David Walsh
The Sunday Times
two European Championship finals and the last four at the 2018 World Cup. Under Southgate, the culture around the team improved to a point where the best English players rediscovered the joy of representing their country. While many appreciated the manager’s achievements, others were critical. The disapproval reached its climax after the final qualifying game against Slovenia at Euro
2024 in Germany when two fans threw plastic beer cups in the direction of the manager. On the day that England played Spain in the final, Walsh offered a passionate defence of the manager and explained why those critical of his performance were wrong.
2. Imagine being a 13-year-old in a computer class, googling your family name because that’s what all the other girls are doing. What you discover is that there is a man with the same name as your father, Don Tidey, who was once kidnapped and held captive for 23 days by the IRA. Then as you read the detail, there is the realisation your dad was the man at the centre of this ordeal which ended in a shoot-out and the deaths of a policeman and soldier. That evening, Saskia Tidey’s mum
Barbara told her the full story, deepening the young girl’s respect and love for her dad. Conscious of what he’d endured and then made of his life, Saskia became obsessed with making the most of her opportunities. At the 2024 Paris Games, she became an Olympic sailor for the third time and
89-year-old Don was there to see her compete. Walsh told her extraordinary story in a piece for
The Sunday Times magazine.
3. Whistleblowers are people that everyone applauds and then forgets. Who were the couple that in 2014 blew the whistle on the systemic and state-supported doping of Russia’s elite athletes?
Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov, who fled Russia before the fruits of their whistleblowing were aired in a documentary for German state television. The Stepanovs escaped to the US where, they were assured, they would be given asylum status. Nine years later, this hasn’t happened. Vitaly and
Yuliya remain in a long queue waiting for their application to be considered. Walsh tracked them down at their secret midwest location and went on an 18-hour road trip to the USA Track and Field
Junior Olympics Cross Country Championship with Vitaly and 10-year-old Robert Stepanov.
Competing in the 9-10 age group, Robert won the 3-kilometre race by 50 seconds, easily the biggest winning margin at that weekend’s championship. At age 10 in the 800m, 1500m and cross- country, Robert is already a six-time American champion. The boy’s gift for running makes his parents proud.