Sports Chatter
Simon Kuper discusses the drivel in the drip-feed that is mainstream sports journalism – from rumour and innuendo to occasional smut and toilet humour. The consumer, he argues, is now the consumed, in an arena of social media and sports talk radio – where talking about sport has become ‘independent of sport itself’, and men […]
Shift The Goalposts Of Disadvantage
By Simon Kuper Every year, in an election you may have missed, Belgian football coaches and journalists vote for the best African player in the Belgian league. The most recent “Ebony Shoe” went to the Senegalese striker, Mbaye Leye, prompting a worldwide chorus of “Who?” If you scan the list of previous winners of the […]
Nothing but… Grobbelaar
A line-up of football stories wouldn’t be complete without Simon Kuper. In a change of formation from his Nothing But… column, we pass back to Kaapstad for a beer-fuelled encounter with Mr Spaghetti Legs, Bruce Grobbelaar . The Seven Stars are just a small Cape Town football club doomed to extinction, but their training ground is special. […]