Dear sports fans,

The Blue Corner is my new blog dedicated to bringing you news, updates and discussions re. all things sports. Sometimes breaking news, sometimes news whenever I wake up – a healthy mix. The main focus of this blog will be basketball (mostly NBA), MMA – the sport with which I, and seemingly the entire world is most obsessed with at the moment, and of course, football (both US and European versions). However, I want to use this blog as a chance to explore new roads, and therefore may post some incredibly ignorant and mis-informed articles on sports which I am trying to engage with.

Being raised in Manchester, football was unavoidable growing up. You can’t really get by in the North of England without at least having a passing knowledge of the beautiful game. I was born into a family of Newcastle United fans. A feverously passionate club, with a really cool shirt design. That always helps. This was during the days when The Magbies were a force to be reckoned with under Sir Bobby Robson. Now, not so much.

However, I grew to resent football being far and away the dominant sport, and indeed lifestyle in the North, and kind of rebelled against football in pursuit of something different. This search led me far and wide, eventually bringing me to the USA, where NBA basketball changed my life and opened my horizons forever. I’d never seen anything like it (aside from Space Jam). For a time, I’d refuse to indulge football, yet I secretly would still keep an eye on the scores, as I didn’t wish to be totally excommunicated.

Eventually, I fell back in love with football, returning to the stadiums to watch matches live once more. The Blue Corner is named as a homage to my club, Manchester City. I am not the first person to champion the blue iconography. Manchester boxing legend Ricky Hatton allegedly would only fight out of the blue corner as an ode to his favourite club, demonstrating how strong the ties between city and club can be, even when fighting Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas.

I’m also very interested by the world directly influenced by sports. Some of the best movies and tv shows have been sports dramas or biopics. Music and sport are so culturally intertwined it can be at times very difficult to seperate the two. I want to make sure to dedicate time on the blog to explore the world directly around sport, as much as what goes on in the ring/ on the pitch/ on the court.

If you have read this far then I will push my luck a little further and ask you to stay tuned more updates soon. Also check out @hazdennis on Twitter for more.

Keep it clean,

The Blue Corner

[The Blue Corner is an independently run and organised blog, although with a lot of help from my more computer-literate friends]