David Alexander 🇺🇦

Founder of @Calacus_PR consultancy & CIPR Chartered & Fellow. Former sports journalist. Proud father & husband. Avid fan of Arsenal (@ArsenalAddict) PSB & Italy

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Dear @theofficialfwa what's happening with voting, the dinner etc? Not had any communications since Macca left....

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

@Kaths_Life @Arsenal Still holding out hope.

[Simon Collings @sr_collings]

This week's Arsenal Files are now live:

🔴 Sporting due more Gyokeres cash
⚪️ Pre-season plans revealed
🔴 Young fan's dream NLD
⚪️ ESR and Iwobi's celebrations
🔴 Suspension bonus
⚪️ Shock at Ellis departure

With @CharlieWyett & @JoshuaharrisonH

https://t.co/ruOOf3AsIx

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

@DiscoMirror @ManUtd @ManCity @DailyMirror @MirrorFootball @premierleague @ChampionsLeague @EuropaLeague @EmiratesFACup @Carabao_Cup Top work Disco. All the very best for the future 👍🏾

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Perfectly said @henrywinter

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Jude Bellingham, some thoughts. Crazy that this has to be emphasised again but here we go again. Bellingham will be a vital player for England at the World Cup. Mad that this has to be spelled out again. Bellingham is England’s reigning Player of the Year, voted Player of the Match in their last game, in their five-man leadership group, rescued England at Euro 2024, closes on a half-century of caps at 22 and will soon pass Colin ‘Nijinsky’ Bell, Sir Geoff Hurst and Glenn Hoddle on the England appearance list.

While a teenager, Bellingham was named Bundesliga Player of the Season at Borussia Dortmund. He now starts for Real Madrid with Kylian Mbappe, has won La Liga and the Champions League and been named La Liga Player of the Year. We should be proud that English football has produced a special talent (hat tip to Birmingham City) who’s gone abroad and now stars for the biggest club in the world. Bellingham shines in a Real spotlight that can feel like a real searchlight to some.

For clubs and country, Bellingham embraces pressure in challenging games. He’s going to be a hugely important player for England at the World Cup because he’s gifted, possesses a big-game mentality, and, also like Harry Kane, will have enjoyed a winter break so should be fresher.

I’ve been fortunate to cover England at 15 tournaments. I’ve seen pile-ons on Barnes, Gascoigne, Beckham, Rooney, Sterling and Rashford, when objective criticism crosses the line into hounding. It’s happening with Bellingham. It’s a myth that Bellingham is simply about himself. Any fair-minded observer can see the work he does out of possession, tracking back, tackling, covering for others. He contributes to the collective.

I’ve never spoken to Bellingham. He avoids the England writers but broadcast colleagues speak highly of his helpfulness. I don’t know his family or advisers but I do know that he’s 22, still maturing, that everything he does gets scrutinised and he will inevitably learn it’s pointless arguing with officials but that’s also part of his desperation to win. Bellingham demands high standards of himself and others. That has to be good if England are to progress far at the World Cup. He has a competitive edge that England need. It’s one of his great strengths, that mindset.

So, some perspective and balance is required here. Bellingham wants to play. He expressed momentary frustration when realising he was being subbed against Albania. He showed respect to the assist-makers and goalscorers (as Kane emphasised by posting a post-goal pic of the pair), to the man replacing him (his friend Morgan Rogers) and to Thomas Tuchel, who calls him “a special talent”. Rogers has done well for Tuchel but doesn’t have the track record of dominating big games like Bellingham. Respected media colleagues from other countries think it’s madness there’s even a debate about possibly leaving Bellingham behind.

Tuchel has a key role to play here, as I’m sure experienced heads at the FA will be quietly mentioning. He’s surely aware that Bellingham must be feeling hounded by some headlines, and that is not a healthy situation for him, for England or Tuchel himself.

What Tuchel, England and the FA don’t need is tension festering for four months, seeping into the March camp, and Bellingham reporting feeling like there’s a target on his back. Anyone with any experience of following England knows that such situations harm the team’s prospects.

Tuchel needs to go to Madrid and speak with Bellingham. Speak with, not to. Be supportive. And then publicly remind the doubters how important Bellingham is to England, perhaps through a few words via the FA website, reflecting on 2025, and looking forward to what could be a momentous 2026. Because for England to have a momentous 2026, they need Jude Bellingham. It’s foolish to think otherwise. #ENG

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Join the group!

[Calacus PR @Calacus_PR]

Another shout out for the new Calacus sports business news round-up that goes out this evening - please do join our new community!
https://t.co/d9RfP62ZPj

[Calacus PR @Calacus_PR]

Do join our sports business news bulletin which goes out at 6pm UK tie today!

[Calacus PR @Calacus_PR]

ICYMI We've set up a new weekly sports and comms newsletter of curated stories.

Please join and share any stories you'd like us to include in future.

https://t.co/lhyH9fzSQl

[Calacus PR @Calacus_PR]

We've set up a new weekly newsletter of curated sports business and media stories.

Please join and share any stories you'd like us to include in future.

https://t.co/d9RfP62ZPj

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Delighted to be at the @IscBiz Women's Sport Business Summit today at the National Gallery. Say hello if you're here!

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

@jessiehxsking You mean, apart from the then-world record transfer fee?!

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

RT @terryflewers: At only 5 years old, Emilia is fighting a battle no child should ever have to face. This story is truly heartbreaking, an…

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Sign her up!

[Jamie Spangher @jamiespangher]

I am looking for work inside the global world of women's sport and I'd love to hear from you 👇🇦🇺

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Paging @garyseconomics

After your great @RestIsPolitics
Interview, this could be an opportunity?
https://t.co/2pS3zRkC7d

[Calacus PR @Calacus_PR]

TRT Sport's Charlotte Bates tells Calacus about her career and the importance of good relationships between hacks and flacks

https://t.co/hXRooviSL1

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

I shared some views on Gary Lineker leaving the BBC with BBC Scotland (11.51am)
https://t.co/q7BDyLQLaA

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

Brian was an inspiration and sitting next to him to listen to his wisdom was a pinch-me moment. A titan among sports writers.

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Brian Glanville, who has sadly passed away aged 93, was the greatest football writer this country has ever known. The joy evoked by Glanville was not only in reading his beautiful, insightful words. But also listening to his eloquent appraisal of a player, a manager, a match. Glanville had a rich voice and vocabulary that demanded listening to. You didn’t so much meet Glanville as have an audience with him. All the time you were in his compelling company you were aware of what a privilege it was, what knowledge was being imparted.

Glanville was a heavyweight investigative reporter of supreme persistence and integrity who wrote hugely important pieces in the Sunday Times about Italian match-fixing amongst other scoops. As an acclaimed football correspondent, Glanville wrote powerfully about the triumphs and tribulations of the England national team in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and well into the new Millennium.

He warned about the threat of a European Super League in his agenda-setting, argument-settling “World Soccer” column decades before it raised its repulsive Hydra-like head in 2021. Glanville predicted in 1992 that the new Premier League would quickly become all about money and greed. He saw talent, praised it and supported it. When Bruno Fernandes joined Manchester United, Glanville wrote about what an inspirational signing he would turn out to be.

Glanville delivered his authoritative verdicts in lengthy prose skilfully spiced with withering put-downs. He focused much of his ire on dithering leaders such as the FA’s Bert “The Inert” Millichip and Graham “Wet Fish” Kelly. FIFA’s Joao Havelange and Sepp Blatter were “horrible people”. He wasn’t wrong.

He loved Paul Gascoigne as a magical creator – “blessed are the playmakers” - but lamented the off-field behaviour of “a lost soul”. Glanville could occasionally get it wrong and was unfairly harsh on Sir Bobby Robson, “a grotesquely over-rated manager”. Glanville wouldn’t just write it and hide, he explained his views to Robson face to face. He was fearless.

One of the many joys of Glanville was that he wore his greatness lightly. He was always incredibly generous with his time and wisdom, especially to those starting out in football journalism. Sitting next to him in a press box guaranteed a running commentary on the game with distracting but entertaining score updates via his pocket radio from his beloved Serie A. “Lecce One-nil!!”

He was loved in football journalism for his brilliance as an observer of the national obsession, for attending 13 World Cups, and also for his kindness. Brian cared about people, especially family of course. Any conversation with Brian involved proud updates on the achievements and qualities of his children, Jo, Liz, Toby and Mark.

I went to see Brian at his home in Holland Park, London, shortly after his wife, Pamela, passed away in 2016 and Brian was bereft. What was supposed to be an interview about World Cups turned into a conversation about loss. Brian had a big heart, and was full of compassion as well as that powerful analytical mind, classical education and waspish wit.

His journalist friends held an annual dinner for him, mainly to listen to Brian. Roy Hodgson would come along and they’d swap and savour stories about Inter Milan. “Facchetti!” “Altobelli!” “Mazzola!” Brian was always good fun to be around as well as an education.

I first met Glanville when I was 16, playing for my London school against his Chelsea Casuals side full of flamboyant characters. (I later briefly played for them, and still recall Glanville’s patrician tones and urgent tactical instructions floating across Hackney Marshes or Wormwood Scrubs). Glanville was a full-back not particularly quick of body but very quick of mind and riposte. As schoolboys, we all wanted to play on the wing to get close to the great Glanville. He was a legend even back then, even to our nascent schoolboy minds.

For Glanville was more than a football correspondent. He was a successful playwright and novelist, Radio 4 meets Radio 5. He co-wrote the West End show “Underneath the Arches”. It played to packed houses. He wrote the screenplay “Goal!”, the official film of the 1966 World Cup. It won an Bafta. He wrote the novel “The Rise of Gerry Logan”. An instant classic. “The best book on football ever written,” Franz Beckenbauer told him. Glanville knew everyone.

He wrote “The Story of the World Cup” first published in 1973. “The definitive history,” Bobby Moore called it. Updated five times. He wrote “Goalkeepers Are Different”, a gripping novel set in professional football. As a schoolboy, I saved up to buy it from Foyles book emporium on Charing Cross Road in London. I walked out of Foyles clutching the book, feeling instantly more knowledgeable about the game. Simply by association with the great Glanville.

My deepest condolences to Brian’s family and many friends. They have lost an incredibly special human being. And our industry has lost a giant. Rest In Peace, Brian.

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

@SarahShepSport All

[David Alexander 🇺🇦 @Calacus]

@SarahShepSport I do wonder if it was l part of the script