Football

What an emotional wringer the royal family has put us through in the past two years, from the sadness of Prince Philip’s death to the joyful Platinum Jubilee, then Queen Elizabeth II’s own extraordinarily moving funeral, and now the coronation of her son. I’ve felt so privileged to have been at Buckingham Palace for the last three events, anchoring Fox News coverage in America. After we came off air on Saturday, I mused with my two US co-presenters about what may be the next major royal occasion: a wedding, a funeral, a silver jubilee (Charles would have to live as long as his grandmother for that to happen)? Or God

Wales’ football manager Rob Page was clear about why his team’s captain Gareth Bale would wear the ‘One Love’ armband at the Qatar World Cup: it was about demonstrating support of LGBT rights in a country where there are none. Whatever the pushback from Fifa, Page insisted last month that the armband would be worn: ‘That’s what we believe in, that’s what we stand up for’, he preached. The Welsh team were not alone in taking part. Football captains of eight other European nations – including England’s own Harry Kane – were vocal about their plans to wear the armband to promote inclusivity in a host nation where homosexuality is

Two football friends, brothers, Mick and Pete, came to visit last week. We’ve been going to matches together since 1969, aged 12, in the good old skinhead days when the police enjoyed a punch-up as much as anybody. We used to travel all over the country on Lacey’s Coaches for away games and looked up to the older hooligans as gods. Those dockers were good honest scrappers, kind, fearless and very fun, in an era long before the sociologists or politicians started paying attention or hooligans wore designer jumpers. Mick still goes with Arthur, his son. Me and Pete haven’t been to a game since the team moved to its

I made my way to Loftus Road on Saturday for QPR’s first home fixture of the season. We’ve got a new gaffer in the form of Michael Beale, a 41-year-old Englishman who’s never managed a football club before but has worked as an assistant coach at San Paulo in Brazil and as Steven Gerrard’s right-hand at Rangers and Aston Villa. Can he make the transition from a bibs-and-cones man to a full-blown manager? I worry that QPR have brought him in because (a) he’s cheap and (b) won’t make a fuss about the club’s efforts to cut costs. Since the end of the last season, we’ve let go of 13

An idea past its sell-by date Waitrose has announced the removal of ‘best before’ dates from many food products. – The idea of printing dates began with Marks & Spencer in the 1950s, but only for use in the stockroom. They first appeared in the company’s shops in 1970 and were named ‘sell-by’ dates from 1973, launched with an advertising campaign saying: ‘The sell-by date means that St Michael foods are fresh.’ There was also a TV advert which featured Twiggy. – The concept was quickly adopted by other supermarkets after evidence that shoppers liked the reassurance of a date. It was expanded in the 1980s, with ‘best before’ dates

What separates this year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal from every other year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal? Wimbledon has always been a garden party with some tennis thrown in, attended by the least sports-driven crowd in existence – the matrons of Guildford and Godalming who manage to love Rafa and Andy for a fortnight, but not much longer, and whose need for a punnet of strawberries and cup of tea at around 4 p.m. is eternal. And for whom it’s funny if the ball hits the umpire’s chair. Wimbledon is half a tennis tournament and half the last redoubt of a disappearing England. Certainly the BBC saw

Is waving the Pride flag compulsory now? The Idrissa Gueye scandal suggests it might be. Footballer Gueye did not play for his team, Paris Saint-Germain, on Saturday because he declined to wear a new top on which the players’ numbers are emblazoned with the Pride colours. How dare he. Reject Pride, get shamed. Gueye is from Senegal and he clearly has quite traditional beliefs. It seems as though homosexuality is not something that he personally wants to celebrate. And for that, for holding true to his own moral convictions, he is being treated as a heretic. The French Football Federation has demanded an explanation. He must either ‘issue an apology’

Wagtime Footballers’ wives Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney are locked in a libel trial dubbed ‘Wagatha Christie’. The term WAGs, as it happens, was first unleashed on the public 20 years ago this week while the England football team and their families were spending a five-day bonding session in Dubai, prior to the 23 players flying out to South Korea for the 2002 World Cup. The term WAGs, reported the Sunday Telegraph, had been used for ‘wives and girlfriends’ by staff at Jumeirah Beach Club, where they were staying and enjoying the facilities, which included two swimming pools with underwater music and belly-dancing workshops. The bonding session seems to have