Barney Ronay

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]

Ronay has written for the New Statesman,[3] When Saturday Comes,[4] The Cricketer,[5] and The Blizzard.[6]

Ronay has written several books. How Football (Almost) Came Home: Adventures in Putin's World Cup was published by HarperCollins in November 2018.[7] 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,[8][9] 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.[10][11]

Ronay was a highly influential campaigner against plans by Lewisham council that he felt could harm Millwall FC.[12][13][14]

In 2014, he was named the 29th most influential Twitter user in UK football.[15] 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.[16]

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,[17] which he subsequently won ahead of Jonathan Liew and Jonathan Northcroft amongst others.[18] At the 2020 Sports Journalists’ Association awards Ronay was named best football journalist.[19] Ronay and Liew have written a TV series called The Red Zone which was set to be shown on Netflix in 2021, executive produced by Sam Mendes.[20] However, in March 2022 the project was announced as discontinued.[21] In November 2022 he won ‘writer of the year’ at the Football Supporters' Association awards.[22]