A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Mat Jolin-Beech has been on holiday and all he’s brought back for us is this lousy blog post. Today Mat takes a look at a player Wayne Rooney described as pivotal to his club’s success, Andrea Pirlo stated “rushed around the pitch at the speed of an electron” and Sir Alex Ferguson believed was one of few out there capable of man marking a certain tax evading Argentinian. High praise from some of the game’s royalty. Over to Mat. South Korea is an interesting place. Having just been there on holiday (I know, lucky me) there is a lot to say and to like about it. It’s a lot more Southeast Asian in feel than I had been expecting. In my mind, Seoul especially, was going to feel very much like Tokyo. Modern, clean and fairly buttoned-up, conservative and grown up. A bit regimented and serious. I was in for a pleasant surprise. They love their 90s American retro fashion, street singers and K Pop dancers. There is neon everywhere – of course there is, and many, many modern, electric cars. But ...

On Easter Sunday morning I headed to Walthamstow’s Lloyd Park for, what I hope, becomes a semi-regular game of small sided football with some gentlemen of a similar age. Having ascertained the night before that we were using seven-a-side goals I packed my goalkeeper gloves and made it clear that’s where I would be happiest playing. I have had a couple of decent games in nets at my work’s Friday indoor kickabout this year so was, if not confident, happy to continue this vein of form. Around ten minutes in I was beaten at my near post by a shot I should have got more behind. Any hope of redemption disappeared quickly when a backpass bobbled over my foot and rolled into the side of the net. I spent the rest of the game’s eighty or so minutes running about avoiding any further goalkeeping duties. In part due to the critical results of goalkeeping errors, and also down to the generally poor quality of punditry on the position, the job of guarding the net is often lonely and underappreciated...

This week Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at a former Premier League star who you may be staggered to find out what he looks like now. At least according to a major national newspaper anyway. In reality today’s subject is currently back in his hometown managing Scarborough Athletic in the National League North and doing a pretty good job of it. That might not get you clicking quite so much though. Over to Mat. The Daily Mail. Depending on your viewpoint, a staple of reliability in the English media, or a right-wing rag. What it also is, is the home of the sidebar of shame. Moving away from its middle aged, middle class, right leaning home of the physical paper’s heartland the sidebar of shame attracts a younger audience with classic clickbait headlines. Headlines as I write this include: • “Tom Hiddleston and his fiancée Zawe Ashton look every inch the doting parents as they enjoy day out in Paris with their baby” • “Heidi Klum’s ‘nepo baby’ Leni, 18, shows off her casual style in lat...

On my way back from seeing the inimitable Dave Hause in Islington last September I saw a poster on the platform of Seven Sisters’ station with an advert for ‘Top London Schools. No Fees.” Perhaps it was the unwise Sunday night pints or the impact of a night of genuinely moving music from Philadelphia’s finest but the advert triggered me on a number of levels. As a product of and long time employee of comprehensive schools in London I was offended by the notion that you would need to list such establishments as, to borrow Arthur Conan Doyle’s words, “beacons of light” amongst the capital’s educational establishments. It also angered me that none of the schools listed were anywhere near the station itself implying that this particular corner of Tottenham was in someway not where you would want to let your kids do their learning. Who was this advert really aimed at? As the doors closed and I continued on up the Victoria Line the words of Hause’s ‘ The Great Depression ’ snuck into my hea...