Sports Poets Society

MARTIN RICKETT/ PA Always seeing eye to eye Pep Guardiola (left) and  Khaldoon al-Mubarak  were very close during the former’s time at City Questions were dodged in the past but what Guardiola knew at City relates to the true nature of the club and more basic things like spectacle and human nature There were little things throughout,  like digging out an extra £25m for Kevin De Bruyne 1 Oct 2026 - The Guardian Barney Ronay 'Do you know the question that you are asking me? Today, do you honestly think it is my job to make this kind of question happen …” Cut to the long, painful pause. Chuck in a deep, shaming stare, eyes that have suddenly become death rays of betrayal and disgust and Pep Guardiola himself transformed from a man cheerfully toasting his own FA Cup final victory to a grizzled chief detective addressing a room full of convicted perverts. Guardiola had the wind entirely at his back at this point, sitting in the Wembley press room an hour after Manchester City’...

RALF IBING/FIRO SPORTPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES ‘It’s not bad for Germany to be underdogs at the World Cup’ Drawing on his own family’s experience in Sierra Leone, the Germany defender is challenging stereotypes ‘What do you want us to do at Madrid?  Cry over the last seasons?  No. Find the right conclusion‘ 4 Jun 2026 - The Guardian Sam Cunningham As a child, Antonio Rüdiger would look out of his bedroom window to see whether anyone was playing on the field it overlooked. It was not a big pitch, but it had two goals, enough room for six-a-side and was where a young Rüdiger honed the skills that would take him to the top. He grew up in Neukölln, Berlin, in a community largely made up of refugees, where his parents settled after fleeing civil war in Sierra Leone. It was, by his own account, a tough area, and football kept him out of trouble. Rüdiger, preparing to represent Germany at the World Cup, says: “We didn’t have phones to call each other. No. We just looked out of the window, w...

Tottenham are staring at relegation, which hit Glenn Hoddle and Pat Jennings hard almost 50 years ago ‘I think we had 10 times more flair players  than  they have now but let in too many goals’ 14 Mar 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport Sam Cunningham Glenn Hoddle was in tears in the dressing room. Others sat in disbelief, wondering what the future held. Tottenham were the first English club in the 20th century to win the league and FA Cup Double, in 1961, and the first to lift a European trophy when they won the Cup Winners’ Cup two years later. They were renowned for playing attractive football and the goals of Jimmy Greaves . Under their manager Bill Nicholson , they added two League Cups and the UEFA Cup at the start of the 1970s. And now they had been relegated. Confirmation arrived on 7 May 1977 via a 5-0 thrashing at Maine Road by Manchester City, who were challenging for the First Division title. Peter Taylor was in the dressing room that day and remembers the “shock” and a “...