1.“The 31-year-old has acted in a Chekhov play in Dublin and he is as happy talking about movies, books and the bruising vagaries of life as the seven years he lived in Detroit with Emanuel Steward. Regarded by many as modern boxing’s greatest trainer, who established the Kronk gym and shaped Tommy Hearns, Steward claimed towards the end of his life that Lee was the fighter he rated above all others. Those words are a tribute as much to the thoughtful man within Lee as the big-hitting boxer between the ropes. His contest against Saunders is being hyped as the first world title fight between two Travellers – but Lee’s personal story is more interesting.”
Ahead of his fight, the always excellent Donald McRae profiled Andy Lee.
2.“At the beginning of May 2015, Chelsea wrapped up the Premier League title with a scrappy 1-0 win over Crystal Palace. It was not a great game or a great performance, but then for a couple of months Chelsea had looked exhausted, dragging their fatigued limbs over the line and grateful no contender was able to make a serious or consistent challenge. It was a day of relief as well as exultation, Mourinho’s third title with the club, his first since his return and only the fifth they had ever won, despite all their recent investment.”
3.“The video has it all—action, turmoil, heroism, a golf cart! And it’s all set on a grand stage, the 2011 Texas State 5A Division I High School Championship Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It is truly a piece of viral art. But how did the cart get going in the first place without a driver behind the wheel? Were people seriously hurt in the accident? Were those struck by the cart ever compensated by deep-pocketed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones? The people need answers.”
4.“A year ago almost to the day Lee became the first boxer from the travelling community to win a world title, beating Matt Korobov in six rounds in Las Vegas. He has done it the hard way. As an Irishman in Detroit, there were no gimmes. He has spent his career as the away fighter, travelling across the United States as well as taking fights in Germany and Denmark, and now to Saunders in Manchester.”
5.“Inside the entrance to Chelsea’s training ground there is a framed photograph, going back to the evening of 19 May 2012, of the G8 summit at Camp David as the world’s leaders interrupted their talks on Syria, at the request of Angela Merkel, to gather round a television in the Laurel Lodge because she had just been told the Champions League final had gone to a penalty shootout.”
6.“What we don’t fully know is what his total earnings were, and we’ll never know what they could have been. He appeared as a rugby colossus just as rugby union was turning openly professional, but in a sport in which its finest players were still somewhat shackled by the dictates of national administrations and, in New Zealand, the restricted horizons of a smaller nation.”
Why Chelsea players have a right to feel betrayed by Mourinho and all the week's best sportswriting
1. “The 31-year-old has acted in a Chekhov play in Dublin and he is as happy talking about movies, books and the bruising vagaries of life as the seven years he lived in Detroit with Emanuel Steward. Regarded by many as modern boxing’s greatest trainer, who established the Kronk gym and shaped Tommy Hearns, Steward claimed towards the end of his life that Lee was the fighter he rated above all others. Those words are a tribute as much to the thoughtful man within Lee as the big-hitting boxer between the ropes. His contest against Saunders is being hyped as the first world title fight between two Travellers – but Lee’s personal story is more interesting.”
Ahead of his fight, the always excellent Donald McRae profiled Andy Lee.
2. “At the beginning of May 2015, Chelsea wrapped up the Premier League title with a scrappy 1-0 win over Crystal Palace. It was not a great game or a great performance, but then for a couple of months Chelsea had looked exhausted, dragging their fatigued limbs over the line and grateful no contender was able to make a serious or consistent challenge. It was a day of relief as well as exultation, Mourinho’s third title with the club, his first since his return and only the fifth they had ever won, despite all their recent investment.”
The Blizzard have done a comprehensive 12,000 word analysis of Jose Mourinho’s time at Chelsea.
3. “The video has it all—action, turmoil, heroism, a golf cart! And it’s all set on a grand stage, the 2011 Texas State 5A Division I High School Championship Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It is truly a piece of viral art. But how did the cart get going in the first place without a driver behind the wheel? Were people seriously hurt in the accident? Were those struck by the cart ever compensated by deep-pocketed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones? The people need answers.”
Complex.com have only gone and written an oral history of the Dallas runaway golf cart.
4. “A year ago almost to the day Lee became the first boxer from the travelling community to win a world title, beating Matt Korobov in six rounds in Las Vegas. He has done it the hard way. As an Irishman in Detroit, there were no gimmes. He has spent his career as the away fighter, travelling across the United States as well as taking fights in Germany and Denmark, and now to Saunders in Manchester.”
Andy Lee features again, this time in a piece written by Kevin Garside for The Independent.
5. “Inside the entrance to Chelsea’s training ground there is a framed photograph, going back to the evening of 19 May 2012, of the G8 summit at Camp David as the world’s leaders interrupted their talks on Syria, at the request of Angela Merkel, to gather round a television in the Laurel Lodge because she had just been told the Champions League final had gone to a penalty shootout.”
There have been countless pieces written on Jose Mourinho this week, but few if any are better than Daniel Taylor’s insightful analysis of the situation.
6. “What we don’t fully know is what his total earnings were, and we’ll never know what they could have been. He appeared as a rugby colossus just as rugby union was turning openly professional, but in a sport in which its finest players were still somewhat shackled by the dictates of national administrations and, in New Zealand, the restricted horizons of a smaller nation.”
Chris Rattue of the New Zealand Herald on why Jonah Lomu was bigger than the game, but not life’s pitfalls.
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