Sports
Jamie Mulgrew, an 11th league title with Linfield and the thirst for further success
“My phone kept buzzing with messages, but I was so tired, I went straight to sleep — I hadn’t realised I’d set the record!”
For Linfield captain Jamie Mulgrew, last Tuesday night was just like any other. The 38-year-old midfielder spent the evening coaching the club’s under-18s. Once home, he watched the football, then went to bed. Yet for Mulgrew and Linfield, this was a record-breaking evening.
The televised match was between Linfield’s two closest rivals: Glentoran drew against Larne, confirming Linfield as champions for the 57th time, a world record. That success confirmed Mulgrew’s 11th league winner’s medal — setting a national record and joining an exclusive global club. It was an extraordinary achievement in the most ordinary of circumstances.
“In some ways, it was an anti-climax,” Mulgrew admits. “You would always prefer to win it on the pitch.” The title was confirmed with six matchdays remaining.
Only four active professional footballers — Dinamo Zagreb’s Arijan Ademi (13), Bayern Munich’s Thomas Muller, James Forrest of Celtic and former TNS full-back Chris Marriott (all 12) — have won more league titles than Mulgrew’s at one European club. Yet there is one key difference: Linfield have been significantly less dominant domestically than any of those clubs. Larne entered this season as back-to-back champions and, since 2013, Crusaders had won three league titles and Cliftonville two.
Mulgrew, who turns 39 in July, insists those title-less campaigns make his successes more enjoyable, highlighting the five-year gap between titles from 2012 to 2017.
“You never know if it’s going to be your last one and that makes them sweeter,” he offers. “The hunger for more never disappears.”
Mulgrew celebrates winning last season’s League Cup with his children (Published with the permission of Jamie Mulgrew)
Mulgrew began his career at Glentoran, Linfield’s primary Belfast rivals.
He made two first-team appearances, including during their 2004-05 league success. Linfield approached Mulgrew that summer, with the 19-year-old’s contract expiring, and he decided to join the club he had supported in his youth. That 2005-06 season saw Linfield complete a clean sweep of all four domestic trophies, but a recurring medial knee injury limited Mulgrew’s game time.
For successive seasons, the midfielder was involved in title-winning squads but missed the minimum appearance threshold to claim a winner’s medal.
Mulgrew, who has 26 trophies and counting at Linfield, believes his ascent to the captaincy was born of having to fight for recognition in a dressing room of serial winners. “That squad I joined was full of leaders and big personalities,” he explains. “You had to adapt to those standards. Back then, it was only 14-player matchday squads, so you constantly had that pressure of performing and working hard.”
His longevity is made more remarkable given his playing style; Mulgrew is a combative midfielder comfortable at carrying the ball, shuffling past opponents and drawing free kicks due to his low centre of gravity. While no statistical measurement is available, he is widely considered to be the Irish League’s most fouled player.
Yet he has other qualities that are arguably more important: constantly instructing team-mates on positioning, what runs to make, when to push up the pitch and when to slow a game down. He credits his leadership to his early years at the club.
“I was shaped by that pressure to win and perform, of needing to know how to train, to set an example on and off the pitch, to have the right combination between confidence and staying humble… and that hunger,” he says. “To use criticism as fuel. That is what I try to instil in my team-mates and the youngsters I coach.”
Mulgrew swaps pennants with Celtic’s Scott Brown ahead of a Champions League qualifier in 2017 (Craig Williamson – SNS GroupSNS Group via Getty Images)
One of the midfielder’s biggest tasks is helping new players integrate into a winning culture.
“The pressures at Linfield are unique — winning trophies is everything,” says Mulgrew. “I joined the club so young, that environment is all I have ever known. But others take time to adjust. It is our job to make them comfortable, but our responsibility for them is more than that — we need to win for them. If they join a winning team, that pressure lifts.”
Mulgrew will almost certainly not surpass the remarkable tally of 1,013 Linfield appearances set by his former team-mate, Noel Bailie, but he is closing in on the 800-game landmark. There has previously been interest from elsewhere. In 2011, a year after his two international appearances for Northern Ireland, Mulgrew’s Linfield contract was expiring and he attracted interest from Colombus Crew and Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer. The midfielder travelled to the United States for separate trial periods but decided against a move.
In 2021, Linfield went full-time; an upgrade from their previous semi-professional status. This was not without risk, with several of Mulgrew’s long-term team-mates deciding to move elsewhere due to personal circumstances. Yet, for Mulgrew, the opportunity to become full-time, aged 34, was too good to turn down.
His work outside football was centred on afternoons, with the new model freeing up his evenings to spend with his wife and three young children. “That decision, without doubt, has prolonged my career.”
Mulgrew fires off a shot during a UEFA Conference League play-off in 2022 (Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images)
For Mulgrew and his team-mates, this season’s trophy lift will have added poignance.
In June 2024, the club’s physiotherapist, Paul Butler, passed away suddenly aged 37. Six months later, Michael Newberry — the defender who spent three and a half seasons at Linfield before joining Cliftonville last summer — died on his 27th birthday.
“What has happened in the past year is hard to come to terms with,” says Mulgrew, whose brother-in-law passed away in 2023. “We can forget how anyone, no matter how famous or successful, are just people and we all go through the same emotions.
“For us, being in a team environment and going in to train every day together is an important support network. Everyone here has helped each other. We have a really strong changing room, you can maintain the normality with the banter and the support. We genuinely enjoy spending time with each other.
“This squad has great character and resilience, too, that is borne out through our results this season but also coming through everything we have together.”
Mulgrew has already committed himself to Linfield for next season, which will take him up to his 40th birthday. “I won’t outstay my welcome,” he says. “I will know when it’s time to move aside.”
He believes he needs to listen to his body more, admitting to playing through muscular pain earlier in the campaign. That is indicative of his relentless desire to be involved but, these days, he has to compromise.
Mulgrew begins his UEFA Pro coaching licence next week and while current Linfield manager David Healy has previously said he is “keeping the seat warm for him” and often consults his captain as he “knows the club inside out”, the midfielder insists his focus is on adding to his success on the pitch.
Mulgrew adds: “I already want my 12th title.”
(Top photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
The Lakers are one playoff defeat from their season being over and from the conversation turning to LeBron James’ future.
They are in a hole no team has climbed out of in the history of the NBA, the Lakers’ 131-108 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 putting L.A. down 3-0 in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series.
James and his teammates gave a gallant effort Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, but the defending champion proved to be more than the Lakers could handle.
James finished his night with 19 points on seven-for-19 shooting, eight assists and six rebounds. Rui Hachimura had 21 points and Austin Reaves finished with 17 points and nine assists.
Even so, the Lakers have now lost all three games by double digits.
And the Lakers are fully aware that no NBA team has successfully come back from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs, with those teams holding a 161-0 record. Only four teams have forced a Game 7 after trailing 3-0, all of which ultimately lost the series, including the Boston Celtics in 2023.
Lakers forward LeBron James shows frustration as Thunder center Chet Holmgren slam dunks during Game 3 on Saturday night.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Game 4 is Monday night, when the Lakers will try to stave off elimination and a night that will determine how the conversations go with James if they lose.
James has been frequently asked this season about retirement, but he has not given any indication of what the future holds for him.
He’s 41 years old and playing in an NBA-record 23rd season.
James is in the final year of his contract that pays him $52 million, making him a free agent this offseason. He can retire, join another team or perhaps return to the Lakers next season.
That will be the conversation if the Lakers can’t win Game 4.
They will see the same Thunder team that had seven players score in double figures, led by Ajay Mitchell’s 24 points and 10 assists and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 23 points and nine assists.
The Lakers went down 13 in the third quarter and had to play catchup the rest of the way. They never did, going down by 112-94 with 6 minutes and 12 seconds left, forcing Lakers coach JJ Redick to call a timeout.
The deficit just kept growing, topping out at 27 points in the fourth.
They were outscored 33-20 in the third quarter. The Lakers didn’t take care of the basketball in the third, turning it over six times, and they didn’t play good defense, allowing the Thunder to shoot 59.1% from the field and 55.6 percent from three-point range,
The Lakers did not give an inch to the Thunder in the first half, even when they fell behind by 10 points.
They just kept grinding until they led 59-57 at halftime.
Hachimura had 16 points in the first half, continuing his hot three-point shooting by making all four of his threes. Luke Kennard came off the bench to give the Lakers 13 points, shooting five for six from the field and three for four from three-point range.
The Lakers kept the pressure defense on Gilgeous-Alexander. Though he had 14 points in the first half, he shot only four for 14 from the field and one for five from three-point range.
The Lakers shot 55% from three-point range in the first half, which went a long way in helping them.
The Lakers lost the first two games by identical margins of 18 points and each loss was magnified because Gilgeous-Alexander was kept under wraps for the most part by L.A.’s defense.
When Gilgeous-Alexander picked up his fourth foul with 10:34 left in the third quarter of Game 2 and went to the bench, the Thunder turned a five-point lead into a 13-point advantage at the end of the quarter.
So, when he wasn’t on the court, the Lakers failed to take advantage.
“Well, you know, again, I’ll repeat what I said after the game: we’ve got to be better in the non-Shai minutes,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said.
Role players like Mitchell and Jared McCain hurt the Lakers in the second game. Chet Holmgren also was hard to deal with.
“Mitchell and McCain have hurt us in those non-Shai minutes, and then Chet [Holmgren] has hurt us the whole game,” Redick said. “I think you’ve got to be willing to live with something. Shai playing one-on-one, thus far in the series, we haven’t been willing to live with, so you’re going to be in rotation. That can lead to smalls on bigs at the hole, and the offensive rebounding from Chet has really hurt us.”
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In 2025, Alex Palou kicked off the Month of May with a Sonsio Grand Prix win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Based on the odds, it’s likely that Palou will find himself in Winner’s Circle again this Saturday when INDYCAR goes back to IMS on May 9 (4:30 p.m. ET, FOX).
Considering Palou has already captured the checkered flag three times this season, are there any other drivers whose odds are worth a wager?
Here are the latest lines at DraftKings Sportsbook as of May 9.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
Sonsio Grand Prix 2026
Àlex Palou: 5/18 (bet $10 to win $12.78 total)
Kyle Kirkwood: 5/1 (bet $10 to win $60 total)
Pato O’Ward: 12/1 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
David Malukas: 14/1 (bet $10 to win $150 total)
Josef Newgarden: 16/1 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Scott McLaughlin: 20/1 (bet $10 to win $210 total)
Christian Lundgaard: 30/1 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Scott Dixon: 40/1 (bet $10 to win $410 total)
Will Power: 60/1 (bet $10 to win $610 total)
Felix Rosenqvist: 80/1 (bet $10 to win $810 total)
Alexander Rossi: 100/1 (bet $10 to win $1,010 total)
Marcus Ericsson: 100/1 (bet $10 to win $1,010 total)
Marcus Armstrong: 100/1 (bet $10 to win $1,010 total)
Christian Rasmussen: 150/1 (bet $10 to win $1,510 total)
Graham Rahal: 150/1 (bet $10 to win $1,510 total)
Louis Foster: 300/1 (bet $10 to win $3,010 total)
Dennis Hauger: 500/1 (bet $10 to win $5,010 total)
Romain Grosjean: 500/1 (bet $10 to win $5,010 total)
Santino Ferrucci: 500/1 (bet $10 to win $5,010 total)
Rinus Veekay: 500/1 (bet $10 to win $5,010 total)
Kyffin Simpson: 500/1 (bet $10 to win $5,010 total)
Caio Collet: 1000/1 (bet $10 to win $10,010 total)
Sting Ray Robb: 1000/1 (bet $10 to win $10,010 total)
Nolan Siegel: 1000/1 (bet $10 to win $10,010 total)
Mick Schumacher: 1000/1 (bet $10 to win $10,010 total)
Here’s what to know about the oddsboard:
Heavy Favorite: It doesn’t look like Alex Palou’s dominance will be slowing down anytime soon. As noted above, he’s already won three of the five races since the INDYCAR season started in March. With 186 laps led, Palou sits first in the standings and has the shortest odds to win the title again. Last season, he started from the pole and led 29 laps before winning the race.
Long Shot to Watch: While his odds of 150/1 to win at IMS are much longer than Palou’s, Graham Rahal is one to watch. At this race in 2025, he started second and led 49 laps before finishing sixth. He finished second at this course in 2015, 2020 and 2023. He’s currently 10th in the INDYCAR standings, with one top five and three top 10s.
Sports
Prep talk: Southern Section Division 1 semifinals features matchup of boys’ volleyball powers
Get ready for the best high school boys’ volleyball action in the nation on Saturday when four powers face off in the Southern Section Division 1 semifinals.
First up is Huntington Beach hosting No. 1-seeded Mira Costa at 1 p.m. Then it’s Loyola hosting Redondo Union at 5 p.m.
All are capable of beating each other.
Teams are finally healthy, so there could be two five-game matches.
Mira Costa remains the team to beat with a 31-2 record and having the No. 1 college recruit from the class of 2027, Mateo Fuerbringer. Redondo Union owns one of those losses. Loyola is healthier than it’s ever been and has a five-game win over Redondo Union and a five-game loss to Mira Costa. Huntington Beach has two three-game losses to Mira Costa.
The championship match will be next weekend at Cerritos College, followed by the Southern California regional and state championships.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
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