Sport | Pandaemonium

HOW I’VE COME TO PASS THE CRICKET TEST – BUT NOT TO BE A PATRIOT

July 25, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is my latest column for the New York Times, on ideas of Britishness, belonging and identity. (We had to cut the essay slightly because of the space available; I will publish the full version next month.) How times change. Last week, I was at the Lord’s cricket ground in London — the ‘home of cricket’, as England cricket administrators like to boast — to see England play India. I was born in India. Yet I was cheering on England. […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: britain, british asians, cricket, cricket test, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism, sport

WORLD CUP, MYTH AND SENTIMENT

July 14, 2014 by Kenan Malik

So, another World Cup, another German victory, another England humiliation. And at the end of it all some (not quite) random thoughts about the tournament. . 1 A fine World Cup, some truly great games, but no truly great team – not even Germany, outstanding though they were, and worthy winners though they are. . 2 Part of what made this tournament so riveting was the way it upset so many received wisdoms and footballing myths. Most of the ‘big’ […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: brazil, england, football, germany, sport, world cup

WHO IS ENGLISH ENOUGH TO PLAY FOR ENGLAND?

February 21, 2014 by Kenan Malik

David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College, London. He has also a wonderful new blog about sport, More Important Than That. I am delighted to publish on Pandaemonium his latest essay, on the absurdities of sporting eligibility rules. My thanks to David for contributing here, and do check out his blog. David Papineau Civil society and why Adnan Januzaj should be eligible for England (though he isn’t) Adnan Januzaj is what American sports journalists call a ‘phenom’. […]

Categories: Britain, Sport • Tags: britishness, david papineau, englishness, football, national identity, nationalism, sport

SPORTING BEST

June 9, 2013 by Kenan Malik

My essay on CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary got me to thinking about my favourite sports books. And, after much torment and tussle, I finally settled on my list of the sporting best in print. And before anyone mentions it, I know that I have missed out Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. It may be everyone else’s favourite sports book, but it’s not mine. If you are intrigued enough to want to read any of the books, click on the cover. […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Sport • Tags: clr james, david storey, muhammad ali, norman mailer, sporting books, sports

REACHING FOR A MORAL HIGH GROUND LONG SINCE CROWDED

November 11, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Today’s Premiership clash between Chelsea and Liverpool provides a good opportunity for me to write about something about which I have been thinking for a long time – the controversy over racism in English football. Chelsea and Liverpool are the two clubs at the heart of that controversy. Earlier this year, Luis Suarez, Liverpool’s Uruguayan forward, was banned for eight matches for calling Manchester United’s Patrice Evra a ‘negrito’. Suarez insisted that this was colloquial Spanish for ‘mate’. An FA disciplinary […]

Categories: Free Speech, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: anti-racism, football, hate speech, racism

I AM TRIBAL ABOUT SPORT, NOT PATRIOTIC ABOUT BRITAIN

August 10, 2012 by Kenan Malik

How times change. There I was sitting in the Olympic stadium with my daughter. She had red, white and blue braids in her hair and was enthusiastically waving a Union Jack. When I was her age I would far rather have burned the flag than waved it. The Union Jack was then the property of jingoists and Empire loyalists, on the one hand, and of neo-fascists on the other. If I saw a pub or a housing estate with Union […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Sport • Tags: britishness, identity politics, london 2012, multiculturalism, nationalism, olympics, patriotism, sports

I WILL PUT UP WITH EVEN THIS CIRCUS FOR THAT BOB BEAMON MOMENT

July 26, 2012 by Kenan Malik

As an aspiring teenage middle distance runner I once dreamed of competing at the Olympics. I grew up in the golden age of British middle distance running in the 1970s and 1980s. My hero was Steve Ovett, the bad boy of British athletics, arch rival and arch contrast to Sebastian Coe, the smooth establishment figure, whose destiny it always was to become first a Conservative MP and then the organizer of the 2012 London games. I was never either good enough […]

Categories: Britain, Sport • Tags: bob beamon, london 2012, nadia comaneci, olympics, sports, usain bolt