A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Today Emlyn Jones brings us the story of a criminally underrated player who provided both of us with a whole host of ridiculous catchphrases during our university days. Our housemates suffered enough as it was but James Harper provided us with even more reasons to be annoying which shouldn’t have really been possible. I don’t think Emlyn was ever forgiven by one of them for deleting Emile Heskey from the England team on Euro 2000 on the PS1 and replacing him with the midfield maestro. For what it’s worth I thought it was funny – almost as funny as the superfluous reference to ‘Crystanbul’ in the post below. Thanks for that one mate. Having discussed international goalkeepers to date, I feel it’s time to talk about my favourite player for my hometown club, Reading. A tale of ping-pong, captains legbands and why I hate both Brendan Rodgers and Danny Murphy to this day. The pricks. Arsenal trainee James Harper signed for Reading in February 2001 for a fee of £400,000, a signi

Today Mat Jolin-Beech has a look at one of the great ‘what if’ stories in English football and revisits the age-old ‘left sided problem’. Sadly, this is not a second post on Steve Guppy but at least it takes in the story of a man who took part in ITV’s Celebrity Wrestling dressed as his Napoleonic War namesake. Obviously he couldn’t hold a candle to the great Sean Bean but, as we can see below, he knew how to wear a questionable necklace. Over to Mat. England’s fabled left sided problem could have had a simple solution. It should have had a simple solution. For season after season, Three Lions’ fans were crying out for an English Ryan Giggs. A skilful, fast, tricky left-winger. Instead, we got experiment after experiment. The Bridge/Cole episode. Alan Thompson’s single cap against Sweden in 2004. The infamous Scholes solution. Steve Guppy . The answer could have come from Newcastle upon Tyne, via Torquay and Manchester. The left-winger in question: Lee Sharpe. Definitely

You may have noticed that all of us at ‘A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words’ like an excuse to compliment footballing legends for their excellent hair. In some ways we’re providing an anti-Graeme Souness service for the nation to remind you that whether or not you have gone for a Domagoj Vida undercut, some  Jason Lee  dreadlocks or a Roberto Baggio ponytail, we’ll have your back. In my case this is partly out of self-defence as the previous owner of said Baggio ponytail and some questionable Fernando Torres inspired highlights which made me look more like a cross between Princess Diana and Andrew Ridgeley. I stand by my life choices. Back in 2003, however, my sister’s attempt to save some money by visiting a student hairdresser while at university was not equally inspired by a desire to pay tribute to a footballing hero. When we drove up to visit the following weekend she was not best pleased when my Dad and I, helpfully, looked at each other and said “Simon Rodger”. I think it’s fair

Back to the stickers and back to Richard Allinson today. Continuing a trend of lesser-known Premier League teams beginning with ‘B’ he has a look at Bradford City’s brief dalliance with the top flight and unearths further evidence of Benito Carbone being a bloody nice bloke. We’re not just saying that for the Insta likes, honest. Over to Rich. As you may now be aware, given the fact that I have shoehorned it into almost all of my posts, except for a two-year spell glory hunting with Blackburn Rovers I have been a Grimsby Town supporter since birth. By rights though I should probably have followed Bradford City because I grew up only seven miles from Valley Parade, but my Dad is a Mariners fan and so it was a lifetime of trips to the Cleethorpes seaside for me. Despite my childhood geography I can only remember meeting one Bantams fan growing up. Leeds United were always the go to team in the local area (must’ve been the glamour of Carlton Palmer and Tony Dorigo that drew

I wish this was a sticker of a touring cricket side for an ill-fated England tour of the West Indies in the 1990s but sadly no such thing exists to the best of my knowledge. What this is though is our fiftieth post on what started as a way to kill some time during lockdown and turned into something much more fun and sociable than I expected. To celebrate we’ve all taken turns to pick a ‘Select XI’ from the cast of characters we’ve already talked about in a bid to shamelessly promote our existing work and because, well, just because. Thanks for reading and stick with us for more nonsense in the future. Manny Hawks’ Select XI (5-3-2) GK: Carlo Nash LWB: Ashley Cole CB: Domagoj Vida CB: David May CB: Phil Babb RWB: Gary Charles CM: Andy Townsend CM: Peter Fear AM: Roberto Baggio (c) CF: Dion Dublin CF: Dirk Kuyt Starting from the back I believe that Carlo Nash deserved more out of his career and a team like this would allow him to fulfil his potential

We’re in the capable hands of Mat Jolin-Beech today as he takes a look at one of the most questionable transfers of all time and why, in 2007, even more people decided to hate West Ham than usual. Personally I cleaned up on a 40/1 shot when Tevez scored the goal that kept them up and sent Sheffield United down so I remember this all a bit differently. Over to Mat. Every club has a rival, that other team they hate, and that hatred is ingrained from the moment fandom is bestowed upon you. Chelsea and Fulham. Liverpool and Everton. Bristol City and Bristol Rovers. Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. But, all fans have that other club they hate almost as much. Liverpool; Millwall; any club managed by Jose Mourinho (apart from if he’s the gaffer at your team); Liverpool. For Blades fans, that club is West Ham United. It dates back to the 2006/07 season and the impossible was becoming a reality for Alan Pardew’s Hammers. The final day of the summer transfer window, and dea

“What was he doing in the f***ing box? Didn’t we tell him to hold the middle of the pitch?” It’s fair to say that this is probably not the reaction you would want from your manager upon scoring your first international goal but these were the words uttered by Graham Taylor when Carlton Palmer nodded in against San Marino in a World Cup qualifier in 1993. England’s trials and tribulations under Taylor were immortalised in the fantastically demoralising documentary ‘An Impossible Job’ and sadly undermined the otherwise impressive career of a talented man. It also did a number on Graham Taylor. I don’t actually remember too much about Carlton Palmer as a player besides getting a fair few doubles of him at both Leeds and Southampton during the 90s. However, I do remember a conversation about him during an A Level English lesson (we were meant to be talking about The Handmaid’s Tale – sorry Margaret Atwood) being added to by a guy who sat in front of me needing to air his grievance

Anyone who claims to have only started watching ‘Homes Under The Hammer’ because of lockdown is a liar. If you haven’t found yourself sitting in front of the telly with your breakfast waiting to find out if some rotting beams and a damp kitchen on the outskirts of Dudley are going to be transformed into a delightful family home then what have you been doing? Obviously if you have a life please feel free to ignore that question. The jewel in the BBC’s mid-morning crown has been convincing us we have a clue about home renovation since 2003 and has longstanding links to the world of football. Former Wimbledon midfielder Stewart Castledine is married to original presenter Lucy Alexander. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get his sticker in 1995 so here’s some stuff about Dion Dublin instead. Fans of auction-based action will know that Dion Dublin joined the ‘Homes Under The Hammer’ presenting team in 2015 as the BBC looked to shake things up with three up front. His versatility wit

Unlike the rest of us at ‘A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words’ Mat Jolin-Beech supports a team which has won all of the major trophies. Whether Mat’s feeling the strain of the Covid-19 lockdown or if he’s just jealous of Palace’s capture of the Zenith Data Systems Cup in 1991 (last won by today’s subject) is hard to tell but what’s for sure is that he did not particularly enjoy Jose Mourinho’s stint at Old Trafford. For an outsider looking in it seemed quite funny. Anyway, over to Mat. For many, Old Big Head is the greatest manager England never had. For others, he’s the guy who, along with Peter Taylor, took unfancied teams to greatness. Derby County and Nottingham Forest fans hold Clough in the highest esteem. He is also known for ‘The Damned United’ era. The tumultuous 44 day stint in charge of Leeds United, without his trusted lieutenant Taylor, which left him, until 2014, as the club’s least successful permanent manager. Michael Sheen immortalised Clough in the film adaptation of the

“Get it in the mixer.” A cynic could argue that this phrase perfectly summarises English football. Where else in the world would a team getting a corner get more of a cheer than an exceptional piece of skill or a slick passing move? The more generous amongst us might argue that the desire to “get it in the mixer” could be English football’s blessing and curse in equal measure. Sure, lumping the ball blindly into the box might be the reason that the England team hasn’t taken home a notable piece of international silverware since 1966, ok, apart from the Tournoi de France, but the commitment to trying to create goalscoring chances is the reason why the Premier League is regarded as one of the world’s most entertaining club competitions.  And who doesn’t like a corner? In February 1998 Derby County manager Jim Smith spent £200,000 to prise a young midfielder away from Carlisle United in order to “get it in the mixer” for the likes of Dean Sturridge and Deon Burton. The 1999/2000

Some of you might be aware that we started an Instagram account a few weeks ago in order to ruin another corner of the internet with pictures of questionable 90s footballers. Post number one, Peter Fear , got a like from THE Benny Carbone which suggests that, along with retweets from Big Nev , Gary Charles and Ian Marshall , we might have completed the internet. Which is considerably better than we’ve done with a lot of these sticker albums. Rich, who is our leading Insta influencer, uploaded Dirk Kuyt twice by accident but then explained this away with the line “in many ways Clive, with his work rate, it is like having two Dirk Kuyts on the pitch”. Thirty seconds later we were talking about Andy Townsend. Above is an image of Andy Townsend representing his country at a second consecutive World Cup following a season at Aston Villa where he had won the League Cup. Whilst Kent is the tenth largest county in England it is yet to gain independence so Townsend instead chose to

John Fashanu. John Fashanu. John Fashanu. John Fashanu. John Fashanu. Here’s Richard Allinson with John Fa-sha-nu. Awooga! John Fashanu. Fash the Bash. Awooga. Everyone of a certain age will have their own memory of him. Be it of him as an effective goal scorer for Wimbledon; his elbow on Gary Mabbutt; his Gladiators presenting stint; him falling off a wall; or this quote from his recent spell on Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins “they called me Fash the Bash because it rhymes, good job my surname isn’t Hunt.” Growing up, my recollection of Fashanu was of a larger than life character and of height, power and goals. He was without doubt an accomplished footballer, winning two England caps and finding the back of the net 149 times for 7 different clubs. Although Dave Beasant and Lawrie Sanchez were the heroes on the day, Fash was integral to the Dons charge to their 1988 FA Cup final win. What he certainly wasn’t was the twenty-second worst footballer in Premier League hist