I learned about the facts of life on bus trips to teenage football matches. The teachers were not much older than myself and just as ignorant, writes Tommy Martin

By looking at Haaland in action, you can actually get a sense for what being ravaged by Norsemen might have been like for the panic-stricken residents of an Irish monastic retreat or Anglo-Saxon hamlet

The humiliations of Euro 2008 and the 2023 Rugby World Cup are fresh in the memory. Yet mention the possibility of Paraguay v Iran at Semple Stadium and we are up for it again

Like dissidents in one of those football-mad repressive regimes, there will be no escape for those sports fans imprisoned by their ethics

Bale was an unlikely Galactico. Even at the peak of his powers, there was always an element of Billy’s Boots about the one-time Southampton left-back

Why is sport, particularly professional football, assailed by this constant backdrop of online venom?

Of all the classical boxing styles, there can surely be none that require you to put your head in the sand

If Alexei Navalny’s intention was to create negative publicity around Abramovich in the UK, then Frank Lampard at least provided a useful decoy runner for his former boss

When news came through about Wayne Rooney’s retirement you didn’t know whether to lament your own lost youth or his, writes Tommy Martin

The so-called New FAI have attempted to change things, but as other faiths will tell you, no process of reformation is straightforward