With their acrobatic leaps and iconic masks, Mexican wrestlers are known all over the world. As one would expect, witnessing one of their wildly energetic matches generally involves buying a plane ticket to Mexico. For three days this weekend, however, you can experience all the thrills of a true Lucha Libre just by taking the Northern Line up to Chalk Farm. Lucha Libre London brings sixteen of the best luchadores in the whole of......

Kate Hoey, former Labour sports minister and controversial aide to our new Conservative mayor, has admitted that Boris is not certain where some fairly large and important things are. That in itself might not be much of a revelation, but according to her interview with the Metro he's not the only one searching behind the sofa: Some boroughs cannot even tell you what [sports] facilities they have...We haven't even got a proper absolute plan......

We've been keeping a close eye on the London Roller Girls for a good while now and we're pleased to report that it seems these girls can party as hard as they can roll. This Saturday the girls will be taking over Barden's Boudoir in Stoke Newington for one of their semi regular fundraisers. Non skaters amongst us shouldn't be scared for this evening is deemed as a 'non skating event'. Those of you......

We all know the Wombling song; that they're tidy and clean and make good use of the things the everyday folks leave behind. A lesser known line in the full version of the popular Wimbledon Common song is Wombles are "incredibly, utterly devious" and hey ho, that's been borne out today as locals living close to the All England Club are flogging their special Tournament resident parking permits on eBay. These were special yellow......

If you're reading this, then it's already too late to get in line for a show court ticket to the opening of this year's Championship at the All England Club, otherwise known as Wimbledon 2008. The good news is you still have eleven further chances to witness start of play on Centre Court, which this year has its roof back in place, as well as many other opportunities to experience a grand day's tennis......

Private funder of Olympic athletes village, Lend Lease, having trouble getting a wee loan Tube cleaners to strike over living wage campaign Campbell gets community service for T5 lost luggage strop Mr Catt loses cattery Wimbledon starts on Monday and tennis fans rejoice as London's just bagged the Masters Cup for 2009 too Image of Woolwich Fire Clouds courtesy of Short Sharp Shot via the Londonist flickr group.......

Over the last few years it has become popular to enjoy football matches in the pub, rather than at the stadiums themselves. This is even more true of the often far-flung international summer tournaments and increasingly people want to watch each match alongside supporters who have a vested interest in its outcome. Two years ago we were one of several sites offering tips on where to go around London to watch Iran, Argentina, Ghana......

Sport is sometimes accused of taking itself too seriously, but Saturday evening will see a historic London landmark welcoming elite athletes, dogged semi-professionals and high-spirited amateurs alike to the second running of the Smithsfield Nocturne cycling event. Last year's occasion attracted 5000 spectators to the bars and barriers around the 1km course despite heavy rain and was such a success that further similar events around the UK, including perhaps one in Canary Wharf, are......

The DCMS finally launched a 2012 Legacy Action Plan today. State sponsored swimming is the central thrust, the headline catching whiz of an idea that's made the news. By 2012, it's planned that all local authority swimming baths will be free to use, starting soon with the over 60s, then the under 16s and rolling out to all comers by the time the Games begin. £140m is going to local authorities to scrap swimming......

As the country dangles on the brink of European Championship fever we ride that wave of euphoria in bringing you some updates on football pieces we featured a few months ago. Our first priority here must be to praise the winner of this season's Londonist Fantasy Football League title, so let's hear it for the redoubtable Diaby Does Gallas FK who, having snatched top spot from Hopeless XI as we reported in January, held......

After two years of training, the London Rollergirls are ready to take on their first international competition this Saturday when the pick of their players line up for London Brawling as they take on Team Canada at the Tottenham Green Leisure Centre in a matchup entitled "Mutiny on the Mountie." As the team's press release says: Roller derby involves two teams of four blockers skating round an elliptical track, while a point scorer from......

In a move that came as a surprise to nobody in football, Chelsea yesterday rewarded manager Avram Grant for getting them within a goalpost's width of their first European Cup by terminating his contract. According to a statement released on the club's website Saturday afternoon, the Israeli coach, and sometime rodent disturber, was dismissed following a series of meetings over the past two days. Peter Kenyon prefigured the decision earlier in the week, when......

FA Cup final day dawns and, as supporters representing the competition's former temporary home in Cardiff return the visits made by Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham and Millwall they are joined by fans of Portsmouth, the club who have retained the trophy for the longest time courtesy of beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-1 in the last pre-war running of the world famous tournament. Many devotees of both teams are exiled in the capital and one such......

For the first time since Tottenham Hotspur dashed Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough's dreams of FA Cup glory in 1991 the final is being contested without a representative from English football's current Big Four. Just before 3pm on Saturday the fans of Portsmouth and Cardiff City will watch their teams stride out at Wembley for a match which will decide which of them will parade the famous trophy that neither has lifted since the......

Wembley Stadium is a modern marvel - Conde Nast in particular were mightily impressed by it - and it is surely one of the finest footballing cathedrals in the world today. So how come it hasn't yet been given the glad-eye from UEFA when they choose the venue for the Champions League final? Turns out that a somewhat arcane tax law has thus far presented Wembley being considered. Our government currently taxes overseas players......

With 2008 racing from winter to summer with nary a hint of spring to be scented, mid-May finds us enjoying glorious weather and turning our thoughts to happy days at the local lido. Despite dozens of closures over the years since the lido's post-war heyday - inspiring such evocative imagery of lost sites in books like Paul Talling's Derelict London - many of London's lidos are still going strong, and some, like London Fields,......

As we supped a coffee in a Wembley Stadium cafe with the landmark venue's Head of Music and New Events, Jim Frayling, we admired a large photo of the May 1975 attempt by daredevil motorcycle ace Evel Knievel to launch himself over thirteen single-deck AEC Merlin buses in the old stadium. Knievel succeeded, but crashed on landing and promptly announced his (brief) retirement. Last New Year's Eve his 21st century successor, Australia's Robbie Maddison,......

It's considered the most lucrative game in world football. The team that wins the Championship playoff final earns entry into the Premier League and all the trappings of fame and money that come with it. Some estimate that promotion can earn a club upward of £60 million, so for the managers, chairmen, players and fans, the next two weeks are likely to see nails bitten down to the quick. Things kick off tomorrow, and......

"Everything is better with a bit of humour." So said Roberto Donadoni, as Italian football manager the incumbent of one of the most pressurised posts in the world, last Monday night in a special seminar organised by Birkbeck College Sport Business Centre. A healthy dose of self-deprecation is a useful asset in a job where your public always let you know who you're working for and what you should be doing: "This happened just......

The NFL are coming back, the Rugby League Challenge Cup final is a permanent fixture and last week's announcement of a December 3rd clash at Wembley Stadium between Australia and the Barbarians added Rugby Union to the portfolio of sports staged there since it was officially opened only a year ago. As the travails over its construction and funding recede ever deeper into the public memory the Stadium is earning a reputation as an......

In football, as everywhere else in 21st century life, the issue of "local versus global" is coming increasingly to the fore. This week the Birkbeck College Sport Business Centre in Bloomsbury, renowned for its research into the business of sport in general and football in particular, is providing a week packed full of education and debate on subjects of pressing concern to all those devoted to the game. Tonight from 6:30pm at the Brunei......

After yesterday's news about Eurostar settling well into its new home, here's another cheery account of a London landmark that has us thinking we might not be as bad at this construction thing as T5 would suggest. Though it may have opened years late and countless gajillions over budget, Wembley Stadium has been selected as one of the New Seven Wonders Of The World by the discerning critics at Condé Nast Traveler. Sitting among......

Over the last couple of years Londonist has been privileged to bring you tales from the life and times of Buster Martin, the centenarian Pimlico plumber who first came to fame after being ordered, under duress, to take a day off work on his 100th birthday. Now, having completed the London Marathon in just under ten hours - and collecting some £20,000 for the Rhys Daniels Trust in the process - Buster was expected......

If you want to see title-challenging Chelsea entertain Wigan at Stamford Bridge on Monday night you can expect to fork out between £40 and £65 for the privilege, but tonight you can watch a cup final there for free as Chelsea host Manchester City in the first leg of the climax of the FA's youth tournament. The second leg will take place in Manchester on 16th April. If you can make it in time......

Oxford pulls ahead. Image courtesy of Simon-K's photostream via the Londonist Flickr pool Oxford prevailed. But you probably know that by now. And the view from the shore? Wet. But Londonist was there. In the name of journalism, we packed ourselves into the Doom Bar tent in Furnival Gardens yesterday with 300 of our closest newly acquired friends and did our best not to spill/be spilled on/grind/be grinded on whilst waiting optimistically for the rain......

As you may have noticed Formula 1 is getting into gear again across the other side of the world with races so far in Australia and Malaysia. One man propping his eyelids open in the early hours to follow the spectacle is London blogger Keith Collantine who runs F1Fanatic, a site dedicated to the sport. Londonist caught up with him as he emerged from lunchtime hibernation after the first race of the season in......

Our own brave lads might be about to do battle with the mighty French in Paris (insert inappropriate Agincourt reference here), but even though there's nothing on at Wembley this time around that's no reason to miss out on some excellent live international footy this Wednesday evening. Indeed, our new national stadium will be hoping that the continuing prestige of London as a second footballing home for other countries rubs off when venues are......

While the weekend's football may have been dominated by FA Cup upsets, for the red corner of North London, Sunday March 9th was memorable for a more unusual reason. St.Totteringham's Day is one of those arcane bits of football rivalry that makes the game so enjoyable. It falls every season on the day when it becomes mathematically impossible for Spurs to overtake rivals Arsenal in the Premier League. Despite the Gooner's anaemic draw against......

Richard Scudamore of the Premier League has not been the most popular footballing figure of the last few weeks. The executives overseeing football in favoured destinations for his plan of playing Premier League matches abroad, such as China, Thailand and the USA, have lined up to express their objections, as has the President of world football's governing body, FIFA. However, not every land that loves football comes under FIFA's aegis. Scudamore might be able......

You can tell the vintage of an Ethiopian male by the team he favors... Granddads like Liverpool, dads ManU, and young men Arsenal. The emerging generation seems to be leaning toward Chelsea. Why all British? The BBC, of course. Next to Coke and Pepsi, Arsenal was the most visible Western brand in the country. So says Angry Monk, taker of the above shot of a taxi driver in Awasa. His observations will come as......