Sports Poets Society

Steve Powell/Allsport/ Getty Images - Three’s a charm:  Keegan celebrates the third goal 3-1 British (Home) Championship matchin 1979. The outstanding achievements of a remarkable player and manager, for club and country, far outweighed his occasional failures. Just ask the supporters at Newcastle, Liverpool and Hamburg Dismissiveness went so far, it obscured a life of achievement few great sports people could have any hope of emulating 26 Jul 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Paul Hayward Whenever a star has to die for us to fully appreciate how special they were, the problem is us, not them. With Kevin Keegan, some landmark disappointments in a 40-year career of playing and managing fell away to allow the real story of his character and accomplishments its rightful glow. In great sporting lives the departed dwelt in a binary world of good, bad, won, lost, veneration, scorn. It’s odd to think now, after Keegan was waved off last week with so much respect and warmth, that there were poin...

Kevin Mazur/Getty - FIFA’s football Muppets: Elmo and the Cookie Monster made  their cameo in the group stages and will return for the jam-packed half-time show. The half-time show at today’s final is just the latest in a series of rule-breaking stunts Infantino has made enough enemies to feel less secure than his body language suggests 19 Jul 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Paul Hayward On the radio this week, John Major said one of those things you desperately hope is true. The prime minister from 1990 to 1997 acknowledged that people feel “nothing works” in Britain, but argued that it’s “all repairable”. This optimistic take from the former leader of a party whose answer to the 2008 banking crisis was to ravage public services with austerity came to mind when FIFA’s compendious World Cup half-time show itinerary dropped. Four horsemen of the apocalypse have stalked the great tradition of World Cup football. Actually more than four, but space is limited. Is FIFA’s disfiguring of the...

PA Images / Alamy - King Kenny: Dalglish, pictured here with Bob Paisley,  replaced Kevin Keegan  as Liverpool No 7 and won six league titles and three European Cups as a player at the club. 7 Jun 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Paul Hayward Support for Kenny Dalglish and Kevin Keegan , who have cancer, is a given at Anfield, where the bright new head coach Andoni Iraola will soon discover a special bond that connects a club and its community ‘He’s a Liverpool supporter, so I knew I wouldn’t be walking alone, if you know what I mean’ Kevin Keegan meets his specialist Last week The Times led its back page with a cancer diagnosis for a 75-year-old man who stopped playing football in 1990 and left management 14 years ago. But this was no ordinary illness bulletin. The patient’s name was Kenny Dalglish. The previous day, the Liverpool No 7 Dalglish was bought to replace in 1977 revealed he has stage four cancer. Kevin Keegan, also 75, said of the specialist who’s treating him: “He was...

Gunners are hardly innocent paupers in the game’s modern financial arms race, but Champions League victory over Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain will give the Boys of 26 another chance to prove their ‘bottle’ 24 May 2026 - the observer / Sport Paul Hayward The most affecting image of the season now ending might be those four Arsenal players ambling across the concourse of the Emirates Stadium at 5am like lads merrily leaving a casino at dawn. Dressed in what might be called the opposite of George Grahamera blazers, ties and flannel slacks, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Bukayo Sako are sporting gear this commentary would make a horrible mess of describing, and therefore will not try (Jurriën Timber is more understatedly attired). Except to say that to see title-winning footballers framed by the community they represent and the society they are part of was uplifting. You reach an age where the practicalities feel like everything. So when the happy quartet skipped down the steps of the st...

Sport’s first super-agent Jon Holmes announces retirement The original super agent, Jon Holmes , is finally retiring and tells Paul Hayward the secrets of 50 years playing negotiator, mentor and firefighter ‘At Gary Lineker’s first game,  I said to my dad, “Where did we get him from?”  He fell over all the time’        - Jon Holmes ‘Jon has been much more than an agent to me.  He will always be a friend and a source of advice’     - David Gower ‘Few agents would have taken on a 22-year-old female football reporter in 2003.  Jon was always different’    - Rebecca Lowe ‘He’s been an unseen hand on my back for over 26 years.  I’ve never wanted to let him down’     - Guy Mowbray 22 Mar 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Paul Hayward Portrait by Antonio Olmos First Brian Clough kicked him in the leg, saying: “Who are you?” Then he offered him a plastic carrier bag full of banknotes to smooth Peter Shilton ’s...

Stu Forster/ Getty ImagesFanning the flames:  Hugo Ekitiké has quickly become a favourite at Liverpool. Call it hellhound energy or simple character, it turns a player who’s just doing a job and getting paid into one on a mission. Then you can throw away the data and enjoy watching the human at heart of the story Stats obsessions and graphics can’t replace the most interesting way of understanding footballers 8 Feb 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Paul Hayward As he lacerated Newcastle the other day Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitiké exuded a quality managers search for high and low. With his two goals, intense countenance and pointed goal celebrations, Ekitiké radiated constructive resentment about where he is in Liverpool’s hierarchy of strikers. Above all he paraded competitive spirit – call it hunger – without which teams hoping to win things might as well stay at home. While we’re fixating about whether, when and how managers are going to be sacked, there’s a simple human factor that goes un...

In the latest in our series, Paul Hayward examines a Premier League club in detail Paul Hayward 25 Jan 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport On-pitch performance The grumble in September was that Leeds had failed to sign a striker and undermined their survival chances. Unheralded, and on a free transfer, Dominic Calvert-Lewin did little to dispel that fear before the end of November, when he set off on a run of eight goals in nine matches. Against Manchester United, Calvert-Lewin, still only 28, outshone a £74m No9, Benjamin Šeško. He is the first Leeds player to score in six consecutive Premier League games. Daniel Farke, meanwhile, has found a settled formula that has given Leeds clear water above the relegation zone. They have lost once in 2026 so far, 4-3 at Newcastle, their only defeat in their past 10 matches, a run that includes seven unbeaten in the league – their best run in the top flight since 2001. In the core of regulars are Ethan Ampadu, Jayden Bogle, Gabriel Gudmundsson, Joe Rodon...

In the latest in our series, Paul Hayward examines a Premier League club in detail Paul Hayward 28 Dec 2025 - THE OBSERVER / Sport On-pitch performance Winning the FA Cup should have brought more glamour than a European Conference League last16 play-off against either Sigma Olomouc (Czech Republic) or Zrinjski Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina). Palace’s demotion from the Europa League to Uefa’s third tier competition for ownership reasons hasn’t made their European debut much easier. A shadow team drew with the Finnish champions KuPS to leave Palace 10th in the Conference table and needing to win a two-legged play-off in February. Domestically, they consolidated the first major trophy win in the club’s 120-year history with 26 points from their first 15 games this season – their best Premier League start. Manchester City brought them down with a bump with a 3-0 win at Selhurst Park, then they lost 4-1 at Leeds. There are signs that nine games in 36 days are going to stretch their squad. Mean...