Alpha Magazine

In the centenary year of the NRL, it must be a relief that the latest example of league-related bad behaviour has nothing to do with them. The NRL powers that be can at least brace themselves for the Christmas season of player mayhem in the knowledge that whether or not…

South Africa’s Graeme Smith, possibly the world’s most loved and admired cricketer (after Harbhajan Singh) has admitted that the world may come to an end if his team lose the upcoming Test series against Australia. “This is the biggest thing in history!” shouted Smith, screwing up his little face and…

Oh, what’s a cricketer to do? For years they moan about playing too much, how their marriages are falling to bits, they never see their kids, they never get the chance to rest, recover, practice, retrain, blue sky. But THEN… Then the big bucks arrive and Indian loony leagues arrive…

In news guaranteed to generate pity in absolutely no-one in Australia, the boss of failing French rugby team Toulon has been moaning about how it’s all gone wrong for him. “Volatile millionaire” (rich, interfering, mercenary tantrum-haver) Mourad Boudjellal has looked at the crop of big-name signings (including a knacked Sonny…

Safe in his nice house in [insert name of very quiet suburb in very safe part of town], ICC chief Haroon Lorgat (a double-point score if ever there was one) has asked the England cricket team if they wouldn’t mind returning to the current centre of the terrorist hurricane for…

It’s been far too long since the Bucket made lazy, half-remembered and 78 per cent inaccurate comparisons to 25-year-old TV series, so I’ve rolled up my sleeves and gone for it. There was one episode of Blackadder where the man himself was about to get married and looking for a…

Somewhere in Queensland yesterday, a bloke woke up with a stinking headache, his clobber still on, half a tin of XXXX Gold on the floor beside him and a vague recollection of something important. Then he remembered. He remembered that he became the latest in a long line of people…

Yesterday was the day for doubt and fear. A day to test the faith, go to church and hope a falling tree didn’t get you on the way. It was a day when little girls asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people, Daddy?” And Daddy had no answer.…

Nothing makes clubs angrier, yet nothing is more downright entertaining to the neutral observer, than when teammates grab the handbags and start hitting each other. After that, no matter how often the manager trots out the solidarity line, you know there’s serious cup-throwing going on behind the scenes. And it…