Brian Glanville: The Last of the Good Losers

The novelist and sports writer Brian Glanville fears that the real value of sport is being undermined by the demands and tensions of our competitive society. The danger-signals are most in evidence in the worlds of football and athletics. He believes that as attention focuses on the FA Cup Final, the World Cup, and preparations for the 1972 Olympic Games we ought to look beyond the headlines and consider what we are doing to our sporting heroes - and what they are doing to us.