For the first of LAYTH YOUSIF’S Canadian World Cup diaries, he discovers a Gunners’ haven in Oshawa, Ontario, and explores the town’s role in the historic 1937 labour strikes
BOXING provides an abundance of excuses to climb into the saddle of your moral high horse.
It is, after all, the back alley of sports, where decency is a midget in comparison to the indecency that too often predominates — this the product of a culture in which greed routinely outweighs honour by a factor of a hundred and more.
Perhaps, though, the moral desert which boxing occupies is central to its fascination in an ever more censorious world in which to put a foot wrong is to suffer condign punishment.
Mary Kom’s fists made history in the boxing world. Malak Mesleh’s never got the chance. One story ends in glory, the other in grief — but both highlight the defiance of women who dare to fight, writes JOHN WIGHT
The Khelif gender row shows no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of anyone involved anytime soon, says boxing writer JOHN WIGHT
When Patterson and Liston met in the ring in 1962, it was more than a title bout — it was a collision of two black archetypes shaped by white America’s fears and fantasies, writes JOHN WIGHT


