Anyone who has seen Sports Team live before will confirm that they’re always guaranteed to provide an entertaining night. Since rising through the ranks of the Portland Arms, a pub in north Cambridge which hasn’t quite reached the level of Brixton’s Windmill yet, the six-piece have been thrilling audiences nationwide with their distinctive blend of indie-rock and post-punk. Earlier in 2025, they returned with Boys These Days, a record that had as many songs as months between announcement and release: the album was worth the wait, but for their show at Manchester Academy 2, Sports Team ditched the new stuff and opted for a greatest-hits-style set instead.
‘The Game’ was chosen to open the show in the same manner as their previous Manchester appearance at Club Academy, almost a year to the day before. The song, which also provided one of the singles released in advance of the band’s sophomore album Gulp!, balances euphoria with the irony and humour of their piercing critique directed towards a heartless, modern dog-eat-dog world. Lines such as “The night was rustling, like an empty bag of crisps” were echoed back by the crowd, who erupted into mosh pits from the moment the track’s first note rang out, leading frontman Alex Rice to declare “this is the spot tonight, this is a good spot” as the track reached its end.
Boys These Days highlight ‘Bang Bang Bang’ followed, before standalone single ‘Happy (God’s Own Country)’ appeared. The song was released in the spring of 2021, with Sports Team declaring it a “summer-of-hope anthem”, bringing exuberant energy and a post-punk edge which combine to provide an invigorating selection live. ‘The Drop’ came as a nice surprise amongst the band’s setlist, after being absent from their earlier tour of mainland Europe, and was accordingly met with consistent moshing throughout its three-minute length.
‘Stations of the Cross’ was another welcome inclusion, and also stands as one of the best songs to demonstrate Sports Team’s skill for merging social commentary with energising instrumentation. Cutting lines such as “It’s not that you’re unhappy, you’re just happy on and off, and it’s nothing like the stories that they taught you growing up” reflect the monotony of modern life, displaying Alex Rice’s signature cynicism: these are joined by angular guitar courtesy of Rob Knaggs and a propulsive backbone delivered by Alex Greenwood, who remains one of the best drummers in the indie-rock scene today.
For ‘Long Hot Summer’, Rice departed the stage, allowing Knaggs his moment in the spotlight as the track’s lead vocalist. As one of the softer cuts on the band’s debut album, the song seemed to encapsulate the lull and leisure of the season it was released in, becoming available to the public in June 2020, and thus provided a welcome break from the sustained heaviness of Sports Team’s live set and crowd. After Rice returned to begin ‘I’m in Love (Subaru)’, the lead single from Boys These Days, the audience erupted once again.
Following one Boys These Days single with another, the band performed ‘Sensible’, which saw Rice joining the front row before the band launched into fan favourites ‘Camel Crew’ and ‘Kutcher’. The former was accompanied by an intro taken from Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ and preceded by a tale of a crowd in Glasgow in which Rice witnessed “Human Centipede style crowd interaction”. The latter was followed by ‘Pet Sounds’ and ‘Medium Machine’. These two bonus tracks from the deluxe edition of Boys These Days, released on the day of the band’s Manchester show, went down surprisingly well, offering the audience a moment of reprieve but sustaining the quality of the performance.
Snippets of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ preceded the undeniably brilliant ‘M5’, while ‘Maybe When We’re Thirty’ closed the main portion of the set with a softer note.
After returning for certified Sports Team classics ‘Fishing’ and ‘Here’s the Thing’, the band closed with ‘Stanton’, a highlight from their debut EP, Winter Nets, that has provided their final song for years now. The song saw Rice leave the stage to join the crowd, and as a circle formed around him it became obvious that carnage would be unleashed. When the track’s concluding instrumental section kicked in, Rice could be seen atop his crowd, surfing upon the many hands eager to carry him. The set’s ending solidified the lingering impression many will have been left with as the show ended: Sports Team at Academy 2 wasn’t simply a gig, but a true performance.
Some would be quick to say that Sports Team’s career peaked with Deep Down Happy, their debut album which was nominated for the 2020 Mercury Prize and followed by packed-out shows at the larger Manchester Academy and O2 Academy Brixton. However, it’s arguable that what matters isn’t the size of a crowd, but its passion, and Sports Team have clearly forged a dedicated, easily incited fanbase who know how to show their support through an hour of ceaseless dancing, moshing, and clambering on top of one another.
The only complaint that can be found amongst the exultation is that some of the best Boys These Days tracks were left off the setlist in favour of the band’s greatest hits, but they can’t be blamed for wanting to crowd-please. There’s truly nothing like a Sports Team show, and the band remain a joy to witness.
