Of the many lessons imparted to us by the frenzied 48 hours last week in which the European Super League was founded, roundly condemned and then disbanded, one stood out: that supporters do not have to be in stadiums to have an impact on the game they love. The protests…

I’ve always felt it was too obvious to have a striker as your favourite player. How boring, I’d think, how basic, to like the player who scores the goals, the one who wants all the glory to themselves! …

As I write this, Norwich City have won eight games on the spin, are sitting comfortably at the top of the Championship table and have 79 points, ten clear of their closest rivals, having won four more games than any other side. But remember: we must not be lulled into…

When it became clear — some time between March last year, when football stopped, and when it resumed in June — that the season would be starting again without fans in stadiums, we were introduced to the concept of “ghost games”, from the German word Geisterspiele. …

Despite ten years of Catholic education and an Irish mother who lights a candle at the cathedral any time she needs a favour from the Big Man, to me, football is still the most convincing evidence of the existence of a higher power. The most compelling case study right now…

In the summer of 2019 I stood in a packed London pub to cheer on England in the semi-final of the women’s World Cup and thought about the first time I saw a women’s football match on television, when I was a kid. …

When you become a fan of a football club, it involves another, twin pact, one written in the small print, implicit but not articulated: you get a new enemy, too. And whether we like it or not, our own fortunes are, in a way, tied to theirs. Every team will…

Cometh the hour, cometh the Krul. No, I’m not referring to the moment when Louis van Gaal chose to sub on Tim Krul for the Netherlands just before their penalty shoot-out against Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup quarter-final, which paid off handsomely when Krul saved two of the…

This piece was published in OTBC, the Norwich City matchday programme, for the Premier League game against Brighton & Hove Albion on 4 July 2020. Subscribe to OTBC here. There is a footballing phenomenon that I’ve often witnessed but never tried to articulate until I saw it perfectly demonstrated after…