stretched to 35 These days, the name Santiago  Bernabéu  brings to mind Real Madrid’s stadium rather than the man it is named after 1 Oct 2025 - World Soccer Keir Radnedge Estadio Santiago Bernabéu is world famous as the home of Real Madrid. Yet, as it exerts its magnetising effect on another Champions League campaign, no one, it seems, stops to ask: who was this man and what was his significance?Club president…  The tale starts 130 years ago in the old town of Almansa, inland from Valencia to the northeast and Alicante to the southeast. That was the home of young Santiago, born on June 8, 1895, the youngest of seven children of a local lawyer and estates manager. Both parents died yo...