Attention: Please take a moment to consider our terms and conditions before posting.

'Lockdown' ONLINE Sporting Reading

Having seen @Weegie Addick post her excellent football reading thread the thought occurred that perhaps we could post links to online sporting articles or blogs we enjoy.

I'll kick it off with two cricketing ones:

The New Crimson Rambler https://newcrimsonrambler.wordpress.com/ which talks about cricket in general with a Leicestershire bias but none the less enjoyable (to me anyway) for that.

The Old Batsman http://theoldbatsman.blogspot.com/ mainly cricket but covers other sports too from time to time.

Enjoy if it's your thing and add your own.


Comments

  • edited April 2020
    I'm not a massive tennis fan but love this (very long) article by the now sadly deceased David Foster Wallace from the mid-90s. It really gives an insight into the demands of sport at the professional but non-elite level. Sample paragraph:

    "But it's better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we'll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight celibacy, et cetera. But the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think.  Note the way "up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life–outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus [37]. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child's world, is very small.

    https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/
  • As the original thread is slipping down the page, here are the links again to free Charlton-related articles in Nutmeg Magazine. There's loads of other good stuff there too - digital downloads free till end April plus links to online articles from sold-out editions.

    Issue 1 - poignant piece by Neil Forsyth on Ralph Milne (download digital version of magazine): https://www.nutmegmagazine.co.uk/product/single-issue-digital-version/
    Issue 2 - Paul Brown on John Hewie: https://www.nutmegmagazine.co.uk/issue-2/long-john-hewie-a-genuine-all-rounder/
    Issue 11 - Charlton's Number One and Other Scottish Addicks by yours truly (download digital version): https://www.nutmegmagazine.co.uk/product/issue-11-digital-download/
  • Jints said:
    I'm not a massive tennis fan but love this (very long) article by the now sadly deceased David Foster Wallace from the mid-90s. It really gives an insight into the demands of sport at the professional but non-elite level. Sample paragraph:

    "But it's better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we'll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight celibacy, et cetera. But the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think.  Note the way "up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life–outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus [37]. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child's world, is very small.

    https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/
    Finally managed to read this @Jints thanks for posting an excellent article and captures 'the struggle' of the journeyman well.
Sign In or Register to comment.

Roland Out Forever!