A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at the trials and tribulations of pre-season and how it can make us all dream that this year will be different than the last. Today’s subject more than delivered on his early promise at Manchester United with 59 goals in 157 appearances for the Red Devils and a key role in two Premier League wins. Over to Mat. Pre-season is a time most players hate. You always get former pros, new into punditry (or Lee Dixon ) coming onto the radio in early August saying how much they miss playing. The camaraderie, the banter, the ridiculous practical jokes, or weekend away benders that end up in a dentist chair…yet, they all state they do not miss the running. The gruelling work to build up a base level of fitness to last the season of 38 league games and however many cup games you’re fortunate enough to get through (up to sixty for the best teams). The bleep test and interval running sessions so hard they make you sick - just ask Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min. You’ll...

We are picking up a request post today on behalf of Gareth ‘Marco J’ Jackson. First of all we’d like to thank Gareth for his patience as this particular suggestion was made back in December 2021. Secondly we hope this lives up to expectations as Gareth has described himself as a “one man fact bus” for today’s subject. Please feel free to keep sending us suggestions for future posts via our Twitter page. In March 2008 an American bred horse called Jalil emerged victorious in the Al Maktoum Challenge, Round 3 held at Meydan Racecourse, Dubai. Well done if you won some money on that and similar congratulations if you picked up any eachway cash on Gloria de Campeao or Lucky Find. I would assume, however, that the less equine inclined readership of this blog would have not had such a great day at the races on this particular occasion as they would have found it impossible not to back the British bred outsider who finished in sixth place. After all how many horses have been named after a le...

Today Emlyn Jones brings us a story of a great footballing injustice which coloured both mine and his formative footballing years. Emlyn and I first met at the University of Exeter as residents of the prestigious Lafrowda halls but it was over a piss in a bush outside the pub my now wife worked at waiting for her shift to finish that we realised that we had lived almost parallel lives. It’s amazing how deep a friendship can be formed over a mutual dislike of Jason McAteer . Over to Emlyn. In 1994 the relatively new Premier League held 22 teams. Apparently this was too bloated and the league needed to be stripped down to a leaner twenty sides by the start of the 1995/96 season. There were a number of ideas mooted for how to achieve this; relegate more teams? Restrict the number of promotions? Set up play-off games between the lowest top tier sides and the highest second tier? In the end, the decision was made that four teams would be relegated from the Premier League, meaning that the t...

In the high days of Match magazine, as well as being able to speculate about Peter Fear ’s alternate careers, young football fans were always treated to some insight into their idols’ lives behind the scenes through fairly formulaic interviews. From just one August 1998 issue (thanks to The Premiership Years for this) we learn that Andy Booth would have been game to do a bit of sportswear modelling but not so keen on “anything racey”, Andy Todd felt let down by the Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” despite liking the singles and Garry Flitcroft didn’t have too much time for Chris Sutton ’s personal hygiene and believed his young team mate Damien Duff “was shy until he’d had half a shandy”. Lovely stuff all round. Modern footballers are far duller. The most insight we get into their lives comes through their heavily edited social media accounts which generally tell us that they’ll “go again” after their most recent disappointing defeat. The decline of the ma...