Rory Smith is a journalist, broadcaster and author. He is the chief

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

correspondent of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', having taken up the role in 2016. Smith is a former journalist of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'',

Career

Smith was

ghostwriter A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...

on the book ''Champions League Dreams'' with Rafa Benitez published in 2012. Smith’s 2016 book ''Mister: The Men Who Gave The World The Game'' was short listed for the

William Hill Sports Book of the Year The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports literary award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. The award is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing. It was first awarded in 1989, and was devised by Graham ...

. ‘Mister’ was included in the best 50 football books ever written in a list compiled by

FourFourTwo ''FourFourTwo'' is a football magazine published by Future. Issued monthly, it published its 300th edition in May 2019. It takes its name from the football formation of the same name, 4-4-2. In 2008, it was announced that ''FourFourTwo'' had e ...

magazine. In 2022 Smith published the book ''Expected Goals: The Story of how Data Conquered Football and Changed the Game Forever''. A frequent guest on ''

BBC Radio Five Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

'' Smith has also written for ''

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

'', ''

The Blizzard "The Blizzard" (or The Snow Storm) (russian: Мете́ль, ''Metél' '') is the second of five short stories that constitute ''The Belkin Tales'' by Alexander Pushkin. The manuscript for the story was originally completed October 20, 1830. It wa ...

'' and ''FourFourTwo''. He has appeared on the ''

Second Captains Second Captains is an Irish media company established in March 2013 by Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Mark Horgan, Ciarán Murphy and Simon Hick. Best-known for their podcast ''The Second Captains World Service'', the company specialises in televis ...

'' podcast, often on ''

The Anfield Wrap ''The Anfield Wrap'' (TAW Player) is a collective of podcasts, radio shows, videocasts, live shows, magazine and website articles predominantly about Liverpool F.C. as well as the culture and music in the city of Liverpool. Content Described b ...

'', and ''

The Totally Football Show ''The Totally Football Show'' presented by James Richardson is a thrice weekly podcast about association football produced by Muddy Knees Media. From June 15, 2020 it was incorporated into and also available via The Athletic. It regularly featur ...

'' as well as recording his own weekly '' Set Piece Menu''

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

with Hugh Ferris, football commentator

Steven Wyeth Steven Wyeth is a British football commentator for the BBC and TNT Sports amongst others. Early life Wyeth attended the University of Manchester and commented on Manchester United for Manchester Sports and for BBC Radio Manchester. Career Comme ...

and former England international

Andy Hinchcliffe Andrew George Hinchcliffe (born 5 February 1969) is an English former professional footballer, sports television pundit, and co-commentator for Sky Sports. As a player, he was a left-back from 1986 until 2002. He began his career with Mancheste ...

. Television appearances include ''

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

Sunday Supplement''.

Awards

In 2015 he was highly commended by the

Sports Journalists' Association The Sports Journalists' Association (SJA) is an association for British sports journalists. It represents the British sports media on the British Olympic Association's press advisory committee and acts as a consultant to organizers of major events ...

He was nominated for writer of the year at the 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019

Football Supporters Federation The Football Supporters' Federation (FSF) is an organisation representing football fans in England and Wales. It campaigns across a range of issues and supports fan representation on clubs' boards, lower ticket prices, and the introduction of saf ...

Awards, winning in 2015 and 2019. ''Set Piece Menu Podcast'' was nominated in the ‘Podcast of the Year’ category at the 2018 Football Supporters Federation Awards, as well as shortlisted for the Podcast of the Year at the

Football Supporters' Association The Football Supporters' Association (The FSA) is the national, democratic, representative body for football supporters in England and Wales. They are the leading advocates for supporter ownership, better fan engagement, cheaper ticket prices, t ...

awards in 2020 and 2021.

Personal life

Rory Smith is from

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Rory Living people Writers from Leeds Alumni of Robinson College, Cambridge English podcasters English male writers English sportswriters The Daily Telegraph people The Times journalists The Independent people The New York Times sportswriters Year of birth missing (living people) Association football journalists