Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Another football post which touches upon politics.  The head of the British Olympic Association, Lord Moynihan, is determined to raise the spectre of legal action, in an attempt to pressurise the Irish, Scottish and Welsh FA’s into accepting a genuine UK team for the London 2012 games. During December O’Neill highlighted his shenanigans .  At that point he envisaged players from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, suing the BOA for non-selection.  He’s refined his legal analysis over the past month.  The players should now sue their home associations in order to establish eligibility for a UK side. Back in 2008 FIFA declared itself happy to endorse a single team for the Olympics, without prejudice to the four existing home nations which currently compete in international football tournaments. However, the four associations made an agreement between themselves that only English players will participate .  The authorities in Northern Ireland, Scotland an...

The organisers of London 2012 are keen to encourage a sense of ownership and participation throughout the United Kingdom. Although the games themselves will be based in the capital, the bid was prepared on the basis that benefits would accrue nationally. Given the quantity of tax payers’ money required to stage a successful Olympics it is necessary that people across the country feel that they are being included in the festivities. Such is the spirit behind a series of ‘Open Weekends’ which will take place each year, in the run up to the London games, in an attempt to spread an ethos of involvement throughout Britain’s regions. Last month Northern Ireland’s goal-scoring hero, David Healy MBE, launched the local event which will take place in a variety of venues from the 24 – 26 July. The programme seems varied enough to interest most people. And although it is unclear whether any British Olympic symbols will be displayed, surely this is a weekend with UK wide benefits which eve...

Chris Hoy followed up his Olympic cycling triumphs by steadfastly refusing to allow Alex Salmond or his Scottish nationalist cause to bask in reflected glory. Hoy’s unionism was more demonstrative than articulated, but nevertheless he made it perfectly clear that he considered himself both Scottish and British and that his medals were won as a Scotsman proudly representing the UK team. Last night Hoy became the nation’s ‘ Sports’ Personality of the Year’ , emphasising the pride which the whole of the Kingdom feels in one of its greatest ever Olympians. The cyclist was visibly moved to have won this award in a year when so many other sports’ men and women achieved so highly. It was an honour which suggested much broader kinship between Britons than nationalists would like us to believe exists. Hoy (and the Team GB cycling team as a whole) offers an example of what the United Kingdom can achieve through the combined efforts of its constituent parts. He provided the talent which har...

Congratulations to Sochi on the winning bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. The venue will undoutbedly be spectacular. The Moscow Times attributes the win in no small part to Vladimir Putin intervening with the type of political charisma we don't often see attributed to him in western reports.