Gentry style

Gary Burns takes a look at Wimbledon and British tennis past, present and future and asks if we can host the finest Grand Slam why can’t we win it?
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Roger Federer has raised the fashion stakes for men’s tennis. His swish cardigan is probably the only garment that could ever adequately express his on-court elegance. But Roger’s flamboyance isn’t an isolated thrust, tennis has a long history of style and flair. Gentry takes a look back at some of the lawn icons who have ruffled our fashion feathers.
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Gary Burns takes a look at Wimbledon and British tennis past, present and future and asks if we can host the finest Grand Slam why can’t we win it?

(more…)

Gary Burns takes a look at Wimbledon and British tennis past, present and future and asks if we can host the finest Grand Slam why can’t we win it?

(more…)

No international tournament is complete without the azzurri shirt. It is one of the most iconic garments the sport has to offer. This coming Sunday, at Euro 2008, the deep blues of Italy will match-up against the clashing red and gold of Spain - a kit, rather like the character of the Spanish team itself, fiery but often queasy. The grinding, winning football of the nazionale ensures that we usually see plenty of the distinctive colour, the almost unnerving staying power of the team so frequently evident. Perhaps only the gauche tones of Brazil, the selecao, is more recognizable, but certainly not quite so considered, the brash hues of green and gold a little too overbearing for us Europeans. Gentry takes a look back at the Italian shirts of the past to see how the fashionable shirts may have contributed to their sporting successes.

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One of the most remarkable sporting careers of the modern era is soon to draw to a close. Since his debut in 1985 for A.C. Milan, Paolo Maldini has been a consumate footballer, performing impossibly well with a peerless guile and panache for over twenty years. Maldini may well extend his remarkable era one more season as Milan look to regroup after a largely unsuccessful season. His tireless, energetic performance in the first leg of the champions league final against Arsenal confirms that, when necessary, he still has all the attributes to compete at the very highest level. Now is as good a time as any to say goodbye and look back at the career of perhaps the best defender ever to grace the field of play.

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The first Saturday in May heralds the beginning of good times. Not only do we have the venerable Kentucky Derby – America’s most famous horse race, the first in the Triple Crown – but also the beginning of Mint Julep season, which extends throughout the steamy summer of the American south. Let’s hope that when the Queen visited Churchill Downs last weekend, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to attend the Derby, she was treated to this most potent and genteel of cocktails.

Mint Juleps are to Kentucky what vodka is to Russia. It’s as much a part of the culture as bluegrass, and on Derby day, the whole of America, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, sips this sweet bourbon treat in a nod to the old south. The winner of the Derby is officially toasted with a Mint Julep, though most of the onlookers will have done plenty of toasting long before the winner crosses the line.

According to lore, the Mint Julep was served on the Kentucky plantation of Senator Henry Clay, who brought the drink to Washington, D.C. in the 1850s, where it was – and happily still is – served at the wonderful old Willard Hotel, still an institution in the capitol.

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Most footballers might be justifiably written off as knuckle-dragging, groupie-banging perma-adolescents, but there are a few, albeit a very few, who think on their feet, engage with the world around them and, for better or worse, use their unique position to express a range of political views.

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You may not have noticed – though if you haven’t, then you soon will – tennis shorts are a style must this season. See ya, big-butted baggy cargo shorts. Farewell, the absurdity of the ¾ length trouser-short. If your inseam is longer than 4.5 inches this summer, you’d better be a skateboarding teenager or find a better tailor. Life is cruel, but so are most shorts on men.

Tennis shorts first made their cheeky appearance in 1932 when the audacious, fashion-forward British tennis player, Bunny Austin, chose to wear shorts rather than the conventional flannel trousers at Forest Hills and then at Wimbledon. (more…)

5. Friday Night lights
4. The Cincinnati Kid
3. The Natural
2. The Hustler
1. Rocky

5. Friday Night Lights:  I’m gonna miss the heat. I’m gonna miss the lights.

American football works well on screen, the staccato rhythms and technicalities of the game act as rounds of increasing tension, the variations of influential personnel offer us heroes, one after another. But there’s an inescapable hint of tragedy about the college game. The sadness of fleeting glory is exposed, the way in which the past, present and future of a young man is stripped down to one moment in one game; one decision, one twist, one turn; the significance of precision, the option of success. Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) asks his team to be no less that ‘perfect’, no live nowhere but within the moment of victory. This is a spare, unsentimental film that discards the guts and glory myths that clog other movies to shed light on the stirring practicalities of focus, collaboration and belief. Peter Berg’s film allows us to see two rarely shared secrets: the fragility of the athlete and the possibility.

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