X is for ex-players

Loyalty is football is a funny thing. Fans can adore individual players at their club, and then turn on them overnight once they leave. There’s nothing more galling than an ex-player returning with his new side and scoring against you, particularly if the circumstances of t...

Sometimes an artist comes out of nowhere, busting fully formed onto the music scene. Other times, someone who has been around for years suddenly produces something that defies all expectations. John Hiatt and his album Bring the Family (1987) belongs very much in the second of those categories.

Hiat...

W is for Women’s football, a subject that’s certainly topical as I post this, with England’s Lionesses poised for the semi-finals of Euro 2025. One of the characters in Foul and Fair has some dismissive remarks to make about women’s football (which certainly don’t repre...

If you judge a man by the company he keeps, Dave Mason deserves to be a household name. He was someone who I was vaguely aware of, but no more than that until I was researching Dead Man Singing. I was aware of his in-out tenure with Traffic in the late 60s, an early exemplar of the ‘musical di...