During the current cold spell, it is a good time to remind referees of their responsibilities regarding pitch inspections.”

There is, it has to be said, a fair old deal of information on the FA website:

“Referees should visit the ground in good time before a match to see that everything is in order. If, through bad weather or negligence, the state of the ground is such that it may endanger the players, you should refuse to sanction play.”

The financial elite

Watching the aftermath of the dire game at Old Trafford on Saturday night, suddenly one man, and an unlikely one for such wisdom, put into a nutshell exactly what is wrong with the current state of football. That man was Edward Sheringham, and what he said was ‘footballers want to win things, they don’t want to just stay up’ (pardon the fact that this is not an exact quote!). And he was dead right. Fans also want to win things, I would argue more than they want to stay up. And in a league where only a small handful of teams have any genuine chance of taking the title that leaves the domestic cups for the other 15 Premier League clubs, and their lower league counterparts, to chase after.

No win situation
A minute’s silence, please, for a dead profession; an imPOSSIBLE profession; a DREADFUL profession. A minute’s silence, my friends, for the only white people who can truly know what it’s like to be discriminated against based on the colour of their skin—or, in this case, the colour of their jersey: REFEREES.
I’m not sure [...]

At the start of the season I made two predictions that had eyebrows raised on this site. The first was that Aston Villa would comfortably make the top 4 in the Premier League this season, and the second was that a surprise club would be relegated. I named that club as Manchester City. Despite the interference of a royal family in the latter, I am pretty confident of both of them at the moment.

It’s Madchester sans the twisting melons.
OK. So I realise that everyone and their Mother has an opinion on Manchester City and their search for new talent to wear the Sky Blue in the near future. Here’s my twopennorth!
Manchester City fans were delirious when the club was bought out by Sheikh Mansour and his group and [...]

The 80’s All Stars

Keeper – Howling mad Murdoch

The Biggles Jacket wearing Nam nutnut will be ideal in the No1 jersey. Taking orders from his old war time chum cum team manager, Mad Murdoch’s aerial ability is un-surpassed & his crazy antics and penchant for a cap has drawn comparisons with Grobelar.

In case you missed my brilliant article over Christmas because you were to busy stuffing your face with turkey and booze then here it is again.

We’ve had celebrity teams all year what with footy aid, World Cup Legends and the Masters on, but what would be your all time Cop Show 11. Players who take no prisoners in the tackles and then go home to a tasty bit of fluff.

One hundred and seven million pounds… ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN MILLION POUNDS???
We all sniggered when mark Hughes left a good Blackburn side to join an average Manchester City. But he really landed on his feet with the switch. We the new buyers throwing money at him it seems there will be no stopping City soon.
First [...]

A ref these days is hard to find

We’ve all sung it, we’ve all sat there saying “I could do better” & “the reason we lost that game was because of the ref” I’ll admit, I do it every week!

Thinking back, Can anyone remember Pierluigi Collina? Or David Ellery? These were at one time the world’s finest referees. They took charge, and controlled a game! But these days who do we have? Stuart Atwell (Phantom goal at Watford), Martin “it’s not a penalty!” Atkinson, Mike Riley and Steve Bennett… None of these are even close to the class that Ellery or Collina was!

Top 10 players to look out for

Here’s our top 10 players for the future. We predict these will be playing in the Premier League by 2011.