Category Archives: Football

From Biters to Belgians

The Saga of Liverpool’s strike force has proved to be something of an epic in recent years. After a long period of what can only be described as mediocrity, the 2013/2014 season delivered endless excitement and goals galore as the potent new attack hit the target again and again. Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling were running riot and the future looked decided red. Continue reading

The Football Fan’s Bedroom

As a teenager I was fortunate enough to be given two rooms in the house all to myself. My parents decorated my bedroom and created a very girly space but they let me loose on my living room. This was a decision that they promptly regretted! Rather than undertaking an elaborate paint job I decided to cover every inch of all four walls with pictures of my favourite footballers and eventually the room became something of a museum dedicated to Liverpool Football Club. Continue reading

The Cult of the Sticker

Being a football fan I have few fonder memories of my childhood than those centred on my treasured Panini sticker books. I avidly collected the faces of the football stars in my albums and couldn’t wait to invest in the next packet of stickers. When this year’s World Cup started I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing in my life. I was about to witness a footballing fiesta but I did not have a sticker album and I felt an overwhelming desire to get one.

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Thoughts on the World Cup

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I always look forward to the World Cup with eager anticipation but heaven knows why because recent tournaments have largely been a disappointment. What should be a massive festival of football has often been reduced to a war of attrition with one boring tactical match after another, a truly awful final and many matches decided by nothing more than poor officials.
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Jose Mourinho

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Jose Mourinho

Mourinho could quite possibly be the greatest football manager of all time which is rather galling! If ever there was a man whose failure I would love to celebrate then he is surely that person but he just keeps on winning. The continued success is fuelling both his arrogance and his propensity for controversy and I have frankly had enough of it.

This season’s title chase has proved to be one of the greatest of all time and a surprising development for a league which looked set to be dominated by the biggest spenders. What promised to be a procession has become the closest contest in years as the established order of things has been turned on its head.

Who would have expected Liverpool to make such a big fight of it particularly as they were forced to start the season without talisman Luis Suarez? Few gave Arsenal much of a chance and nobody predicted that Manchester United would fall off their lofty perch in such dramatic style. Chelsea looked set for a season of transition but Mourinho has worked his magic very quickly and so we have a four horse race including Manchester City but not Moyes’ United.  Not that the special one is prepared to acknowledge that Liverpool even exist.

Mourinho is quite happy to talk about the threat of Manchester city when questioned about the title but he never mentions Liverpool. It would appear that this is a man who bears grudges and that he still hasn’t recovered from Chelsea’s defeat against the Reds in the 2005 Champions League semi-final. He still contends that the winning goal did not cross the line, conveniently overlooking the fact that there should have been a penalty awarded just prior to the goal and that his team had 180 minutes over two legs to score themselves and failed to do so. He always attributes failure to anything but himself or his team and now he is at it again.

The recent Premier League match against Aston Villa was packed with controversy. Should Willian have been sent off? Probably not but Ramirez’s red card was spot on. Mourinho has been quick to blame the referee for Chelsea’s demise in the game but the fact is his team played poorly even with 11 men and he really should have apologised for the Ramirez tackle which he say was a result of frustration. Clearly it is OK in Mourinho’s world to break someone’s leg if the referee makes a mistake.

I cannot tell you how much I want Liverpool to beat Chelsea at Anfield and finish above them in the league. I am sure that even if they win by six it will all be the referee’s fault or because they cheated. Chelsea couldn’t possibly lose because Mourinho has got his tactics wrong or his players have underperformed. The man wants to take a long hard look in the mirror at home. Yes he is brilliant but he isn’t right all of the time and his ridiculous and often clearly disingenuous outpourings are really provoking. The Chelsea fans clearly didn’t like Benitez and I can tell you that the Liverpool fans don’t like Mourinho much either!

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Article by Sally Stacey

Football Pundits

I can still remember the days when football on television was restricted to brief highlights of a couple of games each Saturday evening. Now there is a live match from somewhere in the world broadcast every day and the coverage has been extended to encompass in depth analysis of the events. In addition the commentators are no longer alone. It is now compulsory to have an expert pundit with a microphone which sounds like a great idea but certainly isn’t always for the best. Continue reading

An Unexpected Result

One thing you used to learn as a football fan is that some things are simply inevitable and cannot be avoided. The same fixtures repeatedly throw up similar results and so there are some matches that you know are going to be a disaster before a ball is kicked. There are places that I actually stopped travelling too because I became weary of the bad outcomes but I might have to change my mind about one of them now following the events of the weekend. Continue reading

What a Season!

I am sure that when Liverpool beat Manchester United early in the season they viewed the victory as a significant win against title contenders. As it turned out in this topsy turvy season all they had managed was a narrow win against a mid-table side! At the beginning of the 2013/2014 Premier League season I wrote about my growing weariness with the predictability of it all only to look rather foolish now as the usual order of things has been turned on its head. Continue reading

Can England Win The World Cup?

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If England win the world cup it will be a miracle up there with the second coming of Christ. Anything is possible, even the reappearance of Jesus, but some things are so deeply unlikely that they barely warrant consideration and England’s fate in Brazil is one of them. It is not that I am unpatriotic, I am simply a realist and down here in the real world England simply aren’t good enough. Continue reading

Joey Ate the Frogs Legs

Being a writer I am fascinated by words and I have always admired those who use them well. I am also passionate about football and amazingly it has been that sport which has yielded many of my favourite examples of how to use our language for the maximum impact. The fans are a constant inspiration with their quite brilliant banners and those who comment on the sport have produced many classic one liners too.   Continue reading