THE BEAUTIFUL MIND GAME
Football is a common denominator that acts like a language connecting millions of people across the world. It creates interest and sparks emotions in a way that regular conversations usually fail to do.
THE BEAUTIFUL MIND GAME takes metaphors and tactics from the pitch and applies them to work and home life in a powerful coaching experience.
The book accurately describes the life of football.
Chief Executive, Reading Football Club
Describes the influences of the game from a fan’s perspective. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!
Former Captain, Tottenham Hotspur
Yes mate, I like it.
Footballer for Arsenal, 2008-2018
The Foundations of Football Identity lie Deeper than Those Of The Stadia
The current name change argument at Hull City is more than just a name. But why such a big deal? Fewer than four years ago Assem Allam a Hull resident and Higher Education educated business tycoon bought the controlling stake in Hull City football club. Since...
One Hundred
My attention span and train-of-thought have definitely reduced during the pandemic, I believe the major reason for this is that I have had fewer one to one conversations with people outside my bubble
Not My World Cup
global darlings Brazil, conceded seven goals to the eventual victors Germany. Everything else has been wisely forgotten
YOU MAKE AN OLD MAN VERY HAPPY
This is code for saying that I kicked opponents and demonstrated toughness and gamesmanship. My colleagues liked it and to be honest, I enjoyed their plaudits.
“Allow me to beat myself up -it’ll save you the trouble”. 8th October 2013
It seems that the ongoing arguments about whether Spurs fans can/should call themselves the ‘Y ‘word will continue unresolved for the time being. My intention here is to keep as objective as possible and add some new thoughts. For a well written and brief outline, I...
Back in the Saddle again
Having taken a half season plus break from the world of blog I find myself lurching back to my old berth on the nag. And what’s brought me back? Racism. I had always planned to return, but with a new range of subjects I have been working on that are still in...
The Language of Football| Blog 2012
This is a partially edited compendium of the blogs I wrote during the 2012 Euro Championship. Euro 2012 Coming Soon Continuing the theme of blogging during big international football competitions, Euro 2012 is days away. The build-up (sounds like scum around a bath...
The Field of Gove Dreams – an un-level playing surface.
Michael Gove MP minister for Education, has just finished another big day. He appears to have been speaking since yesterday (Sunday morning February 2nd) and a bit like David Bowie’s re-launch a year ago, he seems to have this incredible self-awareness and knowledge...
WFH, xG and introducing xEMx ©
despite having doubts about these metrics, I’m unashamedly jumping on the bandwagon and taking this opportunity to introduce my own workplace metric, Expected Emotional Exchange© or xEMx ©
A pre-echo. The sun sets, the game rises
Tonight it all begins. But before carnival joy morphs into the nervous need to win let's look at some salient thoughts from a couple of years ago. http://www.football-italia.net/20264/english-job I am, like many of our regular readers on this website, an Italian who...
A man’s game or the people’s sport? At last football has a female manager and we can all progress.
When I began this most recent incarnation of my FOOTBALL=LIFE, LIFE= FOOTBALL blog last autumn, I told my publisher that my plan was to include all kinds of soccer news. I wasn’t going to just focus on the top leagues and international teams, I wanted to demonstrate...
The Language of Football| Blog 2010
This is a partially edited compendium of the blogs I wrote during the 2010 World Cup. No smoke without fire, no sting without bee Momentum begins to gather as football coaches name their final FIFA World Cup Squads. I, however, am not here to discuss that just yet...
Beginnings of Ends, Ends of Beginnings, Tortoises, Hares and all that…
It’s not just a matter of timing, it’s about knowing where to start the timing from too. Some years ago I had the privilege of meeting the athlete Roger Black. He had given a talk about his career and after the talk, I grabbed him and asked a few questions about...
The positive powers of football vs. the darker side within
Football can help disadvantaged young people in the UK (and beyond) but it can also prove to be a let-down to those it tantalises. Today’s timely press release from The Prince’s Trust spread the word about how so many young people are feeling depressed, without...
Six Nil: Under control and not so bad.
Women were a deep mystery to me as I grew up. I either avoided them or over-killed (myself) with them.
Football; The sport of Apollo. It’s a messenger that speeds up when the journey’s end is near
As The Football World Cup is damned on the front pages for financial corruption and sexual exploitation and lauded on the back pages in anticipation of the forthcoming on-the-pitch carnival, it can still offer valid parallels for life and work. As a coach who extols...
Keep Your Friends Close. Your Enemies Closer Still
When I tell people I both write and give talks on football from a non-football point of view they ask me to explain what I mean... I explain that as a simple, basic pastime, it has so many parallels, so much emotional depth and such a wide ‘contact list’ that it...
You’re up but You’re Down
Depression. It's everywhere. Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian daily sports paper recently carried an article (and it's adequately translated into English here) discussing how 58 per cent of top level footballers suffer from depression. Considering people can be...
The World Cup Who Fell To Earth (is Joe Lycett a bully?)
If he was entirely fair in picking on David Beckham. His reasoning is that Beckham has benefited financially and image-wise as a gay icon, he even wore a dress once, and according to Lycett, ought to have condemned both FIFA and Qatar.
Creating a club culture for the England Team
Now England has qualified for Brazil 2014, common wisdom suggests we need to build a greater sense of cohesion. Should we bring people’s differences out into the open or conversely do we focus on the things we have in common? These last few weeks have seen some...
False Starts?
The 2013-2014 Season in the English Premiership is all but nine days old and the other Euro leagues somewhat younger. The oddest thing is that very few of the participants actually know who their teams even are. This is all because the so-called ‘transfer window’ is...
The final (part 1)
I have always supported Italy in this kind of play-off but yet am not really sure why
Walk This Way. Life lessons from Walking Football
Arriving at Barnet’s Hive to play Walking Football (WF), I felt that same trepidation and excitement as when I first played. I hadn’t kicked a ball in eight years and I later learned that others hadn’t done so in decades. As I looked around at this sample of...
Lessons from Leicester
This week the biggest English football competition was won by Leicester City. This was highly unexpected…
To be a gay footballer or not, that really is not the issue in question.
However, in the context of football equals life, life equals football, it throws up some important issues about society. The context of this item has little directly to do with Thomas Hitzlsperger , but I use his story to make the point that football (like...
The Glass Ceiling Stadium
As regular readers will know, one of my agendas in this blog is to use football as a channel for discussing seemingly unrelated but nonetheless important subjects. I’ve been minded for some time to discuss and give air to women’s football (and indeed I’ll do this...
(Risk) Aversion Therapy
You swapped supplier negotiations, cash-flow headaches and being squeezed by larger organisations for a salary, pension, and the chance to help people directly. Not a bad trade.”
The changing shape of the promised land.
I wasn’t going to write about football again. I was going to move on, widen my audience and write about Health & Safety. But then the last week happened and I’m obliged to peep again over the lip of the soccer worms' tin and give those squirmers another airing....
From Hare to Tortoise Eternity
Three months ago I made my debut as a walking footballer. Gis and I (we are both 58, he needs reminding, I never do), arrived at The Hive at 6.55 pm on a typically cold February evening and along with a ‘real football’ coach and four or so other people we warmed up...
Window Shut, Bullying Over 2nd Sep 2013
It seems that the football transfer window, which shut twenty three hours ago is just an excuse for the bullies to flex their muscle. It’s a time when terms like ’Selling Club’ are applied to perceived weaklings and ‘Buying Club’ applied to the bullies ‘I like your...