Exotic. Mysterious. Sexy. Not words you’d readily associate with Roy Hodgson. Indeed, Mr Roy’s appeal in recent times has been for this very reason. He is English football’s equivalent of a pair of oven gloves or a trip to the garden centre. Familiar. Unremarkable. Safe. Read the rest of this entry »
Tasked with returning Hibernian to the Scottish Premier League in 1998, Alex McCleish apparently thumbed through some early 90s sticker books. He was in search of a statement signing, an experienced yet flashy name to send the message that Easter Road was the place to be, even when hosting Clydebank. Read the rest of this entry »
“Forget about the money and everything else. If we go up, we’ll face 10 months of misery”
Steve Coppell, 1997
How did you ring in the Millennium? Did you have a quiet one in with your loved ones, watching the fireworks smug in the knowledge that the end of a century was indeed nothing special? Did you raise a dignified glass to the next 1000 years? Or did you go hell for leather, embarking on a path of debauchery so depraved as to make the video for Smack My Bitch Up look like a Richard Curtis production? Read the rest of this entry »
5th June 2015: it was football’s equivalent of the Saddam statue toppling, or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man exploding in a flurry of crossed streams and gooey confectionary. Just a week after being re-elected for a fifth term as FIFA president, Joseph S. Blatter suddenly announced his resignation Read the rest of this entry »
Despite – or possibly because of – the absence of all four home nations for the first time since 1938, the 15th world cup finals delivered goals, shocks, controversy, tantrums, scandals and milestones in abundance. Read the rest of this entry »
Charity Shield, Wembley, 8th August 1992
Life should have been good for the two teams who strode out at Wembley in August 1992 to bring the curtain up on the glitzy new world of the Premier League. Read the rest of this entry »
The year before The Queen experienced her annus horriblis, Diego Armando Maradona was in the grip of one of his own, during what would be a particularly grim decade for The Greatest Footballer of All Time. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s 20 years since the headline ‘YANKS 2 PLANKS 0’ belched from the mind of one of The Sun’s ever-culturally sensitive subeditors, summing up depressingly neatly the events of the previous evening in Foxboro, Massachusetts, where England had been beaten by the USA for the first time since Belo Horizonte. Read the rest of this entry »
18th May 1994
Champions League Final
AC Milan 4-0 Barcelona
With England travelling to Montenegro with some trepidation on Tuesday night, what better time to revisit the finest hour of their greatest ever player, Dejan Savicevic? Read the rest of this entry »
19th April 1997
Serie A
Bologna 0-1 Juventus
Juventus’ 2-0 win at Bologna’s Stadio Renato Dall’Ara on Saturday night leaves them with the champagne virtually on ice – nine points clear, they are, like most of the table toppers in Europe’s major leagues, virtually home and hosed. Read the rest of this entry »
