Posts Tagged ‘ ESPN Soccernet ’

February 15 – walking softly into the weekend

As Beetface’s lot saunters towards the league title without playing particularly well, there’s a truly scary proposition for the rest of English football to gnaw upon after the club announced record profits in Q4 2012.  Without the Glazers sucking out the profits from the club like anaemic vampires, how much further ahead might the quieter side [...]



January 29 – Sweet FA for Beetface and Fleet Street goes into Mario mourning

It’s always nice to have midweek games in the Premier League. It’s sort of like putting on a coat you’ve not worn for a while and reaching into the pocket and pulling out $20, an unexpected and pleasant break in the normal mundane routine during the week. And it also allows us to watch football [...]



January 17 – Silver linings transfer window and Walcott scores big in contract talks

As I regularly make fun of Fleet Street types for lazy stereotyping, it would seem hypocritical to question whether Arsene Wenger’s nationality makes him every agent’s favourite pigeon manager at the bargaining table. Because given some of the dribs and drabs coming out of  Theo Walcott’s contract capitulation negotiation, it’s easy to understand why Holloway Road Properties doesn’t have [...]



January 11 – where do United fans really live? Let’s ask Twitter

A very thin gruel today, both in terms of punditry and rumours. But there’s some rare brilliance from the good folks at the Oxford Internet Institute, who used Twitter to track where supporters of different clubs actually live and find out if the fanbase of Salford’s finest was actually concentrated in Surrey. It was a good [...]



November 29 – journos get stuck into Paul Lambert

With pretty tepid fare on the midweek schedule — save for perhaps the lesser lights electric start against Brendan Rodgers’ tika-taka merchants — I thought I’ve give my readers some insights into the glamourous world of public relations and the beautiful people whose only agenda is the truth and serving the public’s interest. No, I [...]



November 2 – applauding London’s most non-racist club

When Roman Abramovich pitched up in the west end with his petroroubles and grand ambitions, it pretty much guaranteed the football hacks who populate Fleet Street would never, ever have a dull news day. And with charming characters such as Choc Ice and football’s Nick Griffin in the change room, well there’s no end to [...]



October 18 — London calling

So it’s my final day for in Fort McMurray before beginning the pilgrimage to Islington, with stops in Edmonton (to see family) and B.C. (to see friends) along the way. I confess I’ve haven’t completely worked out logistics of blogging in Old Blighty just yet but I will endeavour to have a full report up at some point, likely when I’m in the departures [...]



October 11 — remembering Winty and McClair plus more Klinsi and hot rumours!

It’s international week *long yawn* and it always makes me just a little sleep zzzzz.  Sorry dozed off there for a second. It’s actually sort of amusing watching Fleet Streeters trying to find some fresh angles to hype for Friday’s qualifier between the Three Lions and San Marino, which should be about as competitive as the average [...]



October 5 – My birthday gift from Choc Ice (WARNING: contains references to the FA and John Terry)

Today is a milestone as I’m officially closer to 50 than 40. And I think it’s fair to say that short of Arsene Wenger squaring up to Bombardier Allardyce and kicking him square in the swingers during the pre-match handshake at Upton Park on Saturday and saying “Blow on those bubbles, fat man”, I couldn’t [...]



September 28 – Welcome to St. Petersburg and Charlie Adam’s Stoke

It’s been about one month since the transfer window closed and Zenit St. Petersburg’s notoriously open-minded and tolerant supporters alleged planted a fake bomb with Hulk’s picture on it near the club’s training ground. Which is certainly one way to welcome one of your record signings to your club. I hate to say I told [...]