Ken Loach's recent film Spirit of 45 brilliantly celebrates the triumphant mood that delivered a Labour Landslide election victory at the end of World War Two and the establishment of both the Welfare State and nationalised public utilities. What is made less obvious was the essential anti-fascist character...

In England there's no sportswriter quite like Dave Zirin. He writes about sport from the Left with such passion and style that readers will never spot the join. An American, the bias is unsurprisingly towards baseball, basketball and their own bastardised version of 'football', yet both the issues raised and...

As the Thatcher funeral hoopla fades away and the focus shifts to the likely rout of the Con-Dems in the 2 May local elections the political landscape outside the Westminster bubble in the next few months is likely to be further shaped by the deepening impact of the cuts.

Never mind the debate over the dodgy third goal in '66, was it or wasn't it over the line. The most famous piece of commentary in English footballing history 'some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over, it is now' proves definitively England's fourth goal against Germany...

England vs Brazil, friendly or no friendly, is a tasty international fixture to mark the start of the Football Association's 150th birthday celebrations. However the other home opponents lined up so far, the Republic of Ireland last qualified for a World Cup in 2002, and at Euro 2012 failed to...

Seventy years ago (2 February 1943) is the date of the Red Army victory at Stalingrad. From the moment of near-certain defeat the previous year the siege of the city, Hitler's gateway to success on the Eastern Front, had been turned into an encirclement of the German forces and their...

I have an old lefty badge somewhere 'Books are Weapons'. Of course reading alone is never enough, did someone mention the point however is to change it? But we live in an era of unprecedented austerity, the urgent challenge that the threat of Climate Change should be posing almost all...

26 October 1863 was when the great and the good of 19th Century English Football gathered at the Freemasons' Arms in Covent Garden to codify their sport. The rest is history, as will be frequently pointed out over the next 12 months as the organisation founded in this Central...

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman reviews the best left-wing books of 2012 for a hopeful materialist's seasonal gift list.

Christmas time, not much peace in large parts of the world, precious little goodwill for the 99% either. A time for turbo-driven commercialism to drive up retail's footfall. Bah Humbug? Or...

Never mind the BBC hyped-up hoopla of 'Sports Personality of the Year', for most successful British sport of 2012 surely nothing comes close to cycling. An extraordinary first, and second, places for British riders in the Tour de France, a hatful of medals in the Olympic velodrome, more on the...

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman reveals the football books any fan would welcome as an addition to their bookshelf this Christmas

Twenty years on from the 1992 publication of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch it might be assumed that there wouldn't be any subjects football-wise remaining to write a half-decent book about....

With the Olympics over MARK PERRYMAN reflects on the ups, downs and thereabouts

Having written a book entitled Why The Olympics Aren't Good For Us I might have been expected to be crying into my energy drink for the past joyful few weeks for having such a woeful lack of...

A World record crowd for a Women's Football match. Three more Team GB Golds, all won by women athletes. The first ever Women's boxing Gold, again won by a Team GB athlete. That was just yesterday, Thursday, at London 2012. For Team GB these Games have perhaps represented the single...

In the mid 1980s a strain of left writing emerged which took popular culture seriously, too seriously according to some critics who preferred a more reductionist model of the old base-superstructure variety. However amongst these writers, covering a wide variety of subjects that frame our everyday lives, the argument that...

No expensive and hard-to-come-by ticket required. A front row seat guaranteed. Precious little commercialisation, bring your own barbecue. And a Gold Medal performance. Wednesday's Cycling Time Trial had all the components of the better Olympics I have made the case for in my book Why The Olympics Aren't Good For...

Over the past few days I've lost count of the number of politicians decrying critics of the Olympics. Labour's newly appointed 'Olympic Legacy Adviser' Tony Blair has returned to one of his favourite themes, a personal declaration of war on cynicism. Boris Johnson joins the chorus of boasts that the...

Just one click away and the Olympic tickets are mine. I've plumped for a Bronze Medal men's hockey match, which leaves me treacherously hoping Team GB will be battling it out for third place rather than going for Gold. And an early round of the water polo too. The latter...

There is scarcely a scrap of evidence from any previous games of economic regeneration or a sustainable boost in employment. Not one recent Olympic host nation can point to an increase in sport participation levels as a result of the Olympics. And as for tourism, the Olympics leads to a...