Domestic UK news headlines of 2022 are pummelling us with the cost of living crisis, rocketing energy costs and widespread economic strife. It can be difficult not to be fearful, as a self-employed person running a small business, and as a husband and dad and mortgage-payer. These are tricky times to navigate through. So it’s […]
Street photography in Cheltenham was a new experience fo me. In recent years I have visited the town only to shoot occasional football matches, quick in-and-out trips, never hanging around. But having studied for my A Levels at a college in the town in the late 1990s, and later living there for 18 months in […]
Heading footballs is bad for your health. At the time of first drafting these words, Manchester United legend Denis Law had become the latest to reveal his diagnosis of alzheimer’s disease, largely attributed to heading footballs. His former team-mate Sir Bobby Charlton also has the condition, as did Charlton’s brother Jack, who died last year […]
Written in some attempt to process the awful event… We all watch, dumbstruck, horrified, harrowed, sickened. It’s just before half-time of this third match of the coronavirus-delayed Euro 2020 tournament. Denmark against Finland in Copenhagen. Around 4 or 5pm here in the UK on another baking midsummer day. It’s surreal to see a stadium almost […]
The now UK-wide coronavirus 2021 lockdown feels a world away from last March. The governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England have all done it slightly differently, but after a journey of various changing restrictions over the last few months, we are now in the same place. Here in Wales we have been under […]
In a break from very occasional posts about obscure points on the Cardiff skyline, this post looks at one of its most obvious. The Principality Stadium is the national stadium of Wales and one of Cardiff’s architectural crown jewels. Formerly known as the Millennium Stadium, it is a primary regional venue to major sporting and […]
The weather currently seems like a cruel joke of nature. All week it has been freakishly settled, clear and sunny after weeks of extremely stormy weather wreaking widespread flooding and major damage. Now it is all calming and serene, but everybody is having panic attacks and nobody can go out much. Life is increasingly hard […]
Leyton Orient manager Justin Edinburgh died yesterday, aged 49, five days after suffering a cardiac arrest. He has dominated my thoughts over the last 24 hours – along with football, life and death. Some of those thoughts… If you follow football for most of your life, a false closeness can develop with football people. You […]
Ten years as a freelancer is a milestone worth marking. Employed members of staff might earn some small recognition from bosses and colleagues, but freelancers often just have to slap their own backs. So here is an honest, slightly indulgent account of the last decade. Ten years ago this month I was made redundant from […]
On Saturday evening, Cardiff City played their first home match since the disappearance of new club record signing Emiliano Sala and his light aircraft pilot David Ibbotson. There was an outpouring of emotion from the stands, players and staff, including Cardiff manager Neil Warnock. Since visiting Cardiff City Stadium the evening after the plane disappeared, […]