Some readers may remember a couple of Herald pieces in recent years highlighting the grip Catholic football managers seemed to have assumed over the Premier League, with one winning team after another being coached by a man reared in the faith and often devoutly practising it as well. This run has just been interrupted with

Last year we finally left the Big Smoke and settled in rural Kent, bringing to an end my many years as a reluctant town mouse. Our village is straight from central casting: it has a 12th-century church next-door to a huge Georgian parsonage; you pass between the churchyard and the latter’s considerable grounds through the

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

I work in a school, so for me this week marks the half-term break. Variously called Easter Term at Stonyhurst, Lent Term at Downside and Spring Term at Ampleforth, the name matters not. What matters is that pupils and staff can now take a break – from work and from each other. This half term

Hours before he died Sunday, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant attended Mass at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach, California. His parish is now praying for his soul. Holy Mass was offered Monday at the parish for the souls of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven other victims of the January

Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant died on Sunday in a helicopter crash in Southern California, along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. Bryant, the father of four, was Catholic. In all nine people were killed in the crash on January 26. Bryant, 41, is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He retired

I have no idea what we will give our children for Christmas, but I know what they have given me over the years – a fascination with sport, where previously team games left me cold. All of our children are what I’d call sporty, though possibly I’m underestimating how normal it is to enjoy a

Rough Ideas By Stephen Hough Faber, 464pp, £18.99/$21.46 Stephen Hough is famous for a lot of things, mostly to do with playing the piano. He ranks high among the leading keyboard geniuses of our time – and genius is not an idle word here: it’s a status formally acknowledged in the US with what’s known

Archbishop Allen Vigneron issued a new policy last week banning sports games and practices on Sundays in Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit. The order came in response to parents who objected to having to “split” the family between multiple games and practices on the same day, who found themselves squeezing Mass in between

Vatican releases its first document on sports