Sam Todd reflects on the Bard's football references, and his continuing influence...

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou was among the celebrities who attended the opening of Kenneth Branagh’s King Lear late last year.
It wasn’t necessarily the most fitting introduction to the works of William Shakespeare for Postecoglou. Act 1, Scene 4 of the play sees the character Kent taunt Oswald, the servant of Lear’s daughter Goneril, with the rather disparaging line: “Nor tripped neither, you base football player.”
The other explicitly Shakespearean reference to the beautiful game is an equ...