Sport, the “beautiful game” in particular, is no stranger to a grand theory. These tend to come in various colourful guises, belying their platitudinous and conspiratorial natures, and all too often delivered with “bet-you-didn’t-know-this” solemnity. I have learnt to keep my own football theorising to myself, having read Ian Hamilton’s remarkable essay “On Being a

It was a week of minor miracles, though not as St Augustine might have conceived them. Even for those who have no interest in Champions League football, you would have had to be a hermit or a contrarian (perhaps they amount to the same thing) to have been immune to the coverage – there was