A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

This season’s Europa League Final offered, on paper at least, everything football fans could want from the climax of a cup competition. The plucky underdogs Villarreal took the lead only to be pegged back by a resurgent Manchester United. A tired Marcus Rashford missed a golden opportunity to seize the trophy for the Red Devils and after 120 minutes of ebb and flow football the game was settled by a high scoring penalty shootout decided by a goalkeeper saving his counterpart’s effort. In reality the game was a fairly drab encounter played out by two sides who had endured an inordinate amount of football over the past season further soured by the very worst of society taking to social media to racially abuse Rashford and his team-mates. If you wanted a metaphor for 2021 there you have it. The penalty shootout itself was oddly compelling down to the impressive quality of the spot kicks. United keeper David De Gea’s effort, the twenty-second of the contest, was the only one not to find t...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at the other side of football’s revolving door transfer market through the medium of an English centre forward it’s almost impossible not to like. Unless you’re a Trinidadian centre half that is. For a man who played for more clubs than he appeared to have had hot dinners the back end of August and January every year must have been fairly stressful for him and his family. Then again I’m sure he took it all in his loping stride. Over to Mat The life of a modern day, elite level footballer is one we all dream of. In fact, some of us still believe , given the right opportunity, we could once again don our lime green Nikes and go pro. With that, we’d be playing the game we love for a living, gaining fame, fortune, and immortality. Becoming a fully-fledged international player gains extra perks. Travelling to the World Cup or Euros as part of the squad, representing the hopes and dreams of your nation. The ultimate honour. There are stresses that come with...

Those of you who follow us on Twitter might have noticed that we like an opportunistic post or two (an hour) to try and get our work out there. Some, like celebrating the birthdays of our footballing heroes, are reasonable enough but we do have our tenuous moments. Apologies to the excellent 90s Football account which we have mercilessly spammed since our inception. Deep down we know that you highlighting a selection of excellent goalkeeper shirts is not an invitation to read a blog post on Carlo Nash or Steve Ogrizovic . This apology is by no means a suggestion that we will be stopping any time soon. Ahead of the crunch relegation clash between Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday on the last day of the Championship season I thought that the footballing world might enjoy an opportunity to have a pre-match read up on former Rams’ midfielder and human trebuchet Rory Delap and/or legendary Owls’ keeper, and victim of a young Mat Jolin-Beech’s abuse, Kevin Pressman . In fairness fans o...

Emlyn Jones brings us a truly epic tale today which leans heavily on the work of Homer and liberal use of the strikethrough function. In the A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words WhatsApp group Emlyn warned us that he might be “labouring an extremely unfunny joke” in this post. Thankfully Rich was on hand to remind him that “labouring extremely unfunny jokes is the blog’s strong point”. On that note: Vamonos al viaje para buscar los sonidos magicos…ECUADOR! Over to Emlyn. In 1922, a publisher in Paris released the full text of James Joyce's previously serialised Ulysses, the Latinised name of Odysseus. The novel is a loose retelling of Homer's epic poems, which chronicle the journeys of the Greek warrior Odysseus and his travels and exploits far from his homeland, before detailing his struggle to return home and claim his rightful position of power. Joyce may have interpreted the tale through his character Leopold Bloom, however, I'm going to attempt to draw a parallel with an Ecuado...

In the latter years of the twentieth century the emergence of counterfactual histories brought yet another subcategory to the academic discipline. Although often dismissed by the more traditional history scholars this new trend looked to answer some of the world’s great ‘what if?’ questions. Theories on what would have happened had the Nazis won the Second World War and how science might have developed without Christianity provided some interesting reading and highlighted the significance of what might have been seen as mere details at the time. The world of sport is so often decided on fine margins that it is no surprise that footballing discourse is littered with ‘what if’ conversations and theories. What might have happened at the 1986 World Cup had Peter Shilton remembered he was capable of jumping and Diego Maradona hadn’t punched the ball over him? Would football have come home in 1996 had Gareth Southgate followed his mum’s advice and just smashed his penalty down the middle r...

In today’s post Richard Allinson takes a look at a man who became such an icon of Euro 96 that he achieved what all professional footballers must dream of and was immortalised in a World Cup song . We’ll ignore the fact it was a slightly ropey version of the song from the previous tournament and England subsequently failed to bring anything home apart from a talented youngster with a one-match ban and a centre-half with a chip on his shoulder. Still, a better result than either Euro 2000 or the 2014 World Cup. Over to Rich. The arrival of a major football tournament always gets me thinking of my 'All Time England XI' and Euro 2020/21 was no exception. Really though, I don't know why I bother because it is the same every time. However, for a while, my pick at left back was a question that needed answering. Ashley 'Cashley' Cole or Stuart 'Psycho' Pearce? Apologies to Stephen Warnock and Nicky Shorey, but you didn't enter the reckoning. Cole was a very ...

Today Emlyn Jones takes a look at a Greek footballing God who had a more than interesting career once his playing days were over. Alain Sutter might well have had a go at Jacques Chirac on a bedsheet but it’s fair to say he has been upstaged by today’s subject when it comes to political influence. I also doubt he braved a questionable Lee Sharpe gap year necklace for the team photo either. Over to Emlyn. The worlds of football and politics don't often collide; however, there have been a number of players who have finished their on field careers and gone on to represent their countries in office. The highest profile are former World Footballer of the Year, Not Ali Dia's cousin, Chris Wreh 's actual cousin, and now President of Liberia, George Weah; and king of the soccer field , and later king of being Extraordinary Minister for Sport, Pelé. Today's subject also had a spell in the political sphere, and is now President of the governing body of his country. Theodoros Za...

For many people 2016 was seen as a challenging, if not dreadful, year. In January alone the world said farewell to David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Terry Wogan and by April football had lost Cesare Maldini and Johan Cruyff. Britain was deeply divided by the Brexit referendum, marred by the murder of MP Jo Cox, with campaigns from both sides that scaremongered, patronised, overpromised and underdelivered. And then the good people of the USA elected Donald Trump as their 45th President. You might argue that my wife and I chose a questionable year to get married. As it so often does sport provided some much needed relief and 2016 proved to be the year of the underdog. Leicester City defied 5000-1 odds to win the Premier League thanks to the inspirational dilly-dinging of Claudio Ranieri. My beloved Crystal Palace reached the FA Cup final and Connor Wickham managed to play in two consecutive Wembley games for the Eagles without his legs falling off. And if all of that seems inconceivable the...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech brings us a level of statistical analysis hitherto unseen on the humble pages of this blog. He also appears to have invented an algorithm so sophisticated it could probably sort out the next batch of GCSE and A Level results as well as providing us with the ultimate England squad. It’s worth noting that Mat wrote this all the way back in April so lord knows what might have happened to the Three Lions’ leading lights since. Still, it should be a laugh anyway. Over to Mat. Now is the time of the season, especially as Manchester City appear to have the league title wrapped up, when thoughts turn to the England squad for the Euros. Who’s a dead cert? Who is most likely on the plane? Who is making a late run? Who should be nowhere near? And who should be there, but won’t be? This made me think, who is the best player to never get an England cap? One Google search later and I had my answer: Kevin Campbell. Now, nothing against him. He was a decent player. In fact, Campb...