Barney Ronay
English journalist and author
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barney Ronay is an English journalist and author. He is the chief sports writer for The Guardian,[1] and has regularly appeared on The Guardian's Football Weekly podcast and at the Football Weekly live shows.[2] He has also written for the New Statesman,[3] When Saturday Comes,[4] The Cricketer,[5] and The Blizzard.[6]
Early life
Ronay was born and raised in South East London, and is of Austrian Jewish descent. His grandparents fled during the rise of the Nazis in Austria.[7] He was educated at the University of Oxford.[8]
Career
Ronay has written several books. How Football (Almost) Came Home: Adventures in Putin's World Cup was published by HarperCollins in November 2018.[9] The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football, was published in 2010 and was named book of the week by The Independent,[10][11] Any Chance of a Game? A Season at the Ugly End of Park Football was published in 2006. He also co-authored the WSC Companion to Football.[12][13]
In 2014 Ronay was named the 29th most influential Twitter user in UK football.[14] On 10 October 2018 Ronay was included in a list of the 238 most respected journalists working in Britain as published by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.[15]
On 31 October 2018 it was announced that Ronay had been nominated in the ‘writer of the year’ category at the 2018 Football Supporters Federation Awards,[16] which he subsequently won ahead of Jonathan Liew and Jonathan Northcroft amongst others.[17] At the 2020 Sports Journalists’ Association awards Ronay was named best football journalist.[18] Ronay and Liew collaborated on a television script called The Red Zone which was set to be shown on Netflix, executive produced by Sam Mendes.[19] In March 2022 the project was announced as discontinued.[20] In November 2022 he won 'writer of the year' at the Football Supporters' Association awards.[21]