All I ever wanted was to be a professional soccer player. For a while, I was so confident that I'd stand in front of a mirror, practising my post-match interviews: "Always an honor to be voted man-of-the-match, now check out this new magic trick."
Deep into my mid-thirties, I'm beginning to entertain the notion that manifestation doesn't work for everyone. But being the world's biggest armchair fan? Nobody can take that dream away.
Regardless of the sport, if there's a compelling story I'm all in. The only question is how – and that's why the VPN has become as essential to me as subscriptions to streaming services.
1. Rio Pro 2024
I confess that surfing’s Olympic debut at Tokyo (Ichinomiya) 2021 completely passed me by, but when I heard it was coming back at Paris (Tahiti) 2024, I had to make like a hodad and swot up in time for the big show.
Luckily for me, the 2024 Rio Pro was free-to-air on the World Surf League YouTube channel in Brazil. The waters were very much on the hook, but Italo Ferreira set my mind on fire by getting wiped out, catching the very next wave and literally shooting out of it before cutting back in like a boomerang. He then took another wave to the face, but managed to even do that in style.
I only later found out that he was the reigning Olympic champion. Imagine my disappointment when he missed the cut for the 2024 Games.
2. Blackburn Rovers vs Newcastle
Athens has always had my heart and Blackburn Rovers have done everything in their capacity to break it. But the choice between a late-evening amble along Dionysiou Areopagitou and Rovers vs Newcastle in the 2023/24 FA Cup 5th Round on BBC iPlayer was an easy one.
We lost the penalty shootout and that squad has long since been stripped bare, but just for a moment, Dilan Markanday’s assist off the crossbar, Aynsley Pears’ double-save (Ben Chrisene’s arms said it all) and Scott Wharton’s last-ditch block were every ounce as monumental as the immortal Greek wonders I’d waited my entire life to visit.
3. SEA Games 2025
I was mildly offended that my wife packed three substantial books for our jam-packed two-and-a-half-week honeymoon in Thailand. As a man of culture, I only took one (Catch 22), and spent many of our intermissions watching Thai TV with a milk tea instead.
Call it a waste of time, but I’d never have discovered sepak takraw otherwise. To my delight, this spectacular cross between football and volleyball was an event at the Thailand 2025 SEA Games, and free-to-air on MeWatch in Singapore – with English commentary!
4. 2022 National Hurling League final
As a cuddly version of my dad, Roy Keane has always had an outsized sway on me. So when his beloved Cork reached the National Hurling League final in 2022, 24 years after their last title, I had to do the dutiful thing.
The only way of tuning in was via TG4, a free-to-air Irish-language network and, despite not being able to understand the commentary, I was invested from the moment I clocked the scoring system.
For those of you that don’t know your Jimmy Barry-Murphys, you get one point for clobbering the ball over the crossbar of the rugby-style posts, and three for beating the goalkeeper under the crossbar.
Cork may have lost out to Stephen Bennett and Waterford, but they gained a new (very casual) fan.
5. 2025 4 Nations Face-Off final
I’ve never followed ice hockey because the NHL’s broadcasting arrangements means I’ve never had the chance to catch the bug. But when Canada and USA reached the final of the 2024 4 Nations Face-Off – days after Donald Trump threatened to colonize Canada, which led to three fights breaking out in the first 10 seconds of the teams’ round-robin phase clash – I wasn’t going to miss it.
Kicking my heels in Khao Sok with no way of tuning in, a far-flung friend offered me a route in with his Kayo Sports credentials, and it worked. I was shocked, not so much by the violence but by how frenzied, formless and random even elite-level sport can be.
6., 7. & 8. Britcrickledon 2019
Before Barbenheimer, there was July 14, 2019 – the single greatest day of British live sport ever.
England vs New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final, arguably the all-time pinnacle of the sport, the British Grand Prix and Djokovic vs Federer in the Wimbledon final. All bleeding in and out of each other. All free-to-air.
And where was I? On a long weekend in Munich, resolutely batting away my nonplussed hosts’ incessant pleas to go hiking, in favor of flicking between UK TV streams and group chats, just to feel like I was part of it. I’d never felt so homesick.
9. Winter Olympics 2026
Before Milano-Cortina, I was a Winter Olympics-sceptic, ignorant of 99% of the athletes and unacquainted with 100% of the events.
Two days in, I was hopelessly hooked on both figure skating and freestyle skiing, ready to drop anything for RikuRyu and Eileen Gu.
The BBC’s coverage was shaped predominantly around the curling and studio segments, meaning very few other events were shown live, which led me to check out free-to-air Canadian broadcaster CBC Gem’s wall-to-wall offering, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Is it legal to use a VPN for streaming?
Except in a few specific places (e.g. Iraq, Belarus, North Korea) VPN services are legal to use – including for streaming. Of course, that's no defense for using them to carry out illegal activity, however.
Although streaming with a VPN is generally legal, various platforms and broadcasters may have conditions in their Ts&Cs that specifically prohibits their use. Netflix is a good example. It means by using a VPN to access different global Netflix catalogs, you will violate its terms.
That said, there is very little evidence that Netflix has sought action or cancelled subscriptions of any users it suspects of using a VPN while watching the service.
So although it appears to be low-risk, you should be aware of the dangers.
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
