In praise of Brian Glanville and those who taught us to love sport
Every World Cup it was tugged from the bookshelf, a coffee stain on one page, pen markings on another, a book as dishevelled as an old companion. Into its learned chapters we dived and invariably emerged sounding smarter.
The man who wrote The Story of The World Cup (published 1993) was born a year after the first Cup in 1930. Once it was impossible to know football and not him. Now Brian Glanville, the writer, is gone, up there in some celestial field, keeping notes on Maradona's cunning.
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
4 hours ago
- CNA
Trump to sign order creating Olympics task force ahead of 2028 games
WASHINGTON :U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 summer Olympic games, an administration official told Reuters. The task force, made up of members from Trump's cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation as well, the official said. It also will "streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media," the official said in an email.
Straits Times
6 hours ago
- Straits Times
US government restricts sports visas for transgender women
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on Monday it has updated its immigration policy to restrict visa eligibility for transgender women seeking to compete in women's sports. Under the policy update, USCIS will consider "the fact that a male athlete has been competing against women" as a negative factor when evaluating visa petitions in categories such as O-1A for extraordinary ability, EB-1 and EB-2 green cards for highly skilled workers, and national interest waivers. "USCIS is closing the loophole for foreign male athletes whose only chance at winning elite sports is to change their gender identity and leverage their biological advantages against women," said USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser. "It's a matter of safety, fairness, respect, and truth that only female athletes receive a visa to come to the U.S. to participate in women's sports." The move aligns with broader efforts by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to regulate transgender participation in athletics and follows similar policies enacted at the state level across the country. The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee last month updated its policy to align with an executive order signed earlier this year by Trump barring transgender women from competing in women's sports. Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" order in February, a directive that supporters said will restore fairness but critics argue infringes on the rights of a tiny minority of athletes. REUTERS
Straits Times
7 hours ago
- Straits Times
Stella Rimington, Britain's first female spy chief, dies aged 90
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox LONDON - Stella Rimington, the first female director general of Britain's MI5 security and counter-intelligence service who ushered in an era of greater transparency at the agency, has died aged 90. Rimington, who ran the domestic security agency between 1992 and 1996, was its first head to be publicly named and later wrote a memoir "Open Secret" about her career at the formerly secretive organisation. She went on to write a series of espionage novels and is also widely thought to have inspired actor Judy Dench's tough but playful characterisation of the fictional spymaster 'M' in several James Bond movies. "She died surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath," a family statement quoted by local media said. Rimington was given one of the British state's highest honours when she was made a dame in 1996. She joined MI5 in 1969 and worked in roles including counter-subversion and counter-terrorism. Under her leadership MI5 took a more prominent role in Britain's fight against Irish republican militants, according to a profile on the MI5 website. "As the first avowed female head of any intelligence agency in the world, Dame Stella broke through long-standing barriers and was a visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership," current MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in a statement. She committed the agency to a more transparent approach to its work, softening its post-Cold War image. "We are, of course, obliged to keep information secret in order to be effective, this is not to say that we should necessarily be a wholly secret organisation," she said in a publicly broadcast 1994 lecture. "Secrecy is not imposed for its own sake. It is not an end in itself." Foreshadowing her later literary career, Rimington opened that same speech with a nod to the British spy novel tradition and the fascination with the security services it had inspired among the general public. "It is exciting stuff and has led to the creation of many myths - and some lurid speculation - about our work. I must admit that it is with some hesitation that I set out tonight to shed some daylight," she said. "I have a sneaking feeling that the fiction may turn out to be more fun than the reality." REUTERS
