A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Shortly before his retirement from professional football in 2019 Julian Speroni gave one last interview to the Crystal Palace matchday programme staff where he chronicled his fifteen-year stay at Selhurst Park. During that time there is no dispute that the Argentine shot-stopper had made himself a club legend through a combination of exceptional saves, engagement with the fans and local community and fierce loyalty throughout arguably the club’s most turbulent period in their recent history. But more on that later, because in this interview the great man went all the way back to his arrival in the UK in 2001 and this provided too great an opportunity for an article littered with questionable references to ‘I’m Alan Partridge’. Lovely stuff. Speroni had played just two games for Club Atletico Platense when he “found himself in Dundee having sent off a homemade VHS of his finest saves to the Scottish club’s manager, I vano Bonetti .” Nothing was said about the quantity of Toblerone consu...

Richard Allinson brings us the story of a World Cup that made so many fall in love with football and many more come back to the game after the dark days of the 1980s through the medium of a man who flew so low under the radar before the tournament he didn’t even make it into the Panini album. It’s almost enough to make you bin off your job at Carphone Warehouse and do your best Pavarotti impression. Over to Rich. Unbelievably, this summer marked 30 years since Italia ‘90. Which means it is 30 years since I hid behind the settee unable to watch as Chris Waddle pressed the launch button on an Adidas Etrusco Unico in Great Britain’s first known attempt at a moon landing. I was 7 years old at the time and it was utterly mesmerising and, because football wasn’t the global entity that it is today, I’d hardly heard of any of the players and that made them almost mythical.  Take Benjamin Massing for example. With Argentina 1-0 down to rank outsiders Cameroon, future Dundee FC star Claudio ...

We all make mistakes in life and never more so than in the workplace. Thankfully for the vast majority of us our indiscretions aren’t live on Sky Sports and then repeated on Match of the Day. There may be some demand for such televisual excellence but I somehow doubt anyone needs replays from multiple angles of me leaving some worksheets in my office in their lives. For any Educating (insert region here) fans I promise you this is 99% of most teachers’ lives rather than inspirational transformative experiences. My slightly long winded point here, besides the fact that I regularly leave stuff in my office by mistake, is that if/when I move on to another school I would be really surprised if my prospective employers and colleagues would see my application and think “oh yeah, that bloke who accidentally blew the department’s photocopying budget for the term in one afternoon”. Unless that’s in my reference of course. But I do genuinely wonder what the likes of Teddy Sheringham and a young ...

Richard Allinson takes a look across the page from our last post to a man who didn’t quite endear himself to the Aston Villa faithful in the same way Olof Mellberg did. In fairness spending some more time in Cameroon after the African Cup of Nations was probably a more attractive prospect than working for David O’Leary. Over to Rich with a man so good they named him twice. Recently, Facebook reminded me that when Paul Pogba signed for Manchester United I put up a pithy status along the lines of “£89.3m is a lot of money for Eric Djemba-Djemba v2.0.” Whilst I was right in my belief that Pogba would turn out to be utter dogshit, it did get me wondering whether I had been a bit harsh on Eric by using him as a barometer of being not very good.  After a successful start to his career in France with Nantes and impressing at the 2002 World Cup, the Cameroonian crossed the English Channel to make a dream move to Manchester United and was billed as a potential long term replacement for Roy...

There has always been a close relationship between football and music which isn’t a massive surprise when you consider the huge impact both have had on popular culture around the world. Sometimes that relationship has blossomed with football-based songs like ‘ World In Motion ’ and ‘Three Lions’ demonstrating clear understanding and appreciation of the beautiful game and the ingredients for a pop classic. The fact that so few songs have featured John Barnes is a genuine travesty and I’ve already spoken here about the dreadful decision by Fabio Capello to ditch official World Cup songs for the England team (although Tom Huddlestone is probably very grateful for this). That being said the world is probably a better place for the fact that Glenn (Hoddle) and Chris (Waddle) only followed up their no.12 hit ‘Diamond Lights’ with the aptly named ‘It’s Goodbye’. Where am I going with this you might wonder? Well long before Jurgen Klopp was promising Liverpool fans “heavy metal football” a c...

Richard Allinson takes a look today at a man who was a goalscoring sensation in the Black Country long before the Premier League days. In a time when forays into Europe were only a pipedream and before Molineux was graced with the likes of Raul Jimenez, Adama Traore and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake there was the one and only Steve Bull. Over to Rich. Over the years, the English national side has been blessed with some of the best strikers of their era: Lofthouse, Finney, Greaves, Hurst, Keegan, Lineker, Shearer, Owen and Kane. A man that rarely enters the thinking is Steve Bull. Therefore, in lieu of an appearance on a quickly cobbled together Channel 5 programme called something like ‘England’s Greatest Goal Getters’ (which would inevitably conclude that Merseyside’s most successful potato was in fact the best) Bully will have to settle for a post on this blog. Sorry Steve. Despite playing in the third tier of English football at the time, Steve Bull won the first of his 13 England caps in Ma...

The Ballon d’Or , brainchild of France Football magazine, is regarded as the greatest individual prize available in world football. First awarded in 1956, to the 41-year old English wing wizard Stanley Matthews, its list of recipients reads like a list of the game’s greatest ever players. Eusebio, Johann Cruyff, Michel Platini, Marco van Basten, Roberto Baggio , Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have all, deservedly, taken home the golden ball although the latter’s ongoing desire to avoid ‘doing it on a rainy night in Stoke’ does stand against him. There have, of course, been slow years. Michael Owen won in 2001 and Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard came dangerously close to winning in 2005 but thankfully common sense and Ronaldinho prevailed. As Ballon d’Or winner Michael Owen so sagely informed us “whichever team scores more goals usually wins” and so it is hardly a surprise that the vast majority of the award’s recipients have been attacking players. That being said this does see...

Rich Allinson takes a look at a player whose ability and achievements beggar belief. In a world where Dirk Kuyt became a Ballon D’or winner and Charlie Sheringham finally stepped out of his father’s shadow it’s clear that anything is possible. At the same time I’m still smarting from being sacked by MK Dons in 2014 after failing to “consolidate our position in League One” as a result of winning the play-offs. That’s right – it’s a Championship Manager post. Over to Rich. Here is a post about a man and some binary code. Mention the name Ibrahima Bakayoko to anyone born 1978 - 1990 and their response would likely be along the lines of “Bargain, £7.5m, completed the jigsaw puzzle.” He played for Shrewsbury Town, Leeds United, Grimsby Town, Manchester United and Real Madrid. He was a number 10 long before the nonsensical concept of a ‘number 10’ was invented. Say it like it is: AM/F(C). He was a footballing Santa Claus made real, the moment Championship Manager came to life.  When Wal...