A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Managerial rivalries have always added a little extra spice to the beautiful game. Back in 1974 the legendary Brian Clough and Don Revie’s acrimonious relationship came to a head in a live television interview following the former’s premature exit from the latter’s beloved Leeds United. The competition between Crystal Palace’s Terry Venables and Brighton and Hove Albion’s Alan Mullery in the late 1970s grew into one of the most farcical yet fierce rivalries in the M23 corridor with ‘El Gatwicko’ a season highlight for both sets of fans. Sir Alex Ferguson’s infamous mind games with an emotional Kevin Keegan led to one of the most famous meltdowns in 90s pop culture let alone football and it wasn’t long before the wily Scot set his sights on Arsenal ’s intellectual Arsene Wenger. While Manchester United’s clashes with the Gunners after the turn of the century led to tussles in the tunnel , flying pizzas and Wenger standing on top of the Old Trafford dugout it wasn’t just Ferguson tradin...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech brings us a look at a stalwart centre-half who, perhaps unfairly, became a byword for defensive frailties. Over twelve years as a top-flight footballer suggests otherwise but why let that get in the way of a good story? After all, prior to THAT day in 1992, Ronny Rosenthal was regarded as a top quality striker. Over to Mat for more. In case you didn’t know yet dear reader, I am a Manchester United fan. That means this year I became used to some comedy defending. Both Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw seem to have caught a case of the Pickfords insofar as they are good for England but hopeless for their club. So much so that both have probably been superseded in the starting XI by their understudies Telles and Lindelof. Some of the defending at times has been laughably bad with many basic errors. This got me thinking about who is the king of comedy defending. Enter one half of the infamous Toon Army Chuckle Brothers. One Titus Malachi Bramble. Now, I know he never got a...

Today Richard Aliinson brings us a tribute to one of the greatest arts in football and one of its most able exponents. The caption to go with today’s deliberately niche card even starts with the line “specialising in spectacular volleyed goals” which gives you an idea of how little respect this man had for a football in flight. Over to Rich. When I was cleaning out my old bedroom recently, I came across a load of football memorabilia that had been gathering dust for decades. Amongst the pile of almost everything that was produced to do with Italia ‘90 was a 1989 Tonka figurine of Mark Hughes. Naturally ‘Sparky’ was executing a volley.  Hughes hitting the ball on the full was such a noteworthy image from his era, that it is no surprise that he was immortalised in cheap plastic in this pose. It is probably still the same nowadays, where I expect kids will be collecting figures of the iconic poses of their generation too: Paul Pogba raising a hand to apologise for a mishit pass; Dele...

When Budweiser landed the sponsorship deal for the Premier League in 2005 their advertising team were quick to look to assuage football fans’ concerns with a campaign stating that the American beverage giants would stick to beer rather than looking to interfere with the beautiful game. Based on their product it could be argued that they might want to reconsider even that but thankfully the top flight was not subjected to “added time multi-ball” to avoid 0-0 draws. The rules of the game, however, are constantly evolving as shown by the various interpretations of handball in the first Premier League season to enjoy VAR or the addition of everyone’s favourite footballing thing to moan about in the first place.  This has led to various conversations about what rules would we the public change. For example I would make it a bookable offence for any goalkeeper who didn’t go up for a corner or advantageous free kick in any minute of added time when their side was either drawing or trailin...