E170: Charlie Sale’s new book

Charlie Sale is a legend of sports journalism, often credited with creating the sports news genre, most famously as the feared and fearless writer of the daily Sports Agenda column in the Daily Mail and before that in the Express. Charlie was one of our early guests on the podcast, following his premature retirement due to ill health in 2018, so it’s great to have him back on to talk about his new book, which in true Charlie Sale style, is already ruffling feathers in the corridors of sport. It’s called The Covers Are Off: Civil War at Lord’s and is about the two decades old dispute over the future development of the Home of Cricket, between the MCC and Charles Rifkind, the property developer who acquired the rights to develop the defunct railway tunnels that lie beneath the ground’s Nursery End. It’s about cricket, and sports business, but also about class, politics and the often painful balance between preserving the traditions of the past in a fast changing modern world. If you like the podcasts you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter, that goes direct to the inbox of thousands of senior executives across the global sports business every Thursday. To join them, sign up via unofficialpartner.com Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.