Those grandparents are like my parents: they handed down a legacy of disaffection, a rudderless, almost pious attitude about Them & Us. But in England it was allowed to become a creed among the working class. Richard Hoggart, in The Uses of Literacy,....

In the summer of 1976, something happened in our house that challenged my notion of international relations. The English came to stay. Ours wasn't the kind of house where people came to stay: it was a council house 25 miles from Glasgow full to the b....

very calculated and indeed risky, but it shows his squad he has the confidence to stand up directly and go toe to toe. he not only protects them from pressure, he creates pressure for united. of course he could be trying to fire them up, a united win....

The two men lived 30 miles apart in Lancashire. Panzuto, the head of a powerful clan within the Camorra, fled a feud with a rival clan which had resulted in the deaths of 20 people to live in Catterall, north of Preston. Persico, who was working for ....

And what is life like when you join Manchester City? It is the question which will have crossed the minds of Gianluigi Buffon, Kaka, perhaps David Villa, in these crazy past four months and the answer most people might give will include apartments, F....

There was, and is, an English arrogance which resides in the view that they are naturally dominant within the British Isles. This notion was virulent in 18th-century Britain, when the Scots and the Irish were lampooned in the journals and pictorials ....

I have spent a dozen or more years, when writing journalism or researching novels, in and out of Britain's proletarian nooks and crannies, writing from what I believed was the centre of a strange breakdown in the will to common power among what I sti....

In April 1988, a 46-year-old Alex Ferguson, not yet knighted and virtually the same age as Jose Mourinho is now, gave his take on how Liverpool benefited from refereeing decisions. "I can understand why clubs come away from Anfield choking on their o....

very calculated and indeed risky, but it shows his squad he has the confidence to stand up directly and go toe to toe. he not only protects them from pressure, he creates pressure for united. of course he could be trying to fire them up, a united win....

Would a Mourinho team have conceded those late equalisers to Fulham and, heavens, Southend?

A run of just two victories in seven league matches, and last week's embarrassing FA Cup draw at home to Southend United, has added to the sense of unease, while the sale of Wayne Bridge to Manchester City for more than £11m has also caused disquiet.....

The club have completed the loan signing of the West Ham United midfielder Lee Bowyer until the end of the season. The 32-year-old will become Alex McLeish's fifth signing of the January transfer window after Keith Fahey, Robin Shroot, Scott Sinclair....

The club have completed the loan signing of the West Ham United midfielder Lee Bowyer until the end of the season. The 32-year-old will become Alex McLeish's fifth signing of the January transfer window after Keith Fahey, Robin Shroot, Scott Sinclai....

Within two months the Wanderers manager Jimmy Armfield had moved on to Leeds United and Greaves inherited the top job at Burnden Park. He made a tentative start, shuffling his pack of players extensively, but soon found he could place his faith in ta....

Arriving back at Luton airport with the England team late one night in the early 1990s was to encounter a middle-aged security woman, built like a Sherman tank, who barged hacks and hand luggage aside as, autograph book in hand, she advanced on her p....

Benitez detailed four instances – against Hull City, Southampton last week, his own side last April and Portsmouth in the FA Cup last March – of what he sees as Ferguson's repeated attempts to influence referees, as well as football autho....

Captain of his school team, and scouted by then Premier League club Leicester City, his future as a professional footballer looked bright. But a back injury at the age of 16 ended his sporting dream.

The Greaves rise gathered pace in February 1956 when, with Foulkes labouring with National Service commitments and carrying a niggling injury, the 23-year-old Lancastrian was recalled for a home encounter with Burnley. So competently didhe perform, t....

Inevitably Worthington and Cherry departed, their replacements of lesser calibre, and the downward trend continued with immediate demotion to the third tier a year later. Not unexpectedly, amid boardroom upheaval, Greaves resigned in June 1974, coach....

Yet Greaves was to carve an even more memorable niche as an implacably straight-talking, unfailingly enterprising manager, building fineteams for Huddersfield Town and Bolton Wanderers and guiding both into the English game's top flight as Second Div....