General sport
The Spitrit of the Game – The Spectator review
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
Lets Talk Sport LIVE – Town Hall Birmingham
Date: 19th April 2012
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Town Hall, Birmingham
Tickets: £22.50 (£15 concession)
Box office: 0121 780 3333
Join sporting celebrities for an entertaining evening of insight, lively debate and behind-the-scenes sporting knowledge and throw your own questions into the ring. Hosted by award-winning journalist and author Mihir Bose, the BBC’s first Sports Editor and known for his major scoops, Let’s Talk Sport LIVE lifts the lid on sporting issues, scandals and controversies in this, the Olympic year.
Special guests:
Roy Hodgson
Current West Bromwich Albion Manager, Roy famously guided Fulham FC to the 2012 Europa League Final, their first European final.
Clive Lloyd CBE
West Indies Cricket Captain (1974-1985), the man who has influenced and inspired a generation of cricketers. Clive is a Member of the West Indies Cricket Board and is Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee.
Let’s Talk Sport LIVE – Cadogan Hall
Date: 15th April 2012
Time: 7pm
Venue: Cadogan Hall, London
Tickets: £22.50 (£15 concession)
Box office: 020 7730 4500
Join sporting celebrities for an entertaining evening of insight, lively debate and behind-the-scenes sporting knowledge and throw your own questions into the ring. Hosted by award-winning journalist and author Mihir Bose, the BBC’s first Sports Editor and known for his major scoops, Let’s Talk Sport LIVE lifts the lid on sporting issues, scandals and controversies in this, the Olympic year.
Special guests:
John Motson OBE
Football
TV and radio commentator for over 40 years and the voice of British sport for so many people.
Barry Hearn
Snooker, Football, Boxing, Darts
Distinguished promoter, manager, chairman and sportsman – his insider knowledge and passion for sport is unsurpassed.
The Spirit of the Game – The Independent review
The Independent – Book Reviews
by Chris Maume
One day, during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Japan, the American player Glenn Cowan missed his team bus back to the hotel. A Chinese player invited him to theirs. They gave him as a gift a silk-screen print of the Huangshan mountains; the next day he gave them a T-shirt with the words to “Let It Be”. Within months Henry Kissinger was in Beijing, and inside a year Richard Nixon was meeting Mao Zedong.
As Vladimir Putin could tell you, sport has many functions beyond personal fulfilment. The Russian leader’s camera-friendly embrace of such rugged pursuits as judo, skiing, canoeing and ice hockey helps cement him in the minds of the people as the hard man to guide them through tough times. His sporting zeal might have found approval with Thomas Hughes, whose Tom Brown’s Schooldays Mihir Bose credits as organised sport’s big bang…read the full review
Click here to read for more details about The Spirit of the Game
The Week with George Galloway – interview
talkSPORT – The Week with George Galloway
This week George Galloway discusses short-staffed A&E departments, crimes of passion and smacking children.
Renowned sports journalist Mihir Bose joins George in the studio to talk about his new book ‘The Spirit of the Game: How Sport Made the Modern World’ while guests on the phone include the Sun’s Dr. Carol Cooper and former Republican senator John Leboutillier.
Click here to listen to the programme (Note: The interview with Mihir begins at 1:03:50)
Other General sport tagged articles
- Midori House interview - January 20, 2012
- Night Waves - January 19, 2012
- Robert Elms Show - January 19, 2012
- The Spirit of the Game – FT review - January 16, 2012
- Snooker’s ‘naughty boy’ Judd Trump has nothing to fear any more - December 20, 2011
- Meet AP McCoy, the champion jockey searching for another 396 winners - December 13, 2011
- Does sport still embody a notion of fair play and Corinthian spirit? - December 12, 2011
- The scourge that threatens the ‘birthright of British boys’ - November 5, 2011
- Judges Process (BASA) - October 24, 2011
- Riots have raised security concerns about the Olympics - August 10, 2011
- Lee Westwood: I’ve learned the hard way that I must not panic - August 2, 2011
- Caroline Wozniacki: I haven’t won a Grand slam but everyone would like to be in my position - June 21, 2011
- Has sport become corrupt? - May 31, 2011
- Is money killing sport? - May 25, 2011
- Outstanding British Asians – Mihir Bose - May 11, 2011
- 5 Live Breakfast: Your Call – Has Sky Sports been good for football? - April 20, 2011
- Going for gold in an Olympic year - April 14, 2011
- In conversation with Gorkana - March 18, 2011
- Nicky Henderson: Horse racing can be hell at times - March 15, 2011
- Phil Taylor: People like me because I’ve not tried to be flash - February 15, 2011
- ‘Discrete events’ skew sport betting - February 1, 2011
- Olympics chief backs Gareth Bale to play in British team - January 18, 2011
- John Higgins: I feared being booed but no one has waved fivers at me - January 6, 2011
- Cyclist Victoria Pendleton is determined to fight her corner in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics - November 17, 2010
- Commonwealth Games 2010: failings of Indian approach there for all to see - September 26, 2010
- The Commonwealth Games: a damaging drip-feed of Indian incompetence - September 23, 2010
- The Commonwealth Games: why India is a bit player in the world of sport - September 23, 2010
- Phillips Idowu: I’m glad I didn’t win gold in Beijing - August 17, 2010
- Lord Coe Interview - February 10, 2010
- London 2012: Is the pain worth the gain? - January 18, 2010
- Essay on Sport - January 1, 2007
- Deported before I had chance to write a word - November 24, 2004
- In awe of the man who has winning formula - September 30, 2004
- IAAF admit failure in the war on drug cheats - August 27, 2004
- Why did Mugabe think I was such a danger to his regime? - April 21, 2004
- Athletics: Conte goes to ground as drugs inquiry gathers pace - October 26, 2003
- Crozier’s Wembley dream fulfilled - September 26, 2002
- Barbados sends biggest squad to Manchester - July 2, 2002
- Samaranch and Blatter face nepotism charges - May 18, 2001
- Hampshire bank on share flotation - March 17, 2001
