The stuff of Sporting Champions When Ireland won at Twickenham in their first match following England’s Rugby World Cup triumph in 2003, we joked that only Ireland could peak the best side in the world after the World Cup had ended! Admittedly the only training that the returning champions had been doing ever since […]
All Blacks in an Irish stew as Super Saturday approaches Whatever the unwelcome statistics for the Southern Hemisphere nations, losing all their matches in unison for the first time, their marketing departments will be secretly delighted that 4 series sit in the balance for this coming weekend. A real Super Saturday. Perhaps we will […]
Highs and Lows of an English Sporting Summer Lovers of English Sport are resilient if nothing else. Rock bottom only a few months ago, our cricket now rules the world and the players are being compared to rock artists. Same team though! And against a backdrop of earth-shattering incompetence by their administrators. I was […]
Sporting drama in June – A Rugby Tale of Three Fly Halves and two coaches What a month of sport around the world, where to start? Bairstow’s heroics at Trent Bridge against the world’s No 1 team, New Zealand, was inspired by the legendary Kiwi Brendan McCullum, a delicious irony and so far […]
DRINK COFFEE, DO GOOD… Sporting Wine Club is delighted to announce our brand-new partnership with Rugga Coffee! Rugga Coffee’s values are completely aligned with Sporting Wine Club as a company built with a passion for rugby, coffee and supporting mental health awareness. Born as an idea, during lockdown, Rugga Coffee started as a way […]
La Rochelle live the European dream La Rochelle is steeped in history, whether back to the days of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th century or indeed to the presence of the Huguenots in the 17th. A thriving but small Maritime port was never supposed to carry off the Blue […]
A week for Sporting Champions and questions of leadership What a week for Champions in two of our major sports – and a prelude for an unprecedented summer of sport after two years of Pandemic-driven abstinence. As a 55-year-long Man City fan, even I was stunned by that comeback. When you know […]
Broken dreams for champions cup semifinalists The brutality of semifinals is that no one remembers the loser. However, for Saracens, Wasps, Toulouse and Racing 92 there were many mitigating circumstances. In two cases, Leinster and Toulon were simply too good and those matches in Dublin and on the Cote Méditerranée will live in the […]
International Chardonnay Day 2022 Ahead of International Chardonnay Day 2022 on the 26th of May, Sporting Wine Club are delving into the Chardonnay Grape and some of our wonderful Chardonnay wines… Why Chardonnay? The Chardonnay Grape comes under so many guises in the production of still and sparkling wine, yet can often still be pigeonholed […]
European Rugby Scales The Heights I feel compelled to reflect on last weekend’s European action simply because the quality of what was on offer reached a new record in my view and also there were some conclusions reached I feel are premature. I know I am biased but the adage of the European Cup […]