Leaked minutes from a meeting of the Fellowship of Footballers Forced to play at Fullback (FFFF)

The following document is a leaked copy of the minutes from a recent meeting of professional footballers forced to play at fullback. It is reprinted verbatim in the public interest as this website seeks to raise awareness of their plight. May they suffer in silence no longer.

----------------------------

The Fellowship of Footballers Forced to play at Fullback (FFFF)

Bi-annual Meeting minutes

August 3rd, 2015

Attendees
Leandro Bacuna, Elliott Bennett, Chris Brunt, Jack Colback, Craig Gardner, Bradley Johnson, James McClean, Kieran Richardson, Jeff Schlupp, Antonio Valencia, Ashley Young.

Chairman
Kieran Richardson

Scribe
Antonio Valencia

AGENDA

• Welcome and New Members
   
• Old Business
  • Tony Pulis
  • Strategies for confronting managers

• New Business
  • FFFF as an abbreviation
  • Alex Neil: a new threat?

WELCOME
Chairman Richardson welcomed the Fellowship to the meeting. Additional seating was sourced for first-time attendees Bradley Johnson, Elliott Bennett and James McClean.

Craig Gardner will assume responsibility for ensuring there are sufficient chairs in place at the commencement of the next meeting, with Ashley Young now identified as having an ability deficit in this area.

OLD BUSINESS

Tony Pulis
Chairman Richardson picked up the discussion from the last meeting regarding current West Bromwich Albion FC manager Tony Pulis’s propensity for playing non-fullbacks at fullback.

The Chairman noted that Pulis would appear to have dispensed with the strategy, deployed during his time managing Stoke City FC, of playing centre-backs at fullback. Consequently, Albion defenders Jonas Olsson, Gareth McAuley and Craig Dawson have politely declined an invitation to become members of the Fellowship, though Olsson has added the caveat that he would “definitely like this reviewed” in future if necessary.

Craig Gardner and Chris Brunt (both currently employees of Pulis) then spoke at length about their manager's emerging trend of picking “literally any midfielder, regardless of stature” at fullback. It was noted by the Chairman that the FFFF recognises how severely this is hampering not only the careers of Gardner and Brunt, but also that of new Fellowship member James McClean.

McClean then spoke with great emotion of his dismay at being deployed at fullback in friendlies since his signing this summer, stating that he was promised he would “definitely play on the wing” but hadn’t realised that this would entail marking the opposition’s wingers and playing at fullback. [At this point the members all rose and linked arms in a show of support to McClean.]

Pulis remains the greatest danger to the FFFF's ongoing work, with both members and non-members urged to avoid signing for one of his sides. 

Strategies for confronting managers
Members Jack Colback and Ashley Young spoke in turn of how they successfully overcame spells of being played at fullback against their will. Colback referenced his time at fullback under the stewardship of Paolo Di Canio at Sunderland AFC, noting that the Italian had placed Colback there due to a misunderstanding where Colback was adjudged to have “looked at him funny”, resulting in a lengthy spell in a previously alien position, from which the player gained nothing but humiliation and the loss of respect of his friends, family and loved ones.

Colback revealed that he was only able to end his time as a fullback by "waiting patiently until the gaffer hated all the others even more than he hated me". This was assessed by the members to be a good strategy when managed by Di Canio, but too long-winded to deploy under most managers.

Young spoke of how he was able to overcome his spell at fullback for Manchester United FC last season by “basically just still being a winger and waiting for the actual winger in front of me to lose form”. This was deemed to be one of the most successful strategies for ending an unwanted spell at fullback, one that fellow members Bacuna and Schlupp said they would be aggressively pursuing in the coming season.

NEW BUSINESS

FFFF: a good abbreviation?
The Chairman asked the group to consider whether 'FFFF' is somewhat unwieldy as an abbreviation for the Fellowship of Footballers Forced to play at Fullback, noting that it is quite laborious when spoken out loud. “Nobody can be bothered to spell out 'Eff-Eff-Eff-Eff',” he said, “but on the flipside, much as we’d like to be an acronym spoken as a single word like ‘Fifa’ or ‘Uefa’, public take-up on 'Ffff' may not be a resounding success. Chris Brunt summed up the feelings of the group with his closing remark that ‘Ffff’ would “look like someone had farted” in written form.

A brief discussion of alternative options had mixed results, with perhaps the best suggestion being that of Craig Gardner, who suggested ‘F4’ as preferable to ‘FFFF’. The Chairman was then forced to remind the group of the seriousness of these meetings when Ashley Young flippantly suggested a rebranding to ‘Fullbacks 4 Justice’ and that Chairman Richardson could "launch the new logo dressed as Batman". Young apologised for this remark and concurred with the Chairman’s view that he is “not as clever as he thinks he is”.

Alex Neil: a new threat?
New members Bradley Johnson and Elliott Bennett addressed the group for the first time on the subject of their manager Alex Neil playing them at fullback in pre-season friendlies. With both players established members of the Norwich City first-team squad, Johnson wondered if it was a case of Neil, a relatively recent appointment as manager, “letting the lads know who’s boss”, while Bennett felt that it may have been “because friendlies are just a laugh, a bit like training”, though conceded he was experiencing sleeping problems and recurring nightmares about “having to mark Hazard and Sterling” this season.

The group agreed to monitor developments regarding Alex Neil's approach, with the Chairman stressing that Neil “probably isn’t another Pulis, but we can’t afford to be complacent”. Consequently discussion of Alex Neil will remain scheduled for the next meeting, but will not be upgraded to the permanent place on the agenda afforded to Pulis at the present time.

ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned after the singing of the traditional Fellowship anthem, We Shall Not Be Moved.

The next meeting will be held on 4th January 2016.

ENDS

----------------------------


The FFFF's Mission:
Footballers should not be forced to play at fullback. Having to play at fullback is degrading and should not be inflicted upon elite athletes unless they have specifically chosen to play there. If you are a footballer being played at fullback without your explicit consent, contact the FFFF today and we can act as your voice. Together we can enforce positive change and stamp out footballers having to play at fullback against their will.

The 10 best names at the World Cup

Once I had the idea to write this piece, I was dismayed to see that Bwin had already beaten me to it. They've got a couple of the obvious ones, such as Carlo Costly and the gloriously monikered Yeltsin Tejada. However, in my opinion there were some pretty key omissions from their list, so here's an alternative Top 10 Best-Named Players at Brazil 2014.

1) Patrick Pemberton 

Costa Rica and Alajuelense

You genuinely cannot beat a reserve goalie from an exotic nation who sounds like he has every chance of being cast as the next Dr Who. Or, as suggested by @GavHutchinson: "Right Arm, Fast (Vauxhall End)". That is also spot on. Patrick Pemberton: the most dashing, debonair name at Brazil 2014.

2) Frickson Erazo 

Ecuador and Flamengo
Wow! A name that is as satisfying to say as it is wonderful to gawp at. Frickson Erazo. FRICKSON Erazo. Frickson ERAZO. He sounds like man in a Vic & Bob sketch, perhaps a visiting cousin of Vic's from the Tropics, who keeps a bread-stick behind his ear for no apparent reason and carries a bright green tree-frog around in a Tupperware box with air holes. 

3) Mix Diskerud 

USA and Rosenborg

Notoriously debauched Scandinavian hard house DJ, best known for releasing a banging compilation CD every summer.

4) Ognjen Vranjes 

Bosnia and Elazigspor
I'm refusing to call him anything other than "Onion Bhajis". Just you try and stop me.

5) Serey Die 

Ivory Coast and Basel

An appealing figure, during his career he has: 1) cancelled his own contract; 2) been sent home from his new club after the president saw him in action and assumed they'd hired the wrong man; 3) been suspected of match-fixing; 4) slapped a 13-year-old ballboy in the face resulting in an eight-match ban. I like him already. He's also a midfield enforcer called Die. 

- "Hi, looks like you'll be marking me today, what's your name?" 

- "Die!"

- "Hey, take it easy pal, game's not even started yet... Jeez, this guy's a loony."

6) Harrison Afful 

Ghana and Esperance
You just know the poor sod's going to score a calamitous own goal and have endless "awful" and (for those trying to be more original) "offal" puns made on his name. I'm hoping, like his Indiana Jones namesake, he runs as if being chased by a massive runaway boulder.

7) Waylon Francis 

Costa Rica and Columbus Crew

Easily the most 'hick' name at the tournament, how delicious it would be if the boy Waylon becomes one of its surprise stars. It could only be better if he was called Cletus. The name Waylon also makes me think of Steve Earle's character in The Wire, so bonus points there.

8) Fred 

Brazil and Fluminense

- "Hi, I'm the main striker for host nation Brazil. I am, essentially, a figurehead for a troubled nation's hopes."

- "Wow, you must have a really exotic name like Rivelino, Ronaldinho and all those other brilliant -inhos, right?"

- "Well, not so much."

- "Oh. Well I assume you're blessed with astonishingly silky skills then?"

- "Nope. I'm pretty functional to be honest."

- "I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty underwhelmed by this conversation. What is your name then?"

- "Fred."

- "Fredinho?"

- "It's just Fred."

9) Mohamed Lamine Zemmamouche 

Algeria and USM Alger
Zemmamouche! Zemmamouche! Will you do the fandango?

10) Mehrdad Pooladi 

Iran and Persepolis

Look, I've resisted including Miguel Angel Ponce in this list. I've avoided the temptation to chuck assorted Bums, Suks and Dongs from the South Korea squad in here, but I'm not so mature that I can resist a man called Pooladi. Plenty of great jokes start with a "poo" and so does his name. His name is sometimes spelt "Pouladi" with a "u". If you spell it that way then you are just the worst. Unless the BBC and various others have deliberately misspelt it for a giggle, in which case we are just the worst. Either way: "Pooladi woah-oh-oh, Pooladi woah-oh-oh..."

When the others score

It happens at nearly every game we go to, yet it's barely ever spoken of.

An attempt to sum up that anomalous feeling when your team lets one in



The pesky away team nick one. Fans try their utmost not to look.

The balls nestles into the back of the net with an audible swish of synthetic leather on polyethylene. There are thousands of people here and yet, daft as it seems, you actually hear it.

Not ten seconds earlier this throng of people around you were making a terrific din, willing their lot – your lot – to score a goal of their own. Instead, possession given away cheaply (is it ever not?), in a flash there's a counter-attack. Quick pass, even quicker pass, shimmy, shot, goal.

Silence. A brief moment of almost total quiet, which despite lasting less than three seconds is somehow sufficient time for you to assess all the myriad ways in which your life is a steaming pile of horse excrement before the centre forward is even midway through his clichéd knee-slide-and-fist-pump combo. This momentary lull feels almost perverse.

Sure, a few people instantly swear, but you're often suspicious of them. The people who swear or shout immediately when a goal goes in always have an air of "I've paid £30 for this and I'm not even going to see a win" about them. There's always one and their squawks are annoying, yet irrelevant. The ones hurting most of all are keeping schtum. They know the drill. Suck it up, exchange a glance with your mate, get home, sulk, have another go in a fortnight or so.

Somehow you don't really get to appreciate this oddity in all its dismal glory on the telly. Those chaps who set up their furry boom mics at pitchside know what they're doing. When an away team scores on TV, unless their support amounts to less than fifty souls, you'd think the din of their celebrating was reverberating around the whole stadium, deafening home fans with its maddening blare. Actually it tends to be more of an annoying hum in the distance. Just don't look directly at them – the bastards – with their happy flailing limbs and their hope. Don't look, don't look – oh, too late – you looked. That could've been you.

The aforementioned skill of the TV sound guys means it's not as easy as you'd think to find truly delicious examples of the phenomenon online. Here's one from France though, Ajaccio scoring at Nice. Listen out for token sweary man in the crowd, but aside from him just take a moment to enjoy the almost total silence before a few whistles start. That's the sound of thousands of people indulging in a bout of self-loathing right there.

A couple more. You'll rarely hear the Bernabéu as quiet as when Galastaray take the lead here. Ditto Ibrox, back in 1992, as Gary McAllister scores in the first minute to immediately muzzle 43,000 Glaswegians baying for English blood. Rangers went on to win the tie, but it's the moment in isolation we're interested in here.

As the uncomfortable silence slips away, blame is usually apportioned in the direction of whichever talentless so-called midfield dynamo gave the ball away. But it's that awful instant as ball hits net that remains one of the eeriest moments you can experience at football.

 

If you've got any more macabre clips of goals that silence the home fans – and the TV footage actually does it justice – you're very welcome to leave them below the line

Revealed: How Ipswich Town pick a manager

 

Excuse my rudimentary Photoshop skills. Ipswich will probably appoint a really leftfield Eastern European manager now I've wasted 15 minutes doing this. 

Revealed: How Martin O'Neill signed Adam Johnson for Sunderland

"Oh, I love it when I get the ball here, Gaffer!
Guess what I'm gonna do with it now?"

Thanks to NarrowTheAngle's web of fly-on-the-wall 'mole-droids' around the country, we were able to listen in and spy on the negotiations between Sunderland manager Martin O'Neill and winger Adam Johnson in the run-up to the latter signing for the Black Cats. Here is the transcript of their conversation.

(There is a knock at the office door)
Martin O'Neill: Come in! Ah, hello there Johnson. Good to see you, son. Have a seat.
(Johnson is clearly distressed, and tugs at the label on his t-shirt as he quickly sits down)
Adam Johnson: (sniffing) All I w... w... want to do is cut in from the wing and have a shot, Mr O'Neill. A low shot, hit hard into the bottom corner of the net. I'm really good at it but Mr Mancini keeps on not letting me play.
MON: I understand, son. To be fair I do remember watching you on my tellybox a couple of years back. Saw you score a couple of great goals where, if memory serves, you cut...
AJ: (interrupting and suddenly cheering up) Yeah, cut inside and scored with a low shot! GOAL! That's my favourite and my bestest thing to do. I really, really love doing that.
MON: Great, well we could do with a bit of your incisive wing play here at Sunderland, especially during the first half of games. Generally we like to have the lad Cattermole sent off around the 55-minute mark, so it would be lovely if we could be going into the ten-man phase of our games with the cushion of a lead from time to time.
AJ: (doing puppy dog eyes) Well... I could help you with that.
MON: Good, well, I must say I'm pretty tempted. What would you say are your main strengths?
AJ: (defiantly) I really, really love to cut inside and....
MON: Yes, cut inside and have a low shot, I think you mentioned that. But what else?
AJ: Well - and this is the clever bit - sometimes I shoot to the near post, but then on other occasions I shoot to the far post. Good, eh?
MON: Well, err, yes. That's lovely. But what else do you do to bring some variety into your game?
AJ: What do you mean?
MON: Well, you can't always do the same trick of cutting inside with a feint and then shooting low. How else do you like to mix things up?
AJ: (looks blank for ages)
MON: Come now, Johnson, surely you don't do the same thing every time? What about getting to the byline and standing up a cross for one of our strikers? We've got the lad Fletcher from Wolves now. He's pretty good with his head.
AJ: (sulkily) I don't really like doing that.
MON: Or maybe you could play a simple pass to a teammate before you've cut inside?
AJ: What? Shut up, I hate that! HATE IT!
MON: Well, ok, how about if, sometimes, once you've cut inside, you hit your shot high into a top corner? That would at least be a bit different.
AJ: No! I don't want to do that! I told you, I just want to cut inside and shoot low.
MON: To be honest then, Johnson, I'm not sure we have a deal. I might not be the most tactically adventurous of managers but I can't have a guy in my team who only does one thing.
AJ: What if I say I'll play for just 50k pocket money per week? That's loads less than the pocket money Mr Mancini gave me.
MON: Only 50k a week? Well, Johnson! Why didn't you say so before?! I assumed we'd be talking big money, but 50k a week is an absolute snip for your services. I used to pay Reo-Coker that much just to sit on the bench at Villa. And that was if he was lucky. Whereas with you I'll have some pace down the flank and a player that can...
Both in unison: ...cut inside and shoot!
(There is laughter all round. For a disturbingly long period of time. Until both men forget what they were laughing at and stare coldly at their shoes.)

Afterword
Adam Johnson signed for Sunderland, where he would often cut inside and shot low, sometimes to the near post and sometimes to the far. You literally never knew which side he would put it. He was that good. However, Martin O'Neill eventually became tired of the player's insistence on cutting inside to shoot, not to mention his refusal to pass the ball to a teammate, and instead preferred to leave Johnson on the substitutes bench. But since he was only on 50k a week that wasn't a big problem really.

Italy XI to face England (in anagram form).

I like anagrams. I especially like footballing anagrams. With that in mind, I've taken my anagrammatic eye to Italy's Euro 2012 squad (not including the injured Chiellini, that would be cheating) and come up with a fully functional starting XI.

Rod Airplane could help Italy soar against England

Italy XI to face England at Euro 2012 (4-5-1 formation):

1. Denoting Sarcasm (Morgan de Sanctis, GK)
2. Haggis Mortician (Christian Maggio, RB)
3. A Chemical Urine Genie (Emanuele Giaccherini, LB)
4. Rod Airplane (Andrea Pirlo, DM)
5. Angel On A Bongo (Angelo Ogbonna, CB)
6. Caboodle Unicorn (Leonardo Bonucci, CB)
7. Aniseed Soldier (Daniele De Rossi, RM)
8. Ornate Onion Icon (Antonio Nocerino, CM)
9. Alien Toad Nation (Antonio Di Natale, FC)
10. A Malicious Orchid (Claudio Marchisio, CM)  
11. Nationalised Dramas (Alessandro Diamanti, LM)

Reckon that team could take England? Quite possibly.

As you can see, anagrams are no respecter of reputations, so the likes of Buffon, Cassano and Balotelli are brutally cast aside. I was particularly disappointed not to come up with an anagram for Mario Balotelli. If you can think of a good one, let me know.

All hail the Alien Toad Nation

Nostalgic football geekery: it's The Football Attic's League Of Blogs wallchart!

Home kit, impeccably drawn in Photoshop by me. I'm very talented...

I was a little late in hearing about one of my favourite football blogging ideas of the season – so apologies if this is old news to some of you – but I absolutely love this homage to Subbuteo from The Football Attic.

Their new 'League of Blogs' wallchart features kits lovingly designed by some of the geekiest most dedicated football bloggers in cyberspace. Click here [LINK] to visit the League of Blogs. You'll need to:

• click the image to enlarge it, and then...
• ...click View Image to see it in its full size

I'm chuffed to say that I am now among their number, as my two kits were added yesterday. My kits are at No67 and No68. But as a special treat (since you neither asked nor particularly care), I've put the original versions of both my kits here for you to ignore... laugh at... enjoy.

My home kit pinches from the colours of the two teams I support, Bournemouth and Wimbledon. A grotesque combination, perhaps, but memorable nonetheless.

The away kit, sure to be a hit with colourblind fans, features some little half moons at the base of the shorts, which is my tribute to one of the coolest kits of my childhood – this one, worn by Gazza for Spurs in the early 1990s. 

Naturally, both my kits are sponsored by the classic 1990s Amiga football game Sensible World of Soccer, since we're so categorically going down Retro Street in this exercise. And my kit manufacturer of choice is Spall, maker of some legendary kits and some rather fetching, less-famous ones too, not to mention half the kits on show at Hackney Marshes most Sundays.

As for the rest of the designs on the poster, I think my personal favourite has to be the enjoyably quirky effort from Marceltipool (No43 on the chart), who have opted for a nutty all-white number with red-hooped socks and a solitary green-hooped sleeve. I'm a sucker for an asymmetrical kit.

Applause in the general direction of The Football Attic for their efforts in putting this together. I highly recommend you follow them on Twitter here @FootballAttic, where they'll give you plenty more memorable nuggets of retro football heaven.

Away kit, complete with non-matching 'half moons' on the shorts. Hooray!

The missing paragraphs from Crawley Town's report of the game with Bradford City

The Bradford and Crawley captains at full-time yesterday

Yesterday evening, everyone's favourite footballing gentlefolk Crawley Town journeyed up to Bradford City for a league encounter at the Coral Windows Sta... oh, whatever, it's Valley Parade isn't it.

The game was a keenly contested affair to say the least, with seven players booked (six of them Crawley players). However, it was post-match that things got really lively, with a brawl breaking out on the pitch and several proper punches thrown, as opposed to the usual handbags and posturing.

And so it is with some degree of surprise that the match report on Crawley's official website gives no mention of the trouble at the game, choosing to go full-on propaganda and paint a picture of a game that passed without incident as Crawley bagged a well-earned away victory.

While it wouldn't be that surprising for a club as consistently lacking in class as Crawley Town to gloss over the brawl (and nobody's saying Bradford players weren't just as culpable, if not more so), for them to not even mention the post-match trouble in their report is bordering on farcical. Referee Ian Williamson had to send off five players (three Bradford, two Crawley) in the dressing rooms once calm had been restored. That's not just a talking point, that's the talking point. Even Crawley can't have deliberately intended such an oversight, can they? Surely not.

Well, NarrowTheAngle.com can now exclusively reveal that the last few paragraphs were accidentally lopped off the bottom of the report by a cack-handed work experience kid called Wilf. Crawley club secretary Barry Stalin has just emailed us over the remaining portion of the text. It is posted verbatim below. Hope this clears things up.

"With victory in the bag, all that remained was for the victorious Crawley Town heroes to commiserate their gallant opponents with the customary ritual of strong handshakes, slaps on the back and shouts of 'jolly good show, old chaps!'

Regrettably, Crawley's Claude Davis fractionally mistimed his offer of a handshake to Bradford's Luke Oliver; this minor miscalculation causing him to accidentally brutally elbow him in the face.

As Davis sought to apologise to the unfortunate Oliver, his opponent slipped horribly on a discarded piece of orange peel, causing him to place himself violently in the direct vicinity of Davis's face. Oliver's lively body language was said to be caused by a chronic allergic reaction to traces of citric acid in the orange peel.

Teammates of both men rushed to the players' aid. Bradford goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin and Crawley's Pablo Mills both stooped in an attempt to remove the offending piece of peel, when unfortunately their heads abruptly collided, which to some onlookers may have appeared as if they had been involved in some form of mild disagreement. Crawley Town is happy to set the record straight on this matter.

The referee spoke to the players in the dressing rooms afterwards, when he conceded that the unsightly hubbub was all a big misunderstanding and suggested the teams head forthwith to a nearby public house for a pint of mild and a game of bar billiards.

Once the players had reconvened at the nearby Honest Politician pub, Bradford's Andrew Davies complimented Crawley manager Steve Evans on the sportsmanship and restraint he instills in his players. Evans, in return, commended Davies on his impeccable disciplinary record this season.

After further handshakes, photographs and exchanging of pennants, Crawley bid their Yorkshire counterparts a pleasant evening and set off home for picturesque West Sussex feeling justly proud of a job well done.

Thanks again to Crawley Town and Barry Stalin for sending this text through.

What if Joey Barton could edit himself in Football Manager?

Many of you will have seen Joey Barton's tweets this week about him playing Football Manager 2012, taking the QPR job, and then falling out with his virtual self. This has probably been the highlight of my week.

If you didn't see the tweets in question then here they are for you:

As one wag pointed out to him on Twitter: "Hey Joey, you must be the first person to manage Joey Barton on Football Manager and not immediately transfer list him!"

Anyway, this got me wondering how Joey Barton's Football Manager equivalent might look if Barton had been allowed to edit himself. His stats in the game are already very good - more than generous, I'd say - so he might not change much at all. Although I'm sure pussycat Joey would tone 'Aggression: 17/20' right down. Surely no more than a '3'... I think it's more likely he'd change his personality traits rather than his playing attributes.

The realisation that this version of Football Manager uses a font as basic as Arial for its body text (thus opening up rich pickings for mediocre Photoshoppers who think they're mildly amusing - like me) meant it was fairly simple to create an imagined profile for Twitter's great Smiths-loving, Orwell-quoting philosopher of the people. The game's Joey Barton 'Information' page seemed to lend itself best to a little doctoring.

Naturally I took care to ensure I got the Place of Birth correct, but here's what else I came up with (click to enlarge). Or click here if the text is too small to read!

Anybody else with an idea for some Football Manager Photoshopping for the purposes of mild distraction and childish amusement might be interested to know that the font you need is simply Arial (11pt).

If anything, I like Joey Barton a little more for knowing he plays Football Manager. I like any footballer that plays FM over FIFA or PES. It shows a bit more nous. And if Barton should happen to read this blog himself, I imagine he'll take it in the spirit it was intended.

I'll leave the final word on this subject to a Twitter user with the excellent username @sexyactionsteve. He sums up most people's feelings rather nicely.

An imagined meeting of Chuck Blazer and his informant on Jack Warner's pirate ship

Blazer was stunned by what his informant told him

Down in the bowels of his ship, the Concacaf Cutlass, Cap'n Jack Warner smiled as he plotted and schemed what he was going to do with all these bags of money. Little did he know, however, up on the poop deck and disguised as a rum merchant, a former accomplice of Cap'n Jack's was deep in conversation with the ship's mandatory parrot.

Parrot informant (whispering): So what do you want to know?
Chuck Blazer: What have you got for me? It's taken ages to grow this disguise, so it'd better be worth it. I used to look just like Michael Douglas, you know?
Parrot: Well, he's down there now, counting the money.
CB: What money? This sounds juicy.
Parrot: The money that was meant for the children.
CB: Which children?
Parrot: The Children of FIFA™.
CB: *gasps*
Parrot: Oh yes.
CB: Not the ones that FIFA pledged to help? But I thought all the money was put into brown bags and loaded onto the Good Ship FIFA™ to set sail for FIFA's Worthy Oil-Rich Partner Countries™ where it would be invested in developing football for poor and needy kids?
Parrot: It was.
CB: So how's Cap'n Jack got his hands on it?
Parrot: The Concacaf Cutlass intercepted the ship.
CB: No!
Parrot: It was swift and bloodless. Those manning the Good Ship FIFA™ got their cut, and all parties agreed to say that it was the Somalians. But it wasn't. It was Cap'n Jack.
CB: This is incredible. With this knowledge I can finally report back to Uncle Sepp and we can nail this rotter.
Parrot: I'll be expecting to get Jérôme Valcke's job in return for this information, you know, as well as $5 million in a lump-sum payment.
CB: That won't be a problem, I'll sort it with Sepp. That's not double standards, right?
Parrot: No, no it isn't. Great. Transfer it to my Mastercard account please.
CB: I'm afraid we only deal with Visa. They're a Special Friends Forever Key Partner™ you see?
Parrot: Was that a veiled dig at Valcke? I'm not sure all the readers will get it.
CB: Mmm. I'm increasingly doubting whether they're finding the Warner/pirate comparison amusing too.
Parrot: So what's the point of this blog then?
CB: Good question.
Parrot: I might go now. I think the problem with this post is that most people are more interested in Sepp trying to nail his rival Bin Hammam for corruption. It looks a bit silly on Sepp's part really doesn't it. I mean, come on! Meanwhile Warner's something of a side story.
CB: Yes, but it's not as easy to peg a visual gag on Bin Hammam as this was. Plus I only had a lunch break and I still need to buy a sandwich.
Parrot: Nobody's reading this now anyway. Just go.
CB: Yeah, I should probably go and sit looking brilliant in the front row of a major football summit or something...

PRESS RELEASE: Narrow The Angle retires from international football

Narrow The Angle delivered his news to a gathering of
England fans in Trafalgar Square this lunchtime.

--------------------------------------

10 May 2011 (London, UK) – An open letter from Narrow The Angle to the FA and Fabio Capello

Dear The FA,

After much soul-searching, I have decided to retire from international football.

After being consistently overlooked by a succession of England managers – despite some average-to-patchy form for my local pub side, for whom I have contributed a less-than-dazzling 11 goals in 60 games – I have decided to focus on my club game and withdraw my availability for international selection in the future. I hope that in time you will accept and understand my decision.

I realise this may come as a surprise, given that I am currently uncapped, but since another footballing no-mark like Ben Foster has retired from international football today, I feel it's the right moment to join this trendy bandwagon and free up extra time to concentrate on other commitments, including online poker and drinking. I also wanted to get there before Shaun Wright-Phillips.

You may remember that I wrote to you in 2008 stating that I was considering my international future then. This was in response to the devastating events of 8 September 2008, when the football world was left reeling after the twin international retirements of both Paul Parry (Wales) and Lee McCulloch (Scotland) on the same day – two gargantuan blows to future World Cups and European Championships in anyone's book. Tempted as I was to make it a hat-trick that day, I reconsidered after scoring a goal for the pub team the same evening that the opposition captain described not only as "alright", but also "quite good".

However, the best part of three more years has elapsed and still no call-up has been forthcoming. It's time to go out with my head held high.

I would request that the media respect my privacy at this time, and that the press do not launch any kneejerk campaigns calling for my immediate selection to the squad. I have made my decision and will stand by it.

Warmly,
Narrow The Angle

PS - Carlton Cole, you might want to join me? Anyone else?

ENDS

My Favourite XI

The chaps at Two Footed Tackle have been running a popular 'My Favourite XI' series in recent months. I've been thoroughly enjoying them, but couldn't resist lowering the tone slightly with my own crackpot effort. If you fancy a read, here's a link: My Favourite XI.

And when you've finished, perhaps take a look in the archive at some of the efforts from people who approached the exercise more seriously than I did.

An ode to Garth Crooks

Garth

What path

Did you take

When on hanging up your boots

You decided

To forsake

Your Staffy twang

And instead

Began
To speak

Like a man

Whose only trait

Is to just

Enunciate

Every single

Syllable

In the manner

Of a man

In an exam

For a job

At Buckingham

Palace, mate?

The trouble with World Poetry Day and its subsequent #WPDfootballpoems hashtag is that it leads to simpletons like me – who have never written a poem in their life for a very good reason – to think "Hey, I'll have a bash at that." Apologies to anyone who actually can write poetry. Or likes poetry. Or happens to be Garth Crooks. I will stick to glib remarks about uneventful football matches in future.

Phil Collins and the Genesis 'Match Of The Day' song he'd rather you forgot all about

I suppose Phil Collins was always going to write a football song really. After all, he's a man of the people, an earthy Chiswick boy made good. He's the plucky drummer that stepped into the breach when Peter Gabriel left Genesis and Collins took over on vocal duties.

So dedicated to serving his public in musical form is Collins that he famously performed in both London and Philadelphia during Live Aid in 1985 - the unselfish act of a generous man, and in no way a publicity stunt to make him appear to be the most do-goody of the pop star do-gooders that day, far better than that idle Geldof fella who just lounged around in London all day. I'm sure Collins travelled economy class on Concorde as he dashed off to give the Philly folk their Phil fill.

Yes, there can be no denying that the Genesis frontman is a multi-talented instrumentalist and singer, not to mention creatively dexterous enough to have pulled a few (surprisingly non-Oscar nominated) acting performances out of his bag of tricks over the years, all while still supporting his beloved Tottenham Hotspur, generally loving his football and being an all-round folk hero. A fair assessment, no?

So given that we've established Phil's credentials as a suitable man to pen a football song for the masses, what in the name of Subbuteo is this?

There have been an abundance of terrible football songs over the years, but this has an earnest quality to it that makes it all the more offensive. How cheap does that keyboard riff sound? I keep expecting John Shuttleworth to pipe up with a burst of "Austin Ambassador Y Reg". And in saying this, I worry I might offend John Shuttleworth...

And why does Collins keep going so high-pitched on the vocals? Like tomato in a shop-bought sandwich or casual racism at the barber's, there are certain things we shouldn't have to put up with, and Phil Collins singing up an octave is most certainly one of them. He sounds like Vinnie Jones has got him by the goolies.

And then there's the lyrics. It's a ludicrously naff attempt at conveying the passion and commitment of a football match. And he does rather focus on the negatives, doesn't he? Was this song co-written with Barry Davies? You suspect that Phil doesn't really like football that much, he just likes having a good old grumble. He's certainly not fond of referees - slating officials is a common theme of the lyrics, with the idea of kicking one to death even getting an airing at one stage. Much of the rest is gibberish and barely makes sense. I've posted the full lyrics below for you. Take a moment to pore over them as you listen to the song. They are ludicrously bad from start to finish, but my personal highlight is this:

"There's a few things before we go
That I think you ought to know
Obstruction, body checking, heavy tackles"

I like how he sets this up as if he's going to give us some insider knowledge, something that will enrich our lives or keep us safe from harm - and then he just lists three more things he doesn't like about football. Thanks for the handy hints, Phil.

The following quote was supposedly made by Phil Collins on his internet forum in November 2004: "Match Of The Day... no video was done for this as far as I can recall... but I am weak and my limbs are frail.....etc. Etc. It was also not our finest hour looking back at it now!!! I wrote the embarrassing lyrics and the track featured an attempt to bring some of the hipper grooves of the day into Genesis, with very suspect results."

Hipper grooves? I think what we can take from this is that there definitely was a video for this song, but that it has been lost in the annals of time. There's an internet rumour that one was filmed on the terraces at Loftus Road. Does anybody have any further information? If anyone has a copy of the video, put it on Youtube - you will be a hero.

As bad as this song is, if one thing is telling, it's that Collins doesn't even touch on MOTD in terms of punditry or commentary. Because, as I have written about more thoroughly recently, it was much more about the football action in those days.

It's 1977. The kids are growing tired of radio-friendly pop and bookish prog. Something is brewing. Punk rock is about to whip them up into an angry, glorious frenzy. You'd like to think this song was something of a tipping point.

Collins: touched by genius? (Feel free to
insert your own 'Invisible Touch' gag here...)

LYRICS
Genesis - "Match Of The Day"
Released on "Spot The Pigeon" EP, 1977.

There's the Reds and there's the Greens
Super slicks and has-beens,
They're accompanied by three men dressed in black,
One's a whistle, two are flags, and quite often they're the drags
Kick the ball into the goal, they put it back.

Yes Match of the Day's
The only way, to spend your Saturday

Each side's eleven men, with numbers on their backs
But at a distance they all tend to look the same
But some own their boutiques, well they clean up every week
Inciting riots, causing chaos, such a shame!

But Match of the Day's
The only way
We spend our Saturday

And that's not all, our mates the keeper
Slippin' and sliding in the mud
Arms as long as creepers

Send him off Ref'
Where are your specs Ref'?
We'll kick you to death Ref'
Oi! Are you deaf Ref'?

There's a few things before we go
That I think you ought to know
Obstruction, body checking, heavy tackles
So put on your hat and scarf
Have a drink, have a laugh
From the terrace you can see your men do battle

Yes Match of the Day's
The only way
You can spend your Saturday

Don't forget, the trainers with their sponges
Managers with open cheques, liquid business lunches

Send him off Ref'
Where are your specs Ref'?
We'll kick you to death Ref'
Oi! Are you deaf Ref'?

...Phfff! Good game 'ey, Ron?...
...D'you see that goal in the second half? Cor!...
...Bit of a dirty tackle that, mate!...
...I reckon that should've been a penalty myself...
...We paid £400,000 for him, d'you realise that?...
...Ooh, look out, here comes a bottle...
...Yes, fancy a pint then? My round...

A moment from Football Manager last night, starring Connor Wickham and Emile Heskey

I ruddy love Football Manager. And the 2011 incarnation is the best yet. This is for a multitude of reasons, among them the new 3D game engine, fans jumping up and down on the terraces, improved realism and much-improved tactics and training. But one of the biggest leaps forward is that you can actually converse with your players now. Admittedly, this is crudely done using a multiple choice system, with your player then reacting to your desired comment based on the intricacies of their in-game personality.

I'd been trundling along nicely as manager of Lewes. Two promotions in three seasons and sitting pretty in the upper echelons of League Two. [Does League Two have echelons? Maybe that great sporting word 'reaches' would have been a better choice?] Anyway, I was loving life at Lewes but the main problem was that my puny ground sold out its 500 seats and all space on the terraces every game. I needed a bigger ground if I was going to take the club further. But the board wouldn't even consider it. Good FA Cup runs had meant away days at Manchester City and Sunderland in successive seasons - so there was plenty of money in the bank. In short, I had perhaps taken Lewes as far as I could.

I remember Chris Mann, aka '@equaliserblog', tweeting a while back that after several seasons on Football Manager with Dynamo Dresden it had "got a bit tiresome", and he'd started again with a bigger club. Or, as he succinctly put it, he decided to "go and win some stuff". Having hit a similar wall myself, I decided to have a bash with Aston Villa. Always quite liked the Villa. There's lots of reasons why: my brother supports them, so do a few mates, I like the colours, Shaun Teale played for them, Big Ron, they used to be sponsored by a yoghurt and so on. Time to turn them into a Champions League force, I thought.

Part of the plan would be to do it with a good smattering of youth. I wasted little time in snapping up some promising young players in the shape of Tom Cairney (Hull), Connor Wickham (Ipswich), Gary Deegan (Coventry), Sebastién Pocognoli (Standard Liége), Jordan Spence (West Ham) and Lee Hodson (Watford). Chuck the experienced striker Liedson (Sporting Lisbon) and CSKA Moskow keeper Igor Akinfeev into the mix and I was all set for an exciting season.

Then I asked Emile Heskey to tutor Connor Wickham.

This seemed like a fail-safe idea to me. Sure, Heskey's not the most prolific of strikers, but what budding young England prospect - dubbed on the game as "the new Alan Shearer" no less - wouldn't want to learn from Big Emile's movement and hold-up play? Clearly the Football Manager 2011 incarnation of Connor Wickham only thinks of glaring misses and terrible goal-to-game ratios when he thinks of Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey.

I've pasted the transcript of my virtual conversation with Heskey and, subsequently, Wickham below. For some reason the cold, stark frankness of the exchange made me laugh out loud. I don't know if it will tickle you to the same extent as it did me but, y'know, it's good to share these things...


Yes I think you better had, Emile.

Great footballing names: Max Power

A few weeks ago, some of you may have seen me prattling away on Twitter at the fact that Tranmere Rovers have a player – a local lad and highly-rated scholar of their youth team – who goes by the glorious name of: Max Power.

“Max Power. The man whose name you’d love to touch,” goes the Homer Simpson ditty (in Simpsons Episode 216 from 11 years ago, where Homer decides to change his name to Max Power after noticing it on a hairdryer). Here’s the lyrics and a clip I found on Youtube, in case you’ve not seen the episode.

“Max Power — he's the man whose name you'd love to touch...

But, you mustn't touch!

His name sounds good in your ear

But when you say it, you mustn't fear

Because his name can be said by anyone!”

According to Soccerbase, Power is yet to make his first team debut. But he does have a squad number (22) and was on the bench against Southampton at the weekend. So it won't be long... brace yourselves.

If you are a Tranmere supporter then I urge you: learn the Max Power song, teach it to your mates, and the first time the lad first runs onto the Prenton Park pitch, sing it at the top of your voices. Hopefully it will end up being sung at him on a regular basis. 

But this isn't just a blog by a man amused about another man because he has a good name. There is more to enjoy about the Wirral's Max Power. Like the fact that three years ago - when just a scrawny Scouse scamp in his mid-teens - Power set up his own Youtube channel. Here he announced himself to the world thus: "My name is Max Power. Am 14. I play for Tranmere Rovers FC. I like meetin birds and love makin funny and mad videos." 

A budding Nick Broomfield he is not, but regardless here are my three favourites:

1) Max Power slaps his mate. For a laugh, like

2) Max Power pranks his sister during the night

3) Max Power and his school chums belting out "You'll Never Walk Alone" on a train

You can imagine that last one getting dredged up if he ever signs for Everton. That's some serious Red-loving passion in Power's face on 57 seconds. If only Youtube had been around in Jamie Carragher's Everton-supporting teenage years.

Anyway, like the Homer song, this blog doesn't really make sense. I just wanted to be the first person to write anything significant on the subject of Max Power the footballer. If he makes it big, you heard of him here first. 

Even without the Simpsons episode, the name conjures up memories of the laddish car magazine of the same name - the one you used to see sitting on the passenger seats of souped-up Vauxhall Novas with fancy hubcaps and Ford Fiestas with silly spoilers on the back. The merest mention of the name Max Power will always make us smile. Look, I'll prove it to you. Here are three random and otherwise fairly mundane mentions of the lad in what little press coverage he's had so far:

• "In contrast to Southampton's resources, Tranmere manager Les Parry had to put 17-year-old academy player Max Power on the bench."
• "It was a miss that was followed by a lull in the proceedings until Max Power drilled a shot straight at Bouzanis after a neat exchange with Ryan Fraughan on the half hour mark."
• "The Rovers side also included keeper Andy Coughlin, who was on the bench during a few first team games last year, and captain Jay Gibbs, though hotly-tipped midfielder Max Power missed out."

See?  :)

I'll leave you with The Simpsons family's reaction to Homer's name change - because if this ridiculous idea for a blog post has achieved one thing, it's probably been to make you crave watching the whole episode, and I cannot bring you that. 

If you are reading this and you happen to know Max Power, or indeed if you are Max Power, please get in touch. I’d love to do an interview with the young man whose fledgling career we will all surely be keeping tabs on. Even if it's mostly because we'd really love to touch his name.

***

Lisa: "Max Power"?

Homer: Dynamic, isn't it?

Bart: I love it, Max.

Marge: You changed your name without consulting me?

Homer: That's the way Max Power is, Marge. Decisive. Uncompromising! And rude!

Marge: But I fell in love with Homer Simpson! I don't want to snuggle with "Max Power!"

Homer: Nobody snuggles with Max Power. You strap yourself in and feel the "G"s!

Marge: Oh, Lord.

Homer: And it doesn't stop in the bedroom. Oh, no. I'm taking charge! Kids, there's three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!

Bart: Isn't that the wrong way?

Homer: Yeah, but faster!

You, me and Rothmans

This week, it was with no small amount of delight that I took delivery of this season's Sky Sports Football Yearbook  (or 'Rothmans' as all football fans still refer to it). I haven't had one for a long time - not since my teens - and had forgotten what a pleasure it is to leaf through its thin, cheap pages.

Reassuringly still edited by father and daughter team Jack and Glenda Rollin, it does a brilliant job of reminding you all the stuff from previous seasons that you'd forgotten about - particularly the most recent season.

But what it's even better at is alerting you to interesting (depending on your definition of 'interesting') facts and stats that you'd completely missed.

In an attempt to prove how gloriously nerdy, fascinating and useful this book is, I am setting myself the challenge of finding one interesting nugget of information every three minutes, for thirty minutes, and then I'll report back on what I discover. Ok here goes...

As Fist of Fun's Simon Quinlank used to say in the 1990s, "You may drink your weak lemon drink now."

1. I had no idea that the following four individuals had all managed Doncaster Rovers: Lawrie McMenemy (68-71), Billy Bremner (78-85 and 89-91), Dave Mackay (87-89), Kerry Dixon (96-97).
2. The 1950 FA Charity Shield was contested between, bizarrely, the "World Cup Team" versus "Canadian Touring Team". What the heck? Anyway, the Canadians went down 4-2. 
3. Chelsea goalkeeper Hilario scored two goals in one season, playing for Academica in the Portuguese league.
4. Celtic once lost 8-0 to Motherwell.
5. Sir Alf Ramsey managed Birmingham from 1977-78 - how did I not know this? (Incidentally, Birmingham's managerial history features some cracking names including: Billy Beer, Bob Brocklebank and Roberts McRoberts.
6. On 17 December 2009, Lazio hosted Levski in Europa League Group G. The score was a shock 0-1 victory for Levski. More surprising is the recorded attendance in Rome that night: 3,000. Youtube footage suggests most of these were Levski fans. Anyone know where the Lazio fans were that night?
7. Milton Keynes Dons, a team formed as recently as 2004, mysteriously has a managerial history dating back to 1955 including Dave Bassett, Bobby Gould and Joe Kinnear. I assume this is a mis-print, right? 
8. In a nod to the modern world, crusty old Rothmans now lists on each club's entry the official email address you should use if you want to contact the club. Most, rather boringly, have "info@clubname" style corporate email address. Not Swindon though. If you want to get in touch with Swindon, you have to email "Brian P". Rothmans says so.
9. Wing-half George Farrow completed five years in all four Football League divisions in 1936 after a spell at Second Division Blackpool followed spells at Wolves (Div 1), Bournemouth (Div 3 South) and Stockport (Div 3 North).
10. Since WWII, total attendance figures for England's top division have always been above 10 million, with the exception of the period 1982-1993, when they were consistenly below this number, dropping as low as 7.8 million. In fairness, football was quite rubbish during this period.

So there's 10 quickfire reasons why Rothmans is a geeky delight. This genuinely was researched under timed conditions - this stuff is everywhere once you start flicking through. I'll find a thousand more little nuggets like this over the course of the season no doubt, with Rothmans always in easy grabbing distance from the sofa.

If anyone's interested, here's a gallery of the first 30 years of Rothmans covers. 1986/87 is a belter. 

Go on, admit it, your inner nerd is itching to head over to a famous rivery-sounding online bookshop isn't it? If it's not, then I'm sorry I've wasted your time and I'll let you get back to listening to Talksport.