A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

As 2022 comes to a close Richard Allinson takes a look back at the recent World Cup in Qatar. Those of you looking for further homage being paid to a particularly talented tax evader or musings on England’s future under Gareth Southgate may well be disappointed but even if the most recent edition of the global festival of football raised a lot of questions it at least provided a whole host of answers to those niggling “I wonder what happened to (insert name here)” enquiries. Over to Rich with your pub quiz answers for 2023. Sometimes, deciding which footballer to write about for this blog can be tricky. This one, for example, was supposed to be about Mel Sterland, but then I watched Argentina v Holland in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final and noticed that Luuk de Jong was playing.  There were numerous things that baffled me about the presence of Holland’s no.9 that night. For one, I thought he must be about 48 and long retired by now. But then I checked, saw he is only 32, and I fe...

It felt very odd decorating the Christmas tree while the World Cup final got underway and, once Angel di Maria had hit the turf allowing the commentary team to pollute their breeches with delight over Lionel Messi’s 24th successful penalty for Argentina, I lost interest quite quickly. Shortly after Argentina’s second my son woke up from a much-delayed nap and wanted to watch Bluey instead and I had no qualms about his decision. Apparently some other stuff happened in the rest of the game, including Kylian Mbappe becoming only the second man to net a World Cup final hat-trick after Sir Geoff Hurst, but by all accounts it was a drab encounter which could in no way compare to the adventures of a family of Australian dogs. Hurst’s record was not the only one to be broken in Qatar. By besting Belgium’s ‘ Golden Generation ’, Spain and Portugal, Morocco became the first African team to reach the semi-finals in the tournament’s history. The impossibly handsome Olivier Giroud overtook the sim...

This week Emlyn Jones takes a look at a footballer who could well have been the perfect tie-in for World Cup final weekend if the work sweepstake had fallen more in my favour and Croatia hadn’t made Neymar cry by being really good at the penalties. I’m happy to take that first loss for the latter win and at least no one was forced to hold up some sort of memorial shirt for the forward’s vertebrae ahead of a semi-final shellacking this time. On that note, over to Emlyn. Several years ago (late 2008 if Google is to be trusted), fellow blogger Manny and I went out drinking in my hometown of Wokingham during a break in the university term. At some point we stumbled across a bar that was showing a UEFA Cup tie between Standard Liège and Everton. Despite the game having minimal relevance to either of us, we were both struck by a marauding fullback with a large afro hairstyle, gaining an immediate affection for him. Given the career the player went on to have, I'm going to applaud us for ...

Some people were just meant to be footballers. Former Anderlecht star, and Championship Manager legend , Mark de Man must have had some interesting careers interviews in his youth and it’s fitting that he dominated a number of virtual defences during the 1990s. It’s a shame he was never paired with Blackburn Rovers ’ Nicky Marker as the pair could have provided some much needed protection for the unfortunately named former France international goalkeeper Dominique Dropsy. The concept of nominative determinism, where you gravitate towards a career befitting your name, was first coined in a New Scientist article in 1994 which highlighted a recent polar exploration by Dan Snowman and could provide some explanation for the aforementioned footballers. Outside of these more obvious/comical examples there are some former stars who just sound like they were meant to be footballers. Can you imagine Alessandro Del Piero working at your local petrol station? Or Bebeto answering the phone when y...

This week Emlyn Jones is stepping up to the oche with a story about a multi-talented Dutchman who did a lot more than win a Teasmade or narrowly miss out on speedboat ownership during a fascinating career. As an aside Emlyn and I once spent an entire day traversing South Wales to find a pub with a dartboard. Thanks to The Butterfly Collector in Barry and apologies for the several small holes in the wall. Over to Emlyn. I am an avid fan, and fairly mediocre player, of darts. Between that and the multitude of great football accounts online, there's always a fair amount of darts and football nonsense in my Twitter feed as I scroll through. It's unusual for the two to combine, hence why I was surprised to see that former England manager and wine enthusiast Sam Allardyce played in the early qualifying rounds of the 2003 UK Darts Open. This isn't the only example of a footballer trying their hand at other sports; a few months shy of his fiftieth birthday, Paolo Maldini played in ...