September 2011
6 posts
A reply for Mr M. Samuel, and other pettiness.
Martin Samuel’s Bayern bugbear.
The beauty of football, they say, is in its unpredictability. 1999 and all that. Personally I find as much comfort in the endless inevitabilities that our beloved game throws up. Two such inevitabilities have come to the fore in recent days: the first is that, when FC Bayern play an English team in the Premier League, the English press will go to the ends of...
A forgotten hero and a murky resignation.
The tragic tale of Owen Hargreaves.
If there was a buzzword in the England national team at the start of the last decade, it was probably “golden”. While Goldenballs was on his road to redemption, it was the golden boy Owen who wowed the world in Munich, and paved the way for what, according to most British pundits, should have been a golden generation.
After all, if you have one man who can...
The wronged referees of England, and the wrong...
Referee bashing.
I never really held with the “King” nickname when it came to Kenny Dalglish. I appreciate the success, the European Cups, the Liverpool blood in Anfield veins yadda yadda yadda, but “King”? Really?
King is not an uncommon nickname, of course, but most people to whom it is applied have done a bit more to bally well earn it. Elvis revolutionised pop culture, Kevin Keegan wore...
Cooking the Books (or Emails) and Arnesen's woes.
HSV’s poor start.
Frank Arnesen has rarely been placed in the position of village idiot. As a player he was as well respected as any, and even during that hardly halcyon period at Chelsea he commanded his fair share of reverence. The cartoon in kicker this week, however, betrays what is fast becoming a distinctly uncomfortable truth for HSV’s Director of Sport: his relentless...
Joe The Wanderer Cole and sporting rivalries.
Joe Cole’s ambitions at Lille.
It’s a good job Joe Cole decided to undertake his first overseas adventure in the north of France rather than the South. The bottom half of la Patrie is currently chomping ever more excitedly on their foie gras in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup. One rather unassuming attacking midfielder from England would certainly not cause much of a stir.
Even in...
Lahm-gate, Goetze-gate and why we can't hate City.
Phillip Lahm’s literary exploits.
Phillip Lahm’s eyebrows really are incredible, aren’t they? I ask the question because I fear that the issue has become lost in recent days, under a needless storm of public criticism over some book or other. Anyone who has ever set eyes on the Germany captain will be aware that the foremost point in any Lahm discussion should always be his most...
