Showing results by author "Nige Tassell" in All Categories

For a race as long as the mighty Tour (three weeks of testing the limits of human endurance), to have the ultimate victory decided by a margin of just eight seconds almost boggles the mind. But that's exactly what happened between American legend Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon. After more than 2,000 miles in the saddle, it remains the smallest margin of victory in the Tour's 100-plus-year history.

On the final day of the 2019/20 season, only four clubs in the Championship, England’s second tier of soccer, had nothing to play for, everyone else was fighting for promotion or survival. It’s stats like this that give the league its well-deserved reputation as the most exciting league in football. Anything can happen, and often does. In The Hard Yards, Nige Tassell tells the Championship’s stories, uncovers its hidden gems and takes the listener on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the 2020/21 season.

The 1923 FA Cup final—aka the White Horse final—was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best-remembered for non-playing reasons that afternoon marked the historic opening chapter of the stadium’s long and eventful history, of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley. Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches—from the well known to the unusual—that have shaped Wembley's legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain.

For football fans who hungrily feed on gossip and rumour, Christmas comes twice a year - once in August and again in January. These are the months when the transfer window dominates thoughts, when the prospect of a new signing or two reinvigorates the hopes and dreams of the hopelessly devoted. Nige Tassell goes behind the scenes to observe the workings of the transfer window and to examine why it continues to hold such fascination for a nation of football lovers.

On the 200th birthday of the world’s first passenger-carrying railway, Nige Tassell sets out to ride Britain’s railway network all the way to its lesser-travelled-to corners, its seldom-visited outposts. From Wick to Penzance and many points in between, he stays on until the end of the line. He is the last man sitting. The sixteen final destinations he visits offer sixteen different stories. So grab yourself a window seat for an odyssey that tells us much about Britain today. All aboard, all aboard.