Frank Augstein/Associated Press
LONDON — Tottenham Hotspur was losing at home to Newcastle last Sunday when Paul Coyte, the club’s stadium announcer, took to the field to conduct the halftime entertainment.
Coyte would have known that the minds of many in the crowd would be wandering a little: A couple of hundred miles north, in Leeds, England was playing Australia at cricket. This is an Ashes summer, the rare occasion when a sport other than soccer tends to capture the country’s imagination.
Sunday was the culmination of the third game in the five-match Ashes series, and it had been compelling, thrilling, historic.