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Articles by Tom Hollingworth

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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

OGC Nice 1 Basel 2 (1/4 final Europa Conference)

Two events foreshadowed Nice’s elimination from the Europa Conference. The first was ‘L’Affaire Galtier’. Galtier was a successful manager of Lille, recruited when Jacques Rivieère was President of Nice. Jim Radcliffe of Ineos then acquired Nice and PSG poached Galtier. It is alleged [...]

April 21, 2023 // 0 Comments

Nice 0 PSG 2

I felt honoured to join the Rusters for their annual pilgrimage to Nice and – after consulting the sporting calendar – thought I would go to Nice v PSG in the football and Toulon v Perpignan in the rugby. PSG are by far the best team in France thanks to their super-wealthy Gulf owners. [...]

April 9, 2023 // 0 Comments

The Six Nations

Unusually for me I was fervent for an English victory which might have happened yesterday in Dublin had there been parity on the pitch. Why, as I am a keen admirer of Irish rugby? Gone are the amateurish troubadours of the past like Moss Keane as nowadays the structure of the four provinces – [...]

March 19, 2023 // 0 Comments

Thoughts on the Six Nations.

I watched every Six Nations game this weekend. First up was Italy v Wales in Rome for the wooden spoon. Had Italy had Ange Cannone and Capuozzi they might have given Wales a close game but in their absence the away side won comfortably. This was followed by England v France. When Jack van [...]

March 13, 2023 // 0 Comments

Six Nations: Italy 20 Ireland 34

The non-UK countries in the Six Nations do not get too much coverage in the media and this year Italy have definitely slipped under the radar. Okay, they have lost all 3 games – but they play with brio and were unlucky to lose against France. Yesterday they more than competed against a very [...]

February 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

Motty R.I.P.

I cannot say Motty was a good friend but he was more than an acquaintance of mine. I do not know how many paying tribute to him actually knew him. The tributes did get one thing right: he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of football in an age where there was no internet resource. He kept rigorous [...]

February 24, 2023 // 0 Comments

Scotland 29 England 23

It was less of a new dawn, more of a gloriously sunlit game with rain falling at the end on Steve Borthwick’s parade. There were some bright new conditions: Ollie Chessum had a fine game at lock which he needs to do as Maro Itoje is not the force he was and Lewis Ludlum was a mobile flanker. Max [...]

February 6, 2023 // 0 Comments

Rugby union’s new “waist and below” tackle rule won’t work

Sometimes one could be forgiven for forming the view that some newsworthy developments just couldn’t be made up if one was writing fiction. It’s just been announced that – in effect – in the the amateur version of rugby union in England, tackles must now be made at waist [...]

January 21, 2023 // 0 Comments

Sunday TV sport

Sunday I watched some 7 hours of sport on tv. Rather than report on the event itself I thought I might comment on its coverage. First up was the encounter between Newcastle United and Fulham, one of three involving the top six of the Premier over the weekend, which perhaps surprisingly includes [...]

January 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

Elite female sport 2022: a year of big advances but also some complications

Over time it has become a bit of a cliché, but “back in the day” – when comic Frankie Howard (1917-1992) was a British household name milking his “conspiratorial” relationship with his stand-up audiences and/or television viewers – he often compounded the effect by chiding them for [...]

December 23, 2022 // 0 Comments

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