Other World Cup Stuff…

I was asked a couple of years back which other player Danny reminded me of the most and, without pausing for breath, I replied: “Henry” because he did … a little bit. It was met with such unexpectedly high levels of derision that, to save face; to pretend I wasn’t wounded – and that in fact […]

I don’t watch much football *SHOCK – HORROR – ORF WITH MY OWN HEAD*, so when I found myself on holiday in Spain, in a Spanish bar, with El Clasico about to start, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. To say my eyes were glued to the small telly in the corner would over romanticize the […]

England haven’t won a tournament, again. A concept we have become more than accustomed to dealing with. It still hurts a little/a lot/unbearably (delete as appropriate) and leaves a haunting feeling of, ‘what if?’ drifting through our idle thoughts for the remainder of the summer, but by now we all have our various coping mechanisms […]

I’ve just had a quick scan through the laws of the game and noticed that penalty shoot-out penalties are not actually referred to as penalties, as we all tend to do, they are in fact “kicks from the penalty mark”. It’s all gone a bit Tannoy/loud speaker system, Hoover/vacuum hasn’t it?! However, I’m not sure I’d side with the purveyors […]

The 1990 World Cup: a significant tournament in the bookmarking of some of England’s enduring imagery. Penalties, tears and John Barnes rap aside, one incident inparticular, during the semi-final against Germany, has, I think, been the one to have cast the darkest and spindliest of shadows over subsequent national players. But, oh how we larfed, until we […]

We knew it was coming, and we all (I thought), after some initial kicking and screaming, had come to accept the inevitability of it. Yet, still Roy Hodgson’s overtly pragmatic approach to the  game against France has shaken awake its fair share of detractors. What were these people expecting? As an England fan I have […]

If you were to x-ray the skulls of England’s finest during any major tournament (ignoring the fake turds and paper cuttings of themselves), I imagine all you’d find would be the black and white clips of Bobby Charlton crashing one in from 20 yards, or Bobby Moore perfectly timing a tackle, or Gary Linekar reeling away, or David Platt […]

I stopped sulking just in time to watch both England games this past week after a self imposed exile that stretches back to when the F.A, Capello, or whoever, reinstated John Terry as captain after he’d not actually apologised for all the bad stuff he’d done back in March of this year. I hadn’t missed much in those few […]