How hard can it be to run 13 miles? With help from the pub, park and peas I am finding out | Barry Glendenning

17 janvier 2026 à 09:00

Goaded by my colleague into a half-marathon, I can’t say I’m enjoying the training but I’m slowly improving, and at least Great Ormond Street benefits

My name is Barry and I’m a runner. As a clinically obese 52-year-old Irishman who regularly binge drinks (the NHS’s joyless definition, not my own), I would love to be able to say I took up running for health reasons but that would be a lie. Truth be told, I was railroaded into it by my Football Weekly associate Max Rushden, who publicly challenged me to run the London Landmarks Half-Marathon after I had belittled the efforts of a friend who completed it by asking: “How hard can running 13 miles be?” To cut an already short story shorter, in April I hope to plod from Whitehall, past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament across Westminster Bridge, along Victoria Embankment and on to Trafalgar Square in the company of more than 20,000 fellow runners, most of whom should finish in front of me if they have so much as a modicum of shame.

I will be running for Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity, not because of any particularly heartwarming or tragic link I have to this wonderful hospital, but because the bloke in charge of their fundraising heard the gauntlet being thrown down and asked me first. Presumably, that’s why he’s the boss. In return for the £25,096 raised thus far due in no small part to the astonishing generosity of the Football Weekly audience, the charity has sent me a 100% recycled polyester men’s turquoise running singlet bearing a teardrop-shaped logo in which a small and presumably unwell child is smiling and crying simultaneously. It’s 2XL, the biggest size they had available. I don’t think it’s supposed to be skintight.

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The Guardian
Football Daily | Alonso and the trouble with replacing ego and vibes with work ethic at Madrid 14 janvier 2026 à 16:52

Football Daily | Alonso and the trouble with replacing ego and vibes with work ethic at Madrid

The Guardian

Par :Barry Glendenning

14 janvier 2026 à 16:52

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Having started this season at Real Madrid with 13 wins from his first 14 games, Xabi Alonso could be forgiven for thinking he was on to a good thing in his new role of Kindergarten Cop, tasked with instilling discipline among the spoilt and unruly brats in his care. While this excellent run was punctuated by a tonking at the hands of Atlético and a diva strop thrown by Vinícius Júnior, Alonso seemed to have pulled off the unthinkable by introducing something approaching a work ethic into a group of players who had previously been powered on ego and vibes. It wasn’t until November that the passengers on board the Madrid wagon began to unscrew the wheels, when a series of poor results led to revelations that all was not well in the camp. Leaks suggested the squad was split between the few players who were entirely sold on the 43-year-old’s ethos and the apparent vast majority who took exception to this José Come-Lately’s tyrannical demands that they turn up on time, run around a bit and occasionally sit through boring tactical presentations that lasted longer than a FaceSpace Snap.

The suggestion that Manchester United hve taken/should take advice from Seinfeld [yesterday’s Football Daily] got me thinking. There was an episode about a competition during which, um, refraining from certain personal activities led to a temporary increase in intelligence (note: for male participants only!). As I recall, one of the outcomes was that George Costanza became fluent in Portuguese. Does this explain why the United board hired Messrs Mourinho and Amorim and signed Cristiano Ronaldo in recent years? And, does the hiring of Mr Carrick signal the, um, the end of the competition?” – Mike Wilner.

Following Dan Westacott’s letter about JR (yesterday’s letters), surely a growing number of Manchester United’s fans are praying that they will wake up back in 2013, where Sir Alex Ferguson will be getting out of the shower one morning, preparing himself for a press conference when he will announce that he isn’t actually retiring” – Simon Dunsby.

Not only did Dan get a letter published with a joke from 40 years ago, but he won letter of the day! And you didn’t even have to look it up! Oh, wait …” – Z Snook.

Seriously guys? Only two options and you gave letter of the day to the writer not called Gumley Slats!?!” – Adam Sherlock.

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