Carl Ackerley

Who remembers playing their first Championship Manager? I do. It was 97/98 on PC. Back in the day we only had one computer in the house which my dad used for his business dealings so getting him to agree to let me play champ on it was bloody difficult. Every Sunday I'd ask for a few hours on it to which he'd usually reply, "If you wash my car AND CUT THE GRASS".....so there I was outside in the freezing cold cleaning his car inside and out and trying desperately not to run over the lawn mower cable. It was worth it when I sat down in that leather chair. 97/98 was great. All you really had to do was start a new game, pick a team, select the players and boom! Off you went on an emotional journey and hours of fun.  A simpler time..... During a match all you had was a commentary bar letting you know what was happening, The gameplay was fast and uncomplicated, and whilst time consuming it didn't really matter as a youngster. I had all the time in...

It's 187 calories I wouldn't have burnt by watching Made in Chelsea... I hate cardio in the gym, it's true. Over the years and still to this day I've rarely done cardio sessions in a gym-based environment. Luckily for me, a mixture of playing lots of sports and having a very fast metabolism meant that I didn't really need to come face to face with the DREADMILL very often at all. Well, in a way that's changed now. Now I'm at the grand old age of 33 and have started to notice that my shit is slowing down and it's much easier for me to store fat than when I was 21, despite the fact that I still do weights sessions, play tennis, dodgeball and football most weeks. I've had to seriously consider everything I've been doing and what needs to be done so I can maintain a good, strong and mobile physique for as long as possible. I haven't really changed but my body has. Do I accept this and say, "Oh well, I had a good run and now I'...

In what was the shortest retirement possibly in the history of the world, affable Brazilian veteran Felipe Massa found himself reporting for duty once again at the William's HQ in Oxford at the start of February. When he trundled off on foot down the Interlagos pit lane, leaving his stricken William's lying in pieces in the middle of the pit entrance, nobody expected to ever see him as an active F1 driver again. It was a sad end to an emotional and successful career. Then a few days later Nico retired. All of a sudden Valteri Bottas was the name highest on Toto's employable list and Claire Williams started panicking that she would have to rely on a fresh-faced 18 year old in the shape of Lance Stroll for glory. A quick look at the driver market showed that getting Massa back in case of Bottas leaving was the best choice in the circumstances. Which really begs the question: Did Massa actually WANT to retire in the first place? When a driver makes the decision...