Thursday, 23 March 2023
Telford Vice has been writing, ostensibly and mostly about sport but actually and always about life and the people who live it, since 1991. To him, sport is politics and politics is sport. Originally from East London, South Africa, he now lives in London’s East End, in England.
Is the sport too hungry for money to care about what Tyson Fury has said he believes? It would certainly seem so, as he is not the first and likely not the last fighter to attract controversy.
Loud voices insist that politics has no place in sport and athletes should stay out of it. But there seems to be plenty of space for them to support causes other than the fight against racism.
The finals of the US Open were one day but worlds apart, pitting youthful exuberance and hope against anguish and dead fish. But perhaps this says more about politics than tennis.
The country has always had a drinking problem, but the pandemic-prompted alcohol bans – and their aftermath – have lifted the veil on just how dysfunctional we are.
The coronavirus pandemic is revolutionising the way sport is played and watched. Audio smoke and mirrors are blotting out the sound of empty stadiums and players are becoming gamers.
Communism, as implemented by Stalin and Mao, didn’t deliver what it promised and Covid-19 has exposed hyper-globalised capitalism as fatally fragile. So, now what?
Inequality is writ larger than ever along parts of Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard, on streets where the rich couldn’t avoid the poor if they tried.
Boxing has been relentlessly Americanised inside and outside the ring. But its heart – and its past, present and future – beats with Britishness from deep in London’s East End.
The noble sport has a chequered past, littered with the dark forces that have bankrolled it before. But even with that past, staging a fight in Saudi Arabia with its human rights violations was a new low.
Academic and writer Crispian Olver has released the second in a series of three books aimed at exploring why South African cities are moving so destructively close to the edge.
By censoring the internet, dictating sermons in mosques and jailing journalists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is subverting secularism. Now, he turns his attention to the Kurds.
The sweet science that is pugilism has many admirers, including some of the most talented people to have lived. But it also has deaths, too many of them.
The UK’s new prime minister has been caught lying on numerous occasions and is absurdly bigoted, but beneath that crop of blond hair is a dangerous strategist.
The Australian has outrageous talent with a racquet, although his tongue and antics steal the show more often than his talent. But is that such a bad thing?
English football celebrated that all four finalists in the Uefa Champions League and Europa League finals were from one country, England. But is this achievement a reason to celebrate or should it be a cause for concern?
Remain-minded Brits turned to a new form of political protest involving milkshakes to express their feelings towards leave supporters standing as candidates in the EU parliamentary elections.
Extinction Rebellion coordinated protests over 15 days to bring the British capital to a standstill in an attempt to get government to accede to three climate protection demands.
The World Chess Championship offered a glimpse into a sport that’s weird and wonderful as Norway’s Magnus Carlsen came up against Fabiano Caruana from the US.