NEW FOR 2016! DC Editor Adam writes…In December 2015 The Daily Constitutional posted its 4,000th post.
Throughout 2016, I'll be pointing you back into our archive, to look at a few posts that may not have seen the light of day for a while but which I'm sure will remain of great interest to London Walkers and Daily Constitutionalists everywhere.
They'll be arranged by theme, there will be five in each post and they'll be posted on the fifth of each month at 5pm.
Welcome to The DC5.
The DC5 No.2: London Sport
1. Stars of the London Olympic Games – Fanny Blankers-Koen
First posted May 2009
By Adam Scott-Goulding
Despite having beaten three British women athletes into silver medal positions to take her individual golds, Blankers-Koen was taken to the hearts of the London crowd having endured the Nazi occupation of Holland.
It later emerged that she had been pregnant with her third child while winning her medals. In stark contrast to the rewards on offer to sportsmen and women today, when she returned to Holland she was presented with a free bicycle from the city of Amsterdam.
Full post here: http://londonwalkblog.blogspot.co.uk/stars-of-london-olympic-games 2. Wenlock & Mandeville: A Guide For Old Farts
First posted August 2012
By Adam Scott-Goulding
I’ve become incredibly fond of Wenlock & Mandeville over the summer. But I do have to come clean: when I first saw them my reaction was… “Huh?”
“They are clearly,” wrote Creative Review, “of the digital age.”
And perhaps therein lies the rub: I was too old to get it.
My five-year-old daughter merely sighed with disdain when I asked, “Which one’s Wenlock and which one’s Mandeville?” And it is she who helped me to decipher the whole picture. I pass her wisdom on to you, so that you too may grow to love them as I have done.
They were formed, so she tells me, from the metal of a bit of the Olympic Stadium.
[Nice, legendary stuff.]
And their skin is a shiny metal that reflects things around them.
[Very 2012, this: The Shard does just the same.]
I think the sight of families posing by the statues of W&M all over London, many of them pulling Usain Bolt poses, has been one of the highlights of the summer. Silly and jolly, it has cheered me greatly. I’m going to miss them when they’re gone. Full post here: londonwalkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/wenlock-mandeville-guide-for-old-farts.html
3. London's Finest Football Team: Corinthian Casuals
By Kim Dewdney
First posted June 2014
You might not have heard of them but they have a fantastic history as a Club and they have just had a magnificent season. They have won the Surrey Youth League title with the best defensive record in the league and they got to the Invitational Cup Final only to lose in a penalty shoot-out- thereby proving that they are all worthy of an England call-up if anyone drops out for the World Cup. Full post here: londonwalkblog.blogspot.co.uklondons-finest-football-team-corinthian.html
4. Whatever Happened to the Sports Mascot?
By Adam Scott-Goulding
First Posted June 2014
The practice of an “official” mascot for organized sports competitions is a relatively recent one. It dates back to 1966 when the World Cup was staged here in England (can’t remember who won that one, drop us a line if you can jog our memory) with the final staged at Wembley.
World Cup Willie was his name – a lion whose mane seems to have been combed forward into a modish Beatle haircut. Here he is…
[The World Cup, for those is deepest North America, is a football competition contested every four years, the winner of which is crowned World Champion. Spain is the current World Champion. And by football we mean soccer, the world’s greatest team sport. Again, you know our email address if you’d like to take umbrage.)
Full post here: londonwalkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/whatever-happened-to-sports-mascot.html
5. Book Review: The Austerity Olympics: When the Games Came to London in 1948 By Adam Scott-Goulding First posted January 2012
“We Will Not,” boomed the headline on The Daily Telegraph last week, “Host An Austerity Games.”As I read the headline I found myself thinking: Why ever not? We made a jolly good fist of doing just that in 1948.
Janie Hampton’s wonderful book on the 1948 Olympics tells the tale of London’s second hosting of the Games.
For those of you stifling a yawn at this point, perhaps anticipating lists and times and heights and team sheets and medal tables, well think again. Hampton’s narrative is just that: a narrative, a tale well told, mercifully free from dry match facts and mere sports reporting.
Instead, Hampton treats us to the stories of the people who made the Games: the posh rower who thought his official Olympic blazer to be of such poor quality that it must have been “cut with a spoon”; then the athlete who found her blazer so smart that she wore it to her sister’s wedding. There are tales of the American and Canadian teams sharing their ample rations with the deprived European teams – and of the French captain complaining strenuously about the British food!
Full post here: londonwalkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/london-reading-list-no-27.html
Next month on the 5th March: London Bridges
A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.
