A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Around a month ago we cast the net out into the sea that is Twitter for inspiration for future blog posts and Brixton Hatter put forward today’s subject due to his reputation as “a classic centre forward and fearsome opponent for any defender” who is loved and respected as “one of the nicest guys in football and part of the glue that holds the Luton Town community together”. That’s probably part of the reason the landlord at the Football Tavern initially suggested we write him up ages ago. That and the fact he also served as a pub landlord himself. Still, better late than never eh? In May 2022, despite the very best efforts of returning club legend John Sheridan, Oldham Athletic were relegated to the National League thus becoming the first Premier League side to fall out of the league pyramid. In thirty years the Latics had gone from being part of the supposed birth of modern football , and providers of some great FA Cup moments , to the victims of appalling boardroom leadership faci...

Welcome to our 300th post! Thank you for sticking with us (and our awful puns ) over the last couple of years and for all the requests , kind words and support for four mates who owe a lot to Wikipedia and the good people at Panini and Merlin. For those of you who have been with us since the beginning you may well have noticed we have a soft spot for a substitute goalkeeper. Only a few weeks after launching I felt the need to sing the praises of Carlo Nash , Rich followed shortly with a hymn to Bobby Mimms and since then Raimond van der Gouw , Frode Grodas , Lars Leese , Mark Beeney and Jordi Masip have all had their five hundred words. So when Rich happened upon some interesting news about Leicester City and Liverpool’s former bench warmer Pegguy Arphexad it seemed fitting to dedicate this landmark collaborative post to similar legends of the substitutes’ bench. We’ll let Mr Allinson take it from here. Throughout the years on this blog, I have espoused the values of goalkeepers an...

Today Mat Jolin-Beech brings us some further musings on recent events in Qatar while also having a look back at a quality midfield man who can class himself as both a Port Vale and Wimbledon legend. Mat raises some interesting questions over international football but, without some of the loopholes he looks at, we’d never have had Andy Townsend leading Ireland to USA ’94 or John Aldridge having a quiet word with the fourth official at the same tournament. Over to Mat with more. The 2022 Qatar World Cup raised many, many questions. Debate raged over it with a truckload of important points - none of which I am going to cover here. (Be honest, you didn’t come here for relevant, highbrow, hard-hitting journalism now did you?) No. Here Robbie Earle and the winter World Cup come together in one perfect union. “How?” I hear you ask. Well, let me tell you dear reader. This World Cup (or should it now be Messi’s World Cup, the GOAT , and the best human being ever to live, according to all sp...

Just before Christmas my sister and I met up for a long overdue (overpriced) pint and a catch up and got on to talking about the perils of the annual workplace Secret Santa. Not only has rampant inflation meant that a reasonable limit leaves you with very few options but, if the net is cast too wide, you more often than not end up with a questionable judgement on your character by someone you’ve never actually spoken to. I have to confess that I only remembered my small office’s once I had parked the car at work on the day of our Christmas do so our head of Computer Science ended up with a bag of cans from the offie. Thankfully Catherine Perry is far more thoughtful and I got two nice books and a pack of Match Attax cards. Once open I gave her a choice of footballers for a post and she settled on today’s subject based on her own happy memories of living and working in Madrid and said player’s boyish good looks. Hope this does the trick Pezza. Going back to questionable judgements of ch...