A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Richard Allinson today has a look at a man who looked the part, sounded the part and occasionally even had the good grace to play the part of a cultured continental forward. Not bad for a bloke from Notting Hill who spent the majority of his career outside of the top tiers of English football. Over to Rich. At first glance Daniele Dichio’s career on paper looks pretty unremarkable. Although he achieved way more than most men could ever dream of doing, a player having spells at Queens Park Rangers, Sunderland and Preston North End is nothing really to write home about in the world of professional football. However, there is one part of his career that makes him stand out: that being his out of the blue move to Italian side Sampdoria at the age of 22.  Dichio’s career started at QPR, and, following a couple of loan spells at Welling United and Barnet, he was thrust into the limelight as the replacement for club legend Les Ferdinand who had headed north to join Kevin Keegan’s “bolloc...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at a man who offered so much but was denied a fair amount of it by his unreliable body. If you’re thinking this sounds familiar to earlier posts you are probably right but this one also features the added bonuses of World Cup heartache, two idiots on their first package holiday and a thirty-minute turtle. Over to Mat. Many footballers we have looked at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words have had careers blighted by injury. Many have fought to overcome them in novel ways. Michael Owen ’s dossier. Owen Hargreaves ’ YouTube vlogs. Eduardo and his Ryvita legs. But those guys all had pretty full careers despite their physical foibles. However, there is one Englishman’s career, not Darren Anderton, who you can say did have what could have been a world class career ruined by injury. Enter stage left Ledley “one working knee” King. Tottenham Hotspur fans will wax lyrical about him and while a lot of it is Spurs’ fans being Spursy about a player who did many Spursy...

In September 2004 Les Ferdinand scored his 149th, and last, Premier League goal. It came in the ninetieth minute for Bolton Wanderers against Manchester United and, having replaced everyone’s favourite “ prick in the mixer ” Kevin Davies , the veteran striker looked to have secured the Trotters a famous victory. Ferdinand had actually been brought on to fill in at centre-half as Big Sam looked to shut up shop and ultimately failed to do his job as a ‘Fergie time’ finish from none other than David Bellion secured a point for the Red Devils. If you want to get a better understanding of the English top flight in 2004 then just re-read this paragraph. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Ten years earlier Les Ferdinand was the spearhead of a Queen’s Park Rangers team that had finished in the top half of the table in the first two Premier League seasons. Ferdinand was instrumental to this success contributing an impressive 36 goals in 73 games and attracting the ...

Today Richard Allinson takes us on a whistle stop tour of political protests in the beautiful game. However much certain armchair fans like to think that these worlds are completely separate, and that Marcus Rashford should “focus on tonight’s game instead of feeding the kids”, the links between football and politics are undeniable. Someone even dedicated a whole blog to the topic a few years ago before he realised he should just “stick to old stickers”. Over to Rich to lose us some Twitter followers. The normal criteria for one of my pieces for A Sticker's Worth 500 Words are: a) did they play for Grimsby Town ? and b) can I shoehorn a reference to my own junior football career in somewhere ? Sadly, the catalyst for today's post doesn't fulfil either of these criteria. However, what he does have is a 'controversies' section on Wikipedia, and that is always interesting. Alain Sutter was a Swiss international footballer that had the hair of Metallica frontman James...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech brings us a couple of stories about a genuinely brilliant footballer and all round entertainer. In our blog’s WhatsApp group Rich shared an extract from a Daily Mirror column where Emlyn Hughes suggested that United had made a mistake in signing today’s subject as he wouldn’t “get in there when it hurts, or decide a game and be a matchwinner.” Then again this was the same Emlyn Hughes who thought that Princess Anne was Northern Irish jockey John Reid. Over to Mat. Le God. King Eric. Cantona. The legend that is. Much could be said – and has – but 500 words is not enough. The only player to win three consecutive top flight league titles with different clubs: Marseille, Leeds United and Manchester United in 1991, 1992 and 1993 respectively. The move from Leeds to Man U itself is a wonderful story. A steal at £1.2m and a deal that only came about when Leeds asked whether United’s Denis Irwin was for sale. A few days later and Cantona had moved across the Pennines. Jus...

Remember the pub? Depending on which lockdown tier you were placed in it might not have been that long ago you were sat in one with members of your household and enjoying a substantial meal/an unholy number of scotch eggs. For many of us though the pub seems almost mythical. You might be drinking more questionable cans of whatever was on offer the last time you did some essential shopping but it probably doesn’t compare to paying too much for an equally questionable pint and chatting nonsense with your mates. Luckily there are some refuges for those of us looking to reminisce about our favourite 90s goalkeepers or Paul McGregor ’s musical career and one of the best of these has been the recently constructed Football Tavern on Twitter. This one’s for you gents. In 1995 Belgian midfielder Jean-Marc Bosman’s successful legal challenge of the football transfer rules meant that footballers were able to leave their clubs at the end of their contracts on a free transfer rather than suffer t...

Today Emlyn Jones relives some of the best days of our lives back at Exeter University and also provides us with another opportunity to laugh at Mark Lawrenson . As a result of the countless hours playing the game that stars in today’s post I will never be able think of this Swedish frontman without also thinking about ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ or the fact that I woke up perfectly sober but very tired the day of my wedding having worked our way through the years to revisit him. I blame the best man but I’m sure this post will make up for it. “Nice to be here with you, John”. Video games and football have always been closely linked; whether that involves technical advances such as scratch and sniff discs , or the ability to elevate DIRK KUYYYYYYT to his rightful place among football's elite (shattering eardrums in the process). At university a number of games helped pass time that could have been spent studying; Mario Kart 64 and Smash Brothers' Falcon Punch led to genuine tem...

Today Richard Allinson takes a look at one of football’s most iconic figures who truly transcended the boundaries of the sport. Football in the 1990s wasn’t the slick operation we all enjoy today and, apparently, when today’s subject was being driven to the photoshoot to announce his arrival in West London the media team had to pop into Sydenham Soccer on my local high street to get their pristine Chelsea shirt printed with Gullit’s name and number. At least that’s what the geezer in the shop told me when I was spending my birthday money on some Sondico shinpads. Over to Rich and thanks to Peter Van Garderen for the suggestion! When I decided to write about Ruud Gullit I didn’t know whether to focus on Gullit the Ballon d’Or recipient , Gullit the FA Cup winning manager or Gullit the pop star. What I didn’t realise was that I’d be writing about a fella who’s birth name was actually Rudi Dil. Gullit (his Dad’s surname) was adopted for football purposes only as it “sounded like a footba...