N/A: Darren Anderton, Tottenham Hotspur, Honey Monster’s Soccer Pop Ups

Given an opportunity I would probably have cereal for most meals. I appreciate this reveals an unsophisticated palette, a distinct level of laziness and a concerning lack of maturity but if you hadn’t worked the last two out from this blog then maybe you haven’t been following too closely. Thankfully being married to an actual adult and enjoying cooking has prevented me from existing entirely on Cheerios but there’s always a box of something on the go for emergencies and what seems to be missing nowadays is a questionable prize to go with the breakfast, lunch or dinner of champions.

In the halcyon days of the 1990s the choice of breakfast had much more to do with what random thing came free with it over nutritional value or flavour. This is perhaps why Sugar Puffs dominated the market. Buried in your pack of glazed puff wheat could be a figurine of Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand or Lee Sharpe or perhaps a pencil topper letting you light up your Maths lessons with appearances from Gunnar Halle, Karl-Heinz Riedle or Sol Campbell. Better still were the accompanying adverts where the Honey Monster emerged from the bench to deliver Kevin Keegan’s entertainers the trophy their attacking verve deserved or to pull off a Rene Higuita-esque scorpion kick to help Manchester United to European glory. No wonder England and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Darren Anderton got involved in the cereal’s pop up card giveaway.

These pop up cards were the gift that kept on giving for any stat hungry football fan in an era before Wikipedia and on one side we found out that Darren Anderton had previously played for Portsmouth, made his Spurs’ Premier League debut against Southampton and, at the time of printing, had over sixteen England caps. Anderton had been a key player in England’s attempts to bring football home at Euro 96 and had hit the post in extra-time against eventual winners Germany before Gareth Southgate’s infamous penalty was saved by Andreas Kopke in the penalty shootout. He was also named in the World Cup squad in 1998 and started the first two group games ahead of David Beckham before the two paired up on the right side against Colombia allowing both to score fantastic goals to send England through.

The other side is more akin to a classic Shoot or Match magazine interview revealing very little but just enough to make the stars of the Premier League seem more human. Here we found out that Anderton was a fan of Michael Jordan, Friends and TLC (stop talking about American things!) and would have been a banker in another life albeit one who bit his nails. What’s most interesting is that the Spurs’ midfield man claims his nickname is “Dazza” when even the most loyal of Sugar Puffs’ fans knew full well it was ‘Sicknote’. Ahead of both the international tournaments mentioned above Anderton was laid low with injury for considerable amounts of time and such physical frailty had plagued him since turning professional with Pompey in 1990 leading to him earning the monicker from teammate Andy Gosney. During his career Anderton suffered with a hernia, groin strain, Achilles tendon issues among other knocks which limited him to thirty England caps in which he still contributed seven goals.

Darren Anderton left Spurs on a free transfer to Birmingham City in 2004 before joining Wolverhampton Wanderers a season later. His final three years as a professional were spent at AFC Bournemouth where he defied his age and injury record to rack up 73 appearances and thirteen goals including a long-range winner in his final game to secure a 1-0 win over Chester City. Although his fitness record came into question his ability to fight back from such setbacks throughout his career was admirable and he managed to score 79 goals across 563 appearances as well as providing countless assists for the likes of Guy Whittingham, Teddy Sheringham, Emile Heskey, Carl Cort and Brett Pitman. You might not be clamouring for a sicknote in your breakfast cereal but you could do a lot worse than finding Darren Anderton in your Sugar Puffs.