It's Up For Grabs Now
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
FIFA are in league with the top sportswear manufacturers, are they? Not sure they have a case, though, what with it centring on the idea FIFA were "extending their power beyond the regulations and statutes" when they pointed to the rule about shirts *and* shorts.
Come on, it's more interesting than the Eriksson stuff. Only to say isn't it odd that when Sven (supposedly) lied about not having an affair before the FA decreed it was his matter and nothing to do with them.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
It must be said, we've seen better lookalike composite pictures...
This is from Rachel Stevens' Sky football season trailer, Sky feeling the need to mention that she is both "Britain's sexiest female artist" - we'll be the judges of that, thanks - and that she knows the offside rule. They never asked Elton John that. "I'm the first female artist to be involved in the Sky Sports campaign, which is really flattering" Stevens suggests, as if it's something to put in bold type on her metaphorical CV.
Friday, July 23, 2004
Staying with eBay for a second, here's something for everyone who admires Gabby Logan's integrity in refusing offers from lads' mags - Gabby Logan lads' mag pictures, but, crucially, in fridge magnet form. Place your bids!
Glancing at eBay, it does seem that the past, in kids' magazine terms at least, is a different country. True, our control experiment Look-In fell early on for George Best, but in October 1975 the Bay City Rollers shared space with a review of Leicester's transfer activity and in 1978 space was found to 'salute Watford'. August 1975's pre-teens got posters of The Sweet, Ron Ely and Bruce Rioch for their bedroom walls. 'TED MACDOUGALL IN COLOUR!' fought for cover space with Alvin Stardust that November, while what did it say about Suzi Quatro's image that Mick Channon was deemed a more suitable centre page pin-up in 1973?
Thursday, July 22, 2004
And now, perhaps the most pitiful, self-serving yet heartfelt (and genuine) thing we've ever posted here or anywhere else.
Would you like us to write for your publication? We're available for offers for the new season.
Ah, the pre-season - for managers, a time for fine-tuning squads, raiding other clubs for the buy that will make your name, and of course getting back up to speed with moaning about referees.
Also in The Championship, a title that gets funnier the more we look at it, Martin Keown believes Leicester represents 'the real footballing world'. After their last season? Mind you, a 36 year old lumbering central defender who spent a number of games at the end of a unbeaten season coming on for the left winger can be excused if he loses track of what's correct in football. And here's one to scratch heads over - Wolves accuse Bolton of 'unsettling' Henri Camara, a player who has requested such a move and who they're planning to discipline.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Get saving for Christmas - there's another Football Nightmares video on the way, this time with a double act both parties were hoping you'd temporarily put to one side for the time being.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
Surely there can be nothing more galling for a player than to be told "you see that striker we've just sold to Fulham? I'd pick him rather than you"
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Five things we hope aren't brought up constantly by the press this coming season:
1) Sven Goran Eriksson's contract. "He's earning £4m to get that team into contention" - yes, and? England lost on sudden death penalties to Portugal having been behind in the second half of extra time, not 14-0. Plus, Shaun Custis, would you have turned down such an increased pay rise if the Mirror were trying to sign you up? Will the next England manager really demand half that amount?
2) Wayne Rooney to Manchester United. Never mind that the manager, as is increasingly the way of things, hasn't had a say in the matter thus far - the trail went cold some time ago so much that all the stories are now Man With Connection To Everton Reckons He'll Go But Has No Proof One Way Or The Other, and surely he'd fail the medical anyway.
3) Our old crowd pleaser, passive and active offside. Nobody ever commented on the number of offsides that were given in Euro 2004 for players nowhere near the flight of the ball, did they? And no more talk of how Thierry Henry especially 'exploits the new interpretation of offside to his advantage' by playing off the last defender.
4) Innumerable overseas billionaires (and dictators) linked with Premiership club investment. We'll believe it when we see it. Don't forget Abramovich came out of virtually nowhere.
5) And while we're about it, directors, we know what Roman looks like, stop showing us him. And we're recommending public execution for the first presenter to say after a Mourinho interview "not short of confidence, is he?"
Wasn't it all so much easier when ex-players went on to run pubs? Take for example Stewart Castledine, who before becoming a staple of BBC1 daytime DIY shows (and getting married to Lucy Alexander, last seen on The Advert Channel) "has excelled at all levels of sport", apparently. Here's us thinking he was briefly a Wimbledon utility man.
EDIT: Lucy Alexander's got bugger all to do with the Advert Channel, actually, that's her off the Yes Car Credit adverts.
Before Ben Elton gets his hands on it, A Fan's Club, the story of AFC Wimbledon in song. Alun Armstrong, not the ex-Ipswich striker but the actor who was in BBC1's New Tricks recently wearing an AFCW shirt, is in it, on a video screen rather than Our Friends In The North Actor Is Kris Stewart.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
David Ginola was at the height of his Sue Barker-swooning phase signed to a major record label for five albums, and then dropped without recording a note. This says a lot about the British record industry five years ago or so, of course, but also a good deal about Ginola, who's joining Holby City briefly, and just look at the illuminating, and indeed un-named, 'BBC source' quote. He's also being linked with a film being shot in Doncaster alongside Ronan Keating, which is about the level, to follow his role as a 1950s butcher in something called Rosbeef, and swallow any drink you may currently be imbibing for fear of dousing your PC in it when you see the picture of him on the poster. And where would the self-aware modern celebrity be without their own landmines charity?
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
This is the very ball Beckham sent into orbit in Lisbon? OK, prove it. The seller can hardly obtain a certificate of authenticity, can he?
How fast football changes - one minute Player Of The Tournament, the next given a free transfer. Cue halfwit columnists going 'See? I told you nobody would care about them!'
Monday, July 12, 2004
Horse races run under Premiership club colours? You may scoff, but the way things are going the actual league may be decided like this in a few years' time.
We know a lot of people don't like John Motson, but we're not sure his TV presence justifies shouting abuse at a group of mourners
Saturday, July 10, 2004
When we get into power we will bring back the death penalty, but only for people who refer to 'Chinese player Young Lee Sharpe'.
For those of you wondering, the last part of Lisbonic Plague is on its way tomorrow. In the meantime, on with the new pre-season, where the referee walks out of games at half time. Apparently nobody thought to mention this to the crowd, although how they get 40 substitutions from two teams is surely chancing it.
Meanwhile, who's this we spy headed back Television Centre-wards with tail between legs? Back on 2nd August 1999 Des described his move as "an injection of passion for it all again", then did a good job of not showing it, what with his famous "BBC2" reference in 2000 right up to sleepwalking through the Euro final. He started on radio, of course, and we'd like to hear him doing boxing commentary again, if only to see what he'd make of it these days.
