The football blog for fans of all clubs
World Cup 1982 is often remembered for the greatest team never to win one, Brazil, or Italy who looked barely fit to deserve a place yet recovered to win the thing. For me, it was a World Cup of incidents, shock events, OMG moments. Most have them, some more than others (2002) but Spain 1982 […]
World Cup 1982 is often remembered for the greatest team never to win one, Brazil, or Italy who looked barely fit to deserve a place yet recovered to win the thing. For me, it was a World Cup of incidents, shock events, OMG moments. Most have them, some more than others (2002) but Spain 1982 […]
World Cup 1982 is often remembered for the greatest team never to win one, Brazil, or Italy who looked barely fit to deserve a place yet recovered to win the thing. For me, it was a World Cup of incidents, shock events, OMG moments. Most have them, some more than others (2002) but Spain 1982 […]
#1 World Cup Draw Before a ball was kicked this World Cup produced a farce and we really should have known it was going to be like no other. If you were going to write a comedic take on a draw organised by FIFA it would have things like men in suits looking like they […]
Where Wembley’s concerned the numbers six and three can still send shudders down the spine. That was the score when the mighty Magyars of Hungary spanked England in “The Match of the Century” in 1953. Twenty years later another showpiece at ‘the home of football’ involved the numbers three and six. The Common Market Football […]
Probably one of the most inauspicious periods of management the national job has ever seen. Things just seemed to happen to Taylor, who ultimately was an honourable man desperate to do the best for his country. He was a deep thinker but not necessarily about the game and the way it was played. Maybe through […]
Win or Bust The documentary now reaches its denouement. It was a tv producers dream as footage of the pre-match anthems and crowd reactions overdubbed with Brian Moore’s commentary on how this game was a winner-takes-all, a shootout between two European giants for one place in the World Cup Finals. At the draw both nations […]
It is often said if you don’t notice a referee during a game then he’s had a good one. Well you couldn’t have said that about Paul Alcock one September afternoon in 1998. Paul Alcock officiated in ninety-four Premier League matches between 1995 and 2000, yet everyone remembers him for just one. It became iconic. […]
It was probably one of the most enduring images of Graham Taylor’s period as England manager. If you were to name the three most memorable things about his reign, undoubtedly the name ‘Gary Lineker’ would crop up. For those who don’t know, here is the background to the moment I am talking about. England were […]
Frank McGarvey played under three of the best managers the game has ever seen, Bob Paisley, Alex Ferguson and Jock Stein. He scored goals wherever he went. As a twenty year old he scored seventeen goals to St. Mirren promotion from the Scottish First Division to the newly formed Premier League. His goalscoring exploits attracted […]
The documentary, “An Impossible Job” or “Do I Not Like That”, as it has become known as, missed out the US Cup, which was probably for the best, and so we watch as Graham Taylor drives over to Spain to tell David Platt he’s being relieved of his captaincy of the team as Taylor decided […]
Summer Tour 1995 and in preparation for the World Cup in America the following summer, the USA hosted a four-nation competition with England, Brazil and Germany invited. Five stadiums would be used for the six games as the US had the opportunity to give the world a glimpse of what was to come twelve months […]
World Cup Qualification 1994 Three months after the sheer depression of Euro ’92, England travelled to Spain for a friendly. If you thought England had problems, Spain finished third in their qualifying group for that competition losing more than they won, including defeat to Iceland. Taylor handed debuts to Paul Ince (Manchester United) and David […]
European Championship 1992 Sweden was the venue for the ninth European Championships, which was still an eight team tournament. England was drawn in the same group as the hosts, along with France and Denmark. Denmark were a late inclusion after Yugoslavia were kicked out due to the Balkan War. Taylor named a twenty man squad […]
Part Two of Ten – Qualifying for Euro ’92 Graham Taylor had just one friendly, a 1-0 win at home to Hungary, before it was into the meaningful action of qualifying for the European Championships to be held in Sweden in 1992. England had been drawn against Poland, yet again as well as Republic of […]
So it’s official. Ronaldinho, one of the most gifted players of his generation, or perhaps any generation, has retired from competitive football. Of course this is not a surprise as he’s not played in a competitive fixture for over two years. He is nearly thirty eight and so it is probably long past time for […]
Part one of ten It was the football documentary which raised the bar. As every mockumentary is measured against Spinal Tap then the Graham Taylor programme is the gold standard in the sports category. Few could quite believe what they were watching and for some, they were quite surprised by the language used. Not bad […]
Down the years many have talked of the Sky/Premier League bubble bursting. Some have suggested football may consume itself on a banquet of huge wages and obscene transfer fees. But I wonder if this Christmas/New Year period could be the straw which breaks the camel’s back. Particularly, the Sky camel. Talking of banquets, there’s a […]
England’s youth squads have had a pretty good summer. Scrap that. They’ve had a really, really good summer. The U21’s lost in a shootout in the Semi-Finals of the European Championships to eventual winners, Germany. The U20’s won the World Cup in South Korea. The U19’s won the European Championship in Georgia and the U17’s […]
You may know the name John Sitton. You may not know he was Leyton Orient manager and you certainly may not know the club was being offered for the princely sum of five pounds. But the documentary “Club For A Fiver” became notorious in the nineties and had a profound effect on some of those […]
