Andrew McKirdy is a sports writer for The Japan Times. His main beat is soccer, but he has also covered rugby, tennis, volleyball, golf and even tug-of-war. A native of the Scottish Borders, he has written for The Scotsman newspaper and organized filming for a program on Japanese soccer for ITV television.
For Andrew McKirdy's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic venues are on course to be completed in time for test events to be held there later this year, games organizers said Tuesday. Sailing and water polo federations have already staged dress rehearsals in Tokyo, and the 2020 Olympic ...
As I stand in the cramped wooden gangway at the side of the stage, going over my lines in a frantic whisper, I am reminded of something that American comedian Patrick Harlan had told me when we first met four months ago. "The importance of ...
"Is it OK if I smoke during the interview?" I ask Bungaku Watanabe, reaching into my coat pocket. A look of incandescent outrage flashes across the 81-year-old's face, before I quickly reassure him that I was joking. "No. No. No," he says firmly, breaking into a ...
Ten-year-old Koharu Yagi gazes at the meters and meters of plastic train track laid out in a room at the Plaza North culture center in the city of Saitama and lets out a sigh of wonder. "It's like a dream being able to play with ...
When TV celebrity Miki Yakata was told she would need chemotherapy after undergoing a mastectomy in April, she realized she would have to buy a wig. "I found a relatively cheap one made from synthetic fiber on the internet," said the 26-year-old, who was diagnosed ...
Tokyo resident Masaru Seto knows why he wants to become a volunteer at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. "I've been a rugby fan for 40 years," the 53-year-old service industry worker told The Japan Times at an interview session for the tournament's "Team ...
Phan Hoang Tu Linh feels she has gotten the hang of working in a Japanese convenience store now, but she admits she found it tough at first. "We have three cash registers in our store but only two lines to wait in," says the 23-year-old ...
The tranquility of a warm autumn morning in Chiba Prefecture is broken by three shapes streaking through the sky above a rugby field. They move so fast it is difficult for the eye to follow, flitting this way and that like angry dragonflies and filling ...
Sagawa delivery driver Keisuke Kawabe has seen the video that went viral on the internet two years ago of one of his colleagues smashing up parcels out of frustration that the customer wasn't home, and he doesn't approve. "Of course I can understand it to ...
Sixty-three-year-old Kiyoshi Ikehara mops his bald head with a towel, wipes his hands and grips the vertical pole. With a sharp intake of breath he hauls himself up, grunting and straining as he climbs to the top. Once there he stops, clamps his thighs shut ...
