Charles Walford

Charles Walford is a journalist and sports writer focusing on American sport.

Monday

Charles Walford

Don’t kick Southampton out of the play-offs for spying

For a brief while, in the early 2010s, supporters of Middlesbrough FC borrowed from the Proclaimers to create a terrace song boasting that they would walk 500 miles (and 500 more) 'just to see the mighty Middlesbrough'. It is presumed that young William Salt did not undertake his journey on foot, but a couple of weeks ago the Southampton intern went to almost as great lengths to watch the Teesside club in action. Call me old-fashioned, but I would like to see my team get promoted on merit, by scoring goals, not petty points in some windowless hearing room But Master Salt did not venture on his 580-mile round trip for a match.

Sunday

Charles Walford

In defence of American sport

This afternoon, just shy of 75,000 fans of American football will flood in to watch the Atlanta Falcons take on the Indianapolis Colts, in what is set to be the Colts’ largest attendance for a home game this season. A few weeks ago, more than 86,000 turned out to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars face the LA Rams in what was the Jaguars’ best-attended home game this year. The most surprising thing about this? Both games were taking place more than 4,000 miles from the NFL’s heartland – one in Berlin, one in London. Recently, Sean Thomas claimed on Spectator Life that America has failed to export its ‘laughable’ sports.

Saturday

Charles Walford

Forget Adolescence: this is the Netflix drama teenage boys should watch

Boris Johnson didn't like Adolescence. In his Daily Mail column last week he acknowledged the fine acting of the most talked-about television programme of the year, but still concluded that it was ‘tosh’. The problem, he felt, was that it wasn't based on a real-life crime, which somehow lessens its worth as a lesson for our times in the eyes of the former Prime Minister. I'm not sure his logic fully holds up to scrutiny (nor, for that matter, does Keir Starmer's plan to show Adolescence in schools). But if it is real-life drama that Boris wants then Netflix, with impeccable timing, this week released another one of those sports documentaries at which they have become rather adept.