Just in

Articles by Tom Hollingworth

Avatar photo
About Tom Hollingworth

Tom Hollingsworth is a former deputy sports editor of the Daily Express. For many years he worked in a sports agency, representing mainly football players and motor racing drivers. Tom holds a private pilot’s licence and flying is his principal recreation. More Posts

Smith v Farrell

There was an interesting debate in The Sunday Times at the weekend between Stephen Jones and Stuart Barnes on Marcus Smith. Jones is no fan and doubts whether Smith should ever be selected for England, whilst Barnes is. It’s no longer such an live issue as, with Farrell reportedly in negotiations [...]

January 9, 2024 // 0 Comments

Rugby Union in England – heading for a crisis?

Based upon history and indeed ongoing current evidence, it might be thought by some sports lovers that somehow “it comes with the territory” that – to one degree or another – every field of endeavour, activity or game with serious pretensions to being a truly global sport [...]

December 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

Football and Rugby Union – some random thoughts

Throughout its time the Rust’s sports coverage has consistently followed the progress of the sports of football and rugby union. It occurred to me recently that there are certain ironies and issues running through both these sports – some shared and some not. Recently England’s football [...]

December 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

Terry Venables

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Terry Venables . He was more than an acquaintance less than a friend. As in lifetime, opinion is divided on his merits and achievements. For some he was a progressive football man managing at the highest international and club level. For others he did not [...]

November 28, 2023 // 0 Comments

Autumn sporting contests

We have now reached the end of autumnal sport contests: the Ryder Cup, the Rugby World Cup and the Cricket World Cup. Of the three I enjoyed the Rugby World Cup the most as England defied the critics – who at one stage doubted they could qualify – by holding South Africa until the 79th [...]

November 20, 2023 // 0 Comments

Harlequins 40 Newcastle Falcons 12 ( Premiership Cup)

I streamed this from the Premiership website for £5.99. I’m such a Luddite that I could not work out how to watch it on my big screen TV, but rather my iPad which had rather a minuscule image. Quins ran out easy winners with top boys Joe Marler and Marcus Smith on the bench.  The finest moment [...]

November 5, 2023 // 0 Comments

Are fans getting a fair deal?

As a kid I loved football annuals. I don’t know if they exist any more in this brave new world of social media and digital publishing but best of all were the photographs. I’m reminded of Harold Pinter’s poetic eulogy of Leonard Hutton: “I saw Leonard Hutton in his prime Different time, [...]

November 1, 2023 // 0 Comments

Thoughts on two World Cups – the England perspective

The words England and English will be appearing a lot in this post. The Rugby World Cup Final was a tense, thrilling, match but afterwards there was some criticism of English referee Wayne Barnes. The problem is that – if you are continually told you are the best in the world – you [...]

October 29, 2023 // 0 Comments

Thoughts on two World Cup defeats … both to South Africa.

The defeat to South Africa in the cricket World cup was massively comprehensive (244 runs) the defeat in the Rugby World Cup (15-16) tragically narrow. On the BBC commentary there was an excellent South African who questioned England’’s decision to bowl  given the extreme heat and humidity [...]

October 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

Sunday‘s quarter finals

Our readership has had plenty of opportunity to read of two more thrilling matches so I thought I would major on the coverage which, in my view, did not match the occasion. I was particularly irritated by David Flatman – the analyst for ITV’s coverage of France v South Africa. He [...]

October 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

1 2 3 4 … 48

Copyright © 2024 The National Rust | Design by Premonition