Category Archives: Sport

Aug 27 2026
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger, Sport

The subs’ bench

Wednesday 26th August 2026, 7.40pm (day 5,480)

Substitutes, 26/8/26

On we go with year 16…. Now I have reached the advanced age I have, spending my birthday evening at non-league football seems quite the right way of going about things. And on such occasions, the substitutes’ benches are often good sources of portraiture. There is a mixture of enthusiasm, indifference and boredom on these faces, and we are only 10 minutes into the game, I’m not even sure how many of these guys eventually made it onto the pitch. But at least it was a win, and for those of us who have been watching Brighouse Town recently, there haven’t been a great many of those in recent seasons.

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Aug 25 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

On court in the morning

Monday 24th August 2026, 8.35am (day 5,478)

Tennis court, 24/8/26

Last morning in Oxford: time to go home. My accommodation was so middle-class that it had one of these in the back garden, not that it looks like it gets used much these days. Is it only in Britain that we define tennis as a firmly middle-class pursuit? It’s never been my sport (and what that says about my class-consciousness I have no idea) which is why I was going to add that no tennis-related photos have appeared on this blog in its fifteen years (minus one day) but thanks to tagging, I note that one lost ball has appeared — and I think that’s still sat in the same place in the garden.

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Aug 16 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

Five minutes before the start of the season

Saturday 15th August 2026, 2.55pm (day 5,469)

Bradford City fans, 15/8/26

Well, the football season as a whole didn’t necessarily start today (do these things ever really ‘start’ and ‘finish’ these days, anyway?) — but England’s League One certainly did. Bradford City’s fans seemed cautiously optimistic at 2:55, but this was justified: they won 2-0 v Peterborough, with yours truly in the press box for the afternoon.

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Jul 29 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

Sunset with ball

Tuesday 28th July 2026, 9.00pm (day 5,451)

Sunset goal kick, 28/7/26

The chances of my highly mediocre equipment getting the players sharp as well as the sunset, at this time of night, was virtually nil, but it doesn’t matter: the ball is what I wanted here, and there it is, a small and temporary, but definite, hole in the sky.

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Jul 26 2026
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Daily Post, Portrait, Sport, Stranger

The dog’s watching, at least

Saturday 25th July 2026, 3.30pm (day 5,448)

Llanfairfechan Town, 25/7/26

There are seven potential spectators in this picture, all present at Llanfairfechan Town FC in the later stages of a Welsh Cup Qualifying Round tie — five human and two canine. Fairly obviously, three of them are definitely watching the action, and they ain’t the three guys in the middle.

I hope they did pay attention in the end, because this turned out to be one of the better football matches I have ever seen. When this shot was taken the visitors were 5-2 up, but the final score — Llanfairfechan Town 5, FC Queen’s Park 5.

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Jul 12 2026
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Sport

Malt Shovel FC

Saturday 11th July 2026, 1.00pm (day 5,434)

Malt Shovel landscape, 11/7/24

While I believe there might be a different version of football still going on somewhere in the US, here at home we are in the realm of the Pre-Season Friendly. Malt Shovel FC — the name being that of a nearby pub — play in Selby, a place which thereby becomes the 536th different one to appear on this blog and makes its debut with this quite impressive factory backdrop. And it smelt good, too: whatever was being cooked up in there wafted extremely pleasant, and hunger-inducing, scents over the pitch in the second half. It finished 2-1 to visitors Brighouse, in green, but that’s an irrelevance.

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Jun 30 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

The pain of defeat

Tuesday 30th June 2026, 8.00pm (day 5,423)

Ivory Coast defeat, 30/6/26

I have been watching some of the World Cup; games in which I feel I have some kind of personal interest. Like, thanks to last week, Norway, whose casting as something of a one-man team was not harmed today by Haaland nicking tonight’s winner, with a goal that was better than it first seemed (watch the slow motion — he knows what he’s doing). Clare, as pictured, and I commiserate with the losers of the Ivory Coast but they’re going home, the Norwegians stay for at least one more match.

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Jun 22 2026
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Daily Post, Landscape, Sport

Football and big mountain combo

Sunday 21st June 2026, 4.05pm (day 5,414)

Fløya landscape, 21/6/26

Seems like an adequate combination of two of my more favoured recreational pursuits. In the background, Tromsdalstinden, the summit of which stands at 4,055 feet (1,236m) above sea level and which I hauled myself up on 30/9/2017 — in weather that was a damn sight warmer than today’s ‘Midsummer’s Day’ incidentally, as the snow evidences. As seen from the ground of IF Fløya, the green-clad players of whom are defending here, but they needn’t have worried: they were already 2-0 up at this point just after half-time and went on to win 4-0.

Incidentally, I make this the 100th Norway shot to feature on this blog.

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Jun 21 2026
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Daily Post, Sport, Transport

The start of the half-marathon

Saturday 20th June 2026, 9.00pm (day 5,413)

Runners and Hurtigruten, 20/6/26

The third ‘midnight sun’ reference in a row, as these people have just set out on Tromsø’s Midnight Sun Half-Marathon. It’s popular, as you can infer from the visible number: apparently there were participants from one hundred different countries this evening. In the background, one of the boats that plies the Hurtigruten ferry route all the way up and down Norway. Somewhere further in the background, Clare, who reappeared at the finish line about three hours later. (Yr. humble blogger does not run, and has not done since his knee became too fragile in about 2008. In all honesty he feels better for just documenting such events these days.)

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May 31 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

Fishing in the Hebden Water

Saturday 30th May 2026, 2.30pm (day 5,392)

Fishing, Hebden Water, 30/5/26

This being the first Saturday since 7th February (when I was working in Dubai) that I did not have a football match to go to, I needed other entertainments. Not that I joined in with whatever these two were up to. My lifetime’s participation in the sport of angling (if sport it is) lasted about two hours, when I was about fourteen years old. I’ve spent more time potholing, in fact (about three hours in 1991): which also involved wading around in undesirably cold water for most of the time.

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