Socrates special selection - No. 1. After churning out stories, thoughts, and philosophies from the weird and wild world of sport I thought it was time to dig out some of my favourites. If I were to create a top ten from Sportsocratic, this would be in there somewhere. Not because it's a brilliant piece of writing. I'm a philosopher...not a writer. I've, most likely, never … [Read more...]
Aivi Luik interview – Matilda unsung hero
It is difficult to summarize the career of Matilda’s mid-fielder, Aivi Luik. She has done so much, achieved so much and had so many successes in so many footballing spheres that it is hard to get your head around it all. One of her most astounding achievements was the way in which she forced her way back into the Matildas team in 2018 after spending many years (and two world … [Read more...]
Still on the wing… (a life of music and rugby)
I reckon you could count the number of blokes that I have loved in my life (other than my brothers and my Dad) on one hand. There are some mates from my school days and one or two from the old neighbourhood where I grew up… and there was Al. Al wasn’t from the neighbourhood or from my high school. He was ten, maybe fifteen, years older than me and he came from New Zealand. I … [Read more...]
School soccer is serious business
A few years back a tiny North Coast NSW town’s primary school girls’ soccer team surprised their parents, teachers and class-mates when they won their game in the first round of the NSW schools state knockout competition. The team was made up of two highly experienced, top notch players, a few hackers from the town’s club soccer team and a dozen or so kids who didn’t know the … [Read more...]
Playing the game in the right spirit (whatever that means) – the fine art of cheating at cricket
Before he took a hammering at the hands of Terence Crawford in Las Vegas, Australia’s fleeting world welterweight champion, Jeff Horn, claimed that the scales had been doctored before his weigh-in for the bout. He needed to strip naked and then still lose another 8oz to get down to the 147 lb limit for his division. Given Crawford’s clear superiority in the ring, you’d have to … [Read more...]