A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Today Richard Allinson takes on a request post for the excellent Ramswriter Podcast . A few months ago the four of us here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words had established a relatively lengthy list of players we had agreed never to discuss on these hallowed pages due to a variety of prejudices. Within about five minutes of our last Twitter call for requests Simon Long forced us to abandon said list. We’re a principled bunch as you can see. Over to Rich for some revisionism. Normally when I write a post on a player who has achieved a lot in the game, I tend to go into a list to summarise their achievements because what they have done is so significant. With Wayne Rooney even this slightly lazy approach to blogging isn’t possible because on paper, he achieved so bloody much. He won 16 major trophies (if you count the World Club Cup) and 45 individual honours (if you count the… erm, Bravo Awards). He is Manchester United’s record goal scorer (253), England’s record goal scorer (53), and Eng...

Towards the end of 2021 I had the privilege of taking part in the HTO Podcast ’s Big Fat Football Quiz . I’m proud to say that I finished in second by a solitary point and was well behaved enough not to suggest any hasty rematches or that we met up to see if I could lob a kettle over the roof of a pub. This is more down to the fact that I completely forgot Lionel Messi and Inter Milan existed rather than any deep-seated chivalry. Suffice to say it was a lot of fun and a great test of football trivia with the added bonus of references to Brian Deane , Barnsley in the Premier League and Homes Under The Hammer star Dion Dublin . One question focused on Premier League penalty takers and brought up the name of Leighton Baines (I bet he thought this post was about him). During his time with Wigan Athletic and Everton the left back scored an impressive twenty goals from the spot but is not the only defender to feature in the list of those to convert more than ten top flight spot kicks since ...

Today Richard Allinson takes on a request post on behalf of the ever-friendly landlord at Twitter’s excellent Football Tavern . The pub’s many legions of regulars may well have seen today’s subject mentioned once or twice while at the bar although we are reliably informed that he just happens to pop into the landlord’s head rather than any questionable obsession brewing. We hope this does the great man justice. Over to Rich. As we’ve mentioned a couple of times before, a lot of the admin for this blog is done via the Sticker 500 WhatsApp group. Essentially, it involves us forgetting who we’ve blogged about, posting the gif of Steven Gerrard letting it slip against Chelsea and discussing how Andy Carroll should really still be in the England squad. However, recently Mat broke it to us all that his years old green Nike Mercurials were done for and shared his replacements: a pair of red, blue and yellow Adidas astro trainers. They’re really snazzy, and have “Leooo!!!” written down the si...

Today Emlyn Jones takes a look at the playing and management career of a defensive colossus who could strike fear into the hearts of anyone who dared to take him on. A fierce competitor he was clearly inspired by Chris Waddle ’s efforts at Italia 90 when he launched his penalty shootout effort into orbit during his nation’s loss to Italy. Perhaps this is the reason behind the excellent star tattoo on his elbow. Over to Emlyn. Wales and Reading have conspired to throw up some truly dreadful football matches in my time, the most recent being Wales failing to breach the Estonian defence back in September 2021, leading to a drab 0-0 draw that at least had a few close efforts. The runaway leader for the worst match I have ever sat through, however, occurred on 29th May 2017. Reading had performed well enough to make the play-offs, and victory over Fulham meant that we would be lining up at Wembley for 'THE RICHEST GAME IN FOOTBALL' as per Sky Sports; the Championship Play-Off Final...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at a multi-talented Spanish shot stopper who was cruelly robbed of greater international recognition by injury. Dave Beasant incident aside you might also be concerned about our author’s physical state after reading today’s post but thankfully the only real victim in his accident was his jeans which can now qualify him for the hot youth trends he was always destined to model. Over to Mat with the rest. Before I get into the meat of this post, the inspiration came to me at about 6:45am when cycling on my way to the train station. Given it was December, bloody freezing out, and the roads were damp, what was about to happen should have been obvious. So obvious in fact that I, as the conscientious, hi vis and helmet wearing cyclist, knew this could happen. Coming to a junction, I slowed down more than normal before commencing my right turn. Only I didn’t. The front wheel slid from underneath me, leaving me floundering on the floor in the middle of the ro...

It’s testament to a true footballing legend if they become known only by their surname. Think Beckham , Shearer , Yashin , Puskas and Di Stefano for example. This must obviously be frustrating for anyone with a similar surname, both within and outside of football, as whatever you might achieve there will always be comparisons made with your more famous namesake. It must be even harder when you are known by a single name and then someone comes and usurps you. Ask any 1990s football nostalgic and they will wax lyrical about the former Brazilian striker Ronaldo who scored a phenomenal 352 goals in 518 club games across top leagues in his homeland, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy and a further 62 in 98 international appearances. Yet a certain Portuguese forward with a very similar name is the first Google search result when the word ‘Ronaldo’ is typed in. I guess that’s what 686 goals in 914 club games in your homeland, England, Spain and Italy as well as 115 strikes for your nation (at t...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech delves into a world created by Sports Interactive to bring us a look at a man who achieved more on our author’s laptop than he did in reality. By the looks of things Mat didn’t need to resort to underhand tactics or building his team around the greatest Dutch player of all time to earn his success in the single greatest distraction ever developed but he would say that wouldn’t he? Over to the man himself to bask in his own glory. Football Manager is not a game it is an addiction. One that leads to some questionable actions in the early hours of the morning. It is especially dangerous for students with more time than money to kill and this is where one my greatest ever achievements came. I can (almost) say: “Football Manager? Completed it mate.” So, lets wind the clocks back to pre-HD days. A time when MySpace was still a thing, and Facebook was still just for students. The iPhone was a new and exciting development, and Blockbuster was still hanging on in the hig...

Thanks to the ruthless approach of Watford’s owner Gino Pozzo sacking season began early in the 2021/22 campaign. Despite leading the Hornets back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, and with the club in a less than shameful fifteenth in the table, Xisco Munoz was relieved of his duties in early October 2021 and replaced with Mr Dilly Dong himself Claudio Ranieri. Not to be outdone by the famously fickle Watford ownership Newcastle United’s not-at-all suspect new paymasters dismissed Steve Bruce later in the same month and were closely followed by Tottenham Hotspur who dispensed with the services of Nuno Espirito Santo barely three months into his tenure. At the time of writing three more Premier League clubs joined in the severance pay shenanigans with Daniel Farke rewarded for finally winning a game with Norwich City with his P45 and Dean Smith booted out at Aston Villa. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was finally put out of his misery by Manchester United a fortnight later with...

Today Richard Allinson takes a look at a man it’s always been hard to keep your eye off. Confident, skilful and with hair that L’Oreal thought was worth making him their first male model today’s subject won hearts on and off the pitch during the 1990s. He was criminally underused at international level but, unlike Matt Le Tissier , thankfully seems to have managed to steer clear of spamming the internet with questionable memes about the Covid-19 vaccine. Over to Rich. Fans of football nostalgia stay with me, because what I’m about to say is leading somewhere. Over the last couple of years, the Coronavirus lockdowns have led me to getting into I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I’m not especially proud of this, but I have been rather surprised at how entertaining I find watching a bunch of people that I previously didn’t know existed having to put up with Ant and Dec for a few weeks.  As I knew that I was inevitably going to be tuning in again this year, I was pleased when I saw t...

Happy New Year! We saw in 2021 here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words with a look at Eidur Gudjohnsen and his family’s impressive footballing pedigree and hoped that the year ahead would be a significant improvement on the one that had preceded it. We’re going to kick off 2022 with something similar although we might not be so keen to tempt fate with predictions for the year ahead. As always thanks to everyone who has read, shared, liked or commented on any of our posts and the four of us hope the New Year treats you well. I’m already convinced my son has surpassed me in many ways. Having nearly mastered walking, communication and banging things together I feel there is little left that I can teach him. I wonder when the likes of Frank Lampard Senior and Cesare Maldini had similar realisations about their progeny (in the former’s case probably when his son dropped the ‘Junior’ from the end of his name) and how their children’s achievements have obscured the admirable careers they had car...