A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look back at happier times at Old Trafford when the Manchester United faithful could rely on players to turn up for big occasions and put themselves about to pick up important results. Luckily they have had good reminders of this from Scott McTominay’s Serie A victory with Napoli, Dean Henderson’s FA Cup final heroics for Crystal Palace and Jadon Sancho providing a goal and an assist to help Chelsea win the Europa Vauxhall Conference League. Over to Mat to get all misty-eyed. Under appreciated footballers. Cult Heroes. The tireless workers. That is the backbone of who we write about here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words. No player more so than today’s subject epitomises that. One Joseph (who knew?) Denis Irwin. Mr Reliable. He comes to mind off the back of a YouTube (or possibly Facebook) poll to Manchester United fans: if your life depended on it, who would you want to take, and score, a penalty? Many votes went the ways of messrs Ronaldo, Rooney , Fernandes, et...

In 1892 the Football League introduced its Second Division and the first two clubs to experience promotion to the top flight were Darwen and Sheffield United. While the Blades enjoyed a relatively comfortable 1893/94 campaign, finishing in tenth, Darwen finished second bottom and, having lost their “test match” against Small Heath, began a footballing tradition of suffering an instant return to the second tier. At the end of the 1898/99 season Darwen finished bottom of the Second Division with just nine points having conceded 141 goals and decided not to stand for re-election to the competition. They spent the entirety of the twentieth century playing in regional leagues and were dissolved in 2009 having fallen into financial difficulties. Darwen were one of the founding members of the Football League and were also the first club to be officially relegated after finishing bottom of the pile in the season prior to the birth of the Second Division. Yo-yo clubs were clearly a thing before...

Mat Jolin-Beech brings us something resembling a season review of what has been an interesting campaign for a number of reasons. Newcastle United won the Carabao/Worthington/Coca-Cola/Rumbelows Cup to end a trophy drought stretching back to their Intertoto Cup triumph in 2006 (and their first domestic success since 1955). Crystal Palace won the FA Cup to register a first major trophy in their history because apparently the Zenith Data Systems Cup doesn’t count. Tottenham Hotspur managed to finish one place above the relegation zone and win the Europa League to take the term “Spursy” to strange new places. Over to Mat to take a closer look at the top flight. Leicester City have had an awful season. Relegated. Many, many home games with straight defeats without scoring. Only Southampton being even more terrible has saved some of their blushes. It wasn’t too long ago that they won the league.  Now, Danny Simpson is not a bad player. True, he’ll never top many Ballon d’Or lists or ...