The Run of Play is a blog about
the wonder and terror of soccer.

We left the window open during a match in October 2007 and a strange wind blew into the room.

Now we walk the forgotten byways of football with a lonely tread, searching for the beautiful, the bewildering, the haunting, and the absurd.

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One Year Ago on The Run of Play

Steve McClaren: An Innovator in Failure
Steve McClaren is sacked after the Croatia loss, and defends his legacy by pointing out that he’s helped the next England manager to know what not to do.

English Football and the Culture of Overreaction
Coverage of the England team has entered a state of permanent overreaction that erases the distinction between athletics and morality and contributes to the team’s failures on the pitch.

Football as Philosophy
Part Four of the “Why Do We Follow Sports?” series explores the role supporting a team plays in maintaining our belief that our will controls the universe.

Harry Redknapp Is Arrested for Corruption
It takes 60 officers to bring Harry to the station, from which we derive the precept, “You can never underestimate Harry Redknapp.”

A Field Guide to Corruption in Football
In the wake of Harry’s imprisonment, I diagram the levels of football corruption in a special post for Pitch Invasion.

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One Year Ago on The Run of Play

by Brian Phillips · November 29, 2008

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