Festival of Football

Festival of Football moves to Wordpress!

2008-09-27T16:03:00.002+01:00

What it says on the tin folks, I have now moved the blog over to Wordpress, so please click on the link and alter your favourites accordingly.

Football League defends "phantom goal"

2008-09-22T21:18:00.006+01:00

The Football League has dismissed calls for a replay between Championship sides Watford and Reading, despite the Professional Game Match Officials board's admission that the goal awarded by referee Stuart Attwell after his assistant flagged was "a complete and utter cock up".

"The laws of the game give no discretion in these matters — the referee's decision is final, we can't disregard his opinion despite the fact that there were 14,761 witnesses who claim that the ball never went within a country mile of the Watford goal" said the League's chief operating officer, Andy Williamson. "Given this explicit position, the League cannot intervene." before muttering something about head of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore, not having to "defend this sort of sh*t".

The goal was awarded with 13 minutes of the match played, a Reading corner glanced off Watford defender John Eustace and went out of play over the byline. Attwell, however, awarded a goal when his myopic assistant raised his flag, to the confusion of all present.

In a post-match statement, wet behind the ears ref, Attwell, 25, claimed that he had awarded the goal for 'intent', claiming that there was no actual requirement within the laws of the game for the ball to have actually entered the oppositions goal for a goal to be awarded.

"In my view there was sufficient evidence of 'intent' from the Reading forward line for a goal to be awarded, they had been trying for several minutes to score and only Watford's desperate rearguard actions, especially by their goalkeeper, who incidentally had to be warned several times for continually handling the ball during the match, had denied them. Basically it's like when the referee gives a foul despite no contact being made, the fact that the offender intended to foul is enough for the foul to be given, the same is true for goals, and if you consult FIFA's new guidelines it was perfectly reasonable for me to award a conceptual goal despite the ball actually crossing the goal line several yards outside of the goal."

Reading manager, Steve Coppell admitted to being surprised at the referee's interpretation of the new guidelines, "So far this season I've seen bugger all evidence of intent to score goals from our players, but, to be honest, at the moment I'm like John Merrick at a swingers party, I'll take whatever I can get."

In the post-match press conference his Watford counterpart, Aidy Boothroyd, stated "Is this what they think is acceptable outside of the Premier League? F**king schoolkids refereeing football matches? Those c**ts Ferguson and Wenger wouldn't put up with this sort of sh*t...if I see that little f**ker round these parts again I'll give the snivelling tw*t a conceptual smack in the mouth that'll send him home to his mummy crying his piggy little eyes out."

Sky Sports chief analyst, Andy Gray, when asked to comment said "Did it happen in the Chelsea vs Manchester United match? No? Well then why does anyone give a flying f**k? Reading? Watford? Are they owned by billionaires or rich Arab consortiums? No they're not, so why are you bothering me with this parochial nonsense, f**k off I've got bigger fish to fry, like Mike Riley's constant victimisation of Rio Ferdinand".

West Ham admit that their players had just come back from a charity fun run

2008-09-20T23:01:00.000+01:00

In a post match interview after West Ham's 3-1 win over troubled Newcastle United, new coach Gianfranco Zola put the Hammers performance down to the fact that he had sent them out on a fun run on the morning of the match.

The entire squad had participated in the Newham 10k 'Run for your life', which involved runners legging it from Canning Town to Green Street whilst attempting to avoid BNP activists, muggers and gangs of surly youths hanging around outside the numerous fried chicken restaurants. The team are believed to have raised several pounds in sponsorship for needy cockney street urchins.

"As you could see from the players shirts" explained the hugely popular, pocket sized, Italian troglodyte, "we hadn't even had time to remove their fun run numbers, but despite this, they were energised and able to run rings around the Newcastle team and, indeed, it was they who looked as though they had been forced to run a marathon before the match".

Premier League footballers demand more respect from officials

2008-09-17T16:40:00.010+01:00

England and Chelsea captain, John Terry, has called on Premier League referees to show players more respect, in a press conference relayed live from Roman Abramovitch's secret underground lair.

The broadcast broke into all major British TV channels at 9.03pm, interrupting several highly rated programmes and Five's "Extreme Fishing with Robson Green".

In a emotionally fraught statement the mentally fragile Terry claimed that everyone involved in football was given respect except for the most important people, the players.

"In my first competitive match after the Champions League final, the referee teased me and, whilst laughing, said "Don't cry John" after he incorrectly awarded a throw in to the opposition despite the fact that I clearly didn't touch the ball before it went out of play! The fact is that no-one, the FA, the officials or the crowds give us any respect. In fact the paying punters are the worst. As soon as we make a mistake, like kicking the ball embarrassingly wide from 12 yards out, they're on our backs and calling us names, hurtful names like Benny, Spazmonkey, Muppet and much, much worse, names that would cause a merchant seaman to blush. Anyone would think that they paid our wages."

"Also I find it highly hypocritical that we've been asked by the FA to respect the referees" continued the weeping manchild "but when are they going to show us some respect? I mean most of us earn in a week what they earn in a year and yet they think they can tell us what to do, how does that work? You'd think that they'd be honoured to share the pitch with us and have a talented superstar such as myself or Gary Neville scream "F**K OFF!" continuously in their face for several minutes. I mean bit part actors in Hollywood take it from the big stars all the time and do they show them red cards and send them from the set? It's political correctness gone mad".

Player representatives from all 20 Premier League clubs have agreed to sign up to the "R.E.S.P.E.C.T" campaign and correspondents from all the major sports media outlets have agreed to step up their berating of match officials until they make them all jack it in once and for all, whilst shouting "If you know so much Hansen, why don't you take charge of a match rather than critisising and spouting meaningless clichés, you Scottish prat".

Scientists attempt to explain weird phenomena centred around Zagreb

2008-09-11T13:20:00.004+01:00

Scientists at the 'Large Hadron Collider' at the CERN facility in Switzerland have admitted today that during yesterday's test firing of the giant magneto device, they may possibly have opened up a series of alternate realities spheres, one of which appeared to have been centred around the Maksimir football stadium in Zagreb, Croatia, whilst reports also came in of strange goings on at the Largleeunpronouncable Stadium in Reykjavik.

At approximately 9.45pm the news agencies were claiming that the England football team, almost identical, in all physical aspects, to the one that had huffed and puffed to beat the Andorran goat-farmers on saturday, had smashed, the previously unbeaten on home soil, Croatians, 4-1. Further evidence that not all was quite right with reality, was revealed when Scotland scored their first goals under new coach, George Burley, to beat Magnus Magnusson's Iceland, 2-1, with a doppelganger of Rangers journeyman clogger, Kirk Broadfoot, scoring the all important first goal. Confirmation that reality had been altered came with the news that Switzerland had lost to the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg.

Chief scientist, Professor "Doc" Brown, announced at a hastily convened press conference, "We believe that in firing a beam of protons around the particle accelerator at exactly 88mph, we have recorded the first ever artificially created Giggs boson, popularly known as the "Hod particle", a tiny sub-atomic structure that is capable of creating an extra yard of space and second of time."

Explaining further to the uncomprehending collection of journalists, he continued, "We also recorded the creation of the Theotron, a fast moving particle that can slice through the crowded space-time continium, a particle that was first posited by the eminent Swede physicist, Professor Erik Yuran Svensson, several years ago. We also seem to have discovered the origin of some of the "Dark energy" that makes up 73% of the mass of the universe in an unstable particle called the Wazza R boson, which is most often found sitting in the Black hole behind the frontier particle or Em boson, a large, dense particle which can collapse rapidly and without warning."

The scientists then went on to tell the gathered audience that there was no reason to panic and that our original reality would return over the coming weeks or months and that the natural order of things was likely to be restored in time for the next round of World Cup qualifiers.

Hammers unveil new boss

2008-09-09T01:56:00.002+01:00

West Ham's Icelandic owner, Magnus Magnusson, revealed today that the team's new manager will be a lump of Gorgonzola, becoming the first foreign dairy product to manage the Irons in their 113 year history.

The Hammer's chairman scotched rumours that he'd intended to hire Gianfranco Zola and had only ended up with the 2lb lump of cheese when his PA ran the proposed contract through a spellchecker and failed to spot that Microsoft Word had substituted the name of the diminutive former Chelsea and Italy frontman for the name of a pungent Italian blue cheese, before getting Magnusson to sign the legally binding, 5 year contract, said to be worth £2 million per year.

In a smelly press conference, the baldheaded biscuit supremo stated that ever since Alan Curbishly's resignation last week, the West Ham board had intended to break with tradition and employ a mouldy cheese to handle team affairs, pointing out that it could hardly do worse than Glenn Roeder.

With fans of the club said to be broadly in favour of the surprise move, celebrity supporter and professional cockney, Ray Winstone, told gathered news reporters "Fackin' 'ell, ain't this a right turn up for the books! A lump of cheese managing the 'ammers, never fort I'd see the day, but to be honest, an' I could be on me Jack Jones here, but we've had to put up with some right pony over recent seasons and quite frankly I'm just relieved we didn't end up with that toilet Souness. And let's face it, the Curds will be better than Curbs in the transfer market, even a mouldy old piece of Gorgonzola knows better than to spunk a load of bees and honey on a Berkshire hunt like Keiron Dyer. "

However the appointment has caused consternation at the League Managers Association, with chairman Howard Wilkinson claiming that this is just another nail in the coffin for English managers.

"When I became the last English manager to win the title, with Leeds in 1991, why are you laughing? It's true, look it up if you don't believe me", Wilkinson explained, "I never dreamed that not only would the top clubs nearly all be managed by Frenchmen, Spaniards and other assorted untrustworthy continental types, but that young, successful and progressive ballplaying English managers such as Aidy Boothroyd and that bloke that's done alright at Hull, you know, something Brown, would be usurped by foreign, imported cheese! I mean if they want to go down the dairy route what's wrong with a good old English cheddar or stilton?"

The footballing world is now waiting with baited breath to see if Newcastle owner, Mike Ashley, follows suit and offers the Magpies head coach job to a sphere of Edam.

Capello critisises Joe Cole for "tactical indiscipline"

2008-09-08T14:34:00.002+01:00

Despite scoring both goals in England's crushing of the dangerous minnows, Andorra, and potentially saving the Italian's blushes in Capello's first ever competitive match in charge of the 'Three Lions', the England coach has hit out at Joe Cole's tactical naïvety, lack of discipline and unpredictable outbursts of footballing skill, claiming that this is certainly not what he expects or wants from an English footballer.

In an interview with the Irish owned, Carlos Santana sports channel, Capello claimed that he had been happy with the way that the first half had gone but unfortunately had to change things around when he had a sudden moment of lucidity and realised that Stuart Downing was, in fact, a Middlesbrough player and consequently, a bit shite.

"I brought Joey on in order to shore up the midfield and prevent the dangerous Andorran postman from breaking down the wing and potentially making John Terry look like a leaden footed, clumsy oaf, which could've been disastrous for morale. Who knows how the feeble minded Chelsea stopper would've coped? It may've made him cry like a girl." Capello said with the aid of a translator.

"Joey is a fantastic player and despite looking slightly retarded, he is clearly one of England's most creative players, but at international level this is not enough. I don't want players out there who can dribble around the opposition with their, ow you say, 'fancydannery', I want 'meat and potatoes' players who can lump the ball into the opposition box for Emile Heskey to halfheartedly try to win before falling over. The last thing I want to do is introduce a supremely talented and creative attacking player who will make the rest of the team realise how crap they actually are, it is not good for team spirit and until Cole realises this he will not earn a place in my starting line up. Yes, he may have 'saved my bacon' and helped to avoid the embarrassment of a 0-0 draw with a team 157th in the FIFA ranking but in all my years as a coach I have never put up with players showing ingenuity, guile or spontaneity, these have no place in modern football. " he continued.

He went on to praise Wayne Rooney for eliminating those elements from his game and becoming a much more tactically useful one-dimensional footballer, something that England clearly need more of, the £6million per year coach claimed.

Man.City's new owners reveal plan to breed "superfootballers"

2008-09-05T01:55:00.002+01:00

Spokesman and top bullshitter for the new owners of Manchester City, Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim, outlined today his plans to turn the traditionally rubbish football club into a global soccer powerhouse by using their previous experience with racehorse breeding to produce a new generation of 'Supergalacticos'.

The group have already made multimillion pound bids for the semen of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Dimitar Berbatov and are believed to have employed a bevy of ex-Hollyoaks starlets to visit various Premier League stars and procure a sample of their 'essence'.

Bids have also been made at a sports memorabilia auction for jockstraps belonging to past superstars Pelé, Johan Cruyff, Maradona and Brian Kilkline. The theory is that with their crack band of DNA scientists they will be able to isolate samples of any leakages that may have soaked into their old undercrackers and use them for invitro fertilisation of the eggs of the woman who starred in "Gregory's Girl" and that girl who was in "Bend it like Beckham" and "ER", which they had previously bought from Ebay.

Rumours that they have already bought Thierry Henry and intend to send him out to stud have yet to be confirmed, much to the disappointment of the female employees at Eastlands.

The group have also bought top ladies team Doncaster Belles, and intend to artificially inseminate the players with prime baby gravy as part of an audacious experiment which will provide the Citizens with a super team capable of dominating World football from 2024.

In the meantime the Abu Dhabi United Group have made bids for every fit striker and attacking midfielder across Europe and will be spending cash during the January transfer window like a millionaire who's gone to Las Vegas after being told he has one week to live.

Saudi Royal Family attempts to buy Premier League

2008-09-03T10:37:00.002+01:00

In a shocking move to upstage the Abu Dhabi buyout of comedy club, Manchester City, the Saudi Arabian Royal family have made an audacious bid of £1 Billion to buy the Premier League lock, stock and barrel.

Spokesman for the Saudi consortium, Sheik Urbouti explained "Because of the credit crunch and the ridiculous increase in petrol prices the Middle East is currently floating on a vast sea of cash and thanks to our medieval, feudalistic near slavery system of government, Saudi Arabia is perfectly positioned to take full advantage of this. We've seen Dubai with their DIC group make a bid for Liverpool and now Abu Dhabi's ADUG have bought City, so as the Gulf's most ostentatiously rich state we have decided to trump them all and buy the entire league, it was either this or gold plate every building in Riyadh."

Other than to trump the other Arab Gulf states, no-one is quite sure of the motivation behind the offer but Senior Analyst for Football Studies at the London School of Economics, Professor Bert Trautmann, speculated that this was a move that could possibly lead to the Premier League being owned by the Saudis and then rented back to the country as part of the Governments Private Finance Initiative.

The Premier League chairman, Sir Dave Richards, claimed that no decision had been made with regard to the bid and that the most important consideration was the fans and maintaining the integrity of the "Best League in the World" before starting to laugh uncontrollably.

Transfer window slams shut till 1st January

2008-09-02T10:33:00.000+01:00

Well the transfer window is now shut until the New Year and like parents whose ADHD addled kids have just been to their first ever late night party, guzzling fizzy pop and eating sweets made from pure sugar and carcinogenic additives, chairmen up and down the country (although these days we're not sure which country) are trying to work out what the hell happened last night and why they appear to have a crumpled fax claiming that they've bought a Belgian international midfielder that no-one has heard of for £15million.

Here's my view on some of the big tranfers;

Berbatov, Spurs to Man.Utd for £30.5million (plus Frazier Campbell on loan for a season) - This means that the strike partnership that scored the goals to lift Spurs to the giddy heights of 11th place last season have been sold for a combined total of £52million! Madness! At least the saga is finally over and congratulations must go to Man.City for making a late bid to disrupt the deal and force Sir Ferg to pay an extra few million for the sulky Bulgar.

Robinho, Real Madrid to Man.City for £34million - Sorry but this is a joke isn't it? It's wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Firstly is Robinho worth anywhere near this kind of fee? This is a player who's struggled to get a game for a fairly ordinary Real Madrid side and with the re-signing of Shaun Wright-Philips, means that City can now boast the shortest pair of wide players in the Premier League. Still they stole him from under the nose of Chelsea and have possibly pissed Abramovitch off so it's not all bad. Secondly do Man.City actually have the funds to pay for this transfer? Have the Abu Dabi group paid for him out of their own pockets, if so who actually owns his registration? No-one saw this one coming and it just shows how mental football is right now.

Fellaini, Standard Liège to Everton for £15million - Who? Everton have, presumably, broken their record fee to buy a player who looked 'quite good' in the Champions League qualifiers against scouse rivals, Liverpool. For God's sake he's BELGIAN! Belgium haven't produced a decent player since Frankie Van Der Elst in the early '80's!

Xisco, Deportivo La Coruna to Newcastle for £5.6million - Do the words "Albert" and "Luque" not mean anything to the management at Newcastle? Still at least he'll prove a headline writers dream if he scores with variations on "Let's all have a Xisco", "Xisco Dancing", etc.

Danny Higginbotham and Tom Soares to Stoke - The Potters continue their plan to buy a team to try to get promotion back into the Premier League next season.

Daniel Cousin, Rangers to Hull for £1.5million - A relatively low cost desperation buy, although let's face it he has to be better than Dean Windass doesn't he?

Capello announces squad for Andorra game

2008-09-01T13:20:00.000+01:00

England coach, Fabio Capello, has announced a surprise squad for saturday's World Cup qualifier against lowly Andorra, with every single player making their England debut.

In a tactical masterstroke the continental genius has decided to match Andorra man-for-man by filling the team with part-timer ratcatchers, postmen, old pros who never made it above the old 4th division and Jimmy Bullard.

In a potentially contraversial move, possibly designed to motivate his underperforming 'star players', the captains armband will be passed to Dover Athletic central defender and Ocado delivery driver, Terry Johns, a player that Capello is said to have admired since his perfect delivery of groceries to his swanky West London apartment last week.

During a press conference at a transport cafe just outside South East London, Capello explained that "commentators and so-called, experts, are forever telling us that a group of Sunday league players could beat the likes of Andorra, so I intend to test this theory, after all this team could hardly play worse than McClaren's bunch of clowns who played in the fixture at Barcelona last season. After all who needs Steven Gerrard to spray 45 yard passes straight into the crowd when I can get someone from the Southern Amateur league to do it just as well?"

Steve McClaren becomes a Dutch master overnight

2008-08-14T19:50:00.000+01:00

Ex-England coach and new manager of high flying Dutch side, FC Twente, has attributed his incredible ability to master the Dutch language to watching DVDs of the two Dutch policemen characters created by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in their hit BBC comedy show and to watching those annoying Grölsh adverts.

In an interview with the Netherlands top sport channel, "Red Hot and Dutch", McClaren, wearing a striking bright orange PVC suit and giant doobie in hand, said "I am coming to your countries, Holland, to immersh myselfs into your cultures, to experience a new vay of lifes, to broaden my horishonsh and to learn how to play ze, ow you say, shexy footballs. FC Twentes, Arshnal, the Championsh Leagues, zees are ze thingsh that I wanted to experience in ze Nederlands, zees is a dream come true, shexy dreams, footballs, goalsh. Of course ve are zee underdogsh but, hey, you never knowsh, perhapsh we could win the gamesh over zee two legsh and if we don'ts then, hey, this is a very liberals country, we just kicks back and enjoys ourshelves."

Later when asked about whether his FC Twente team could challenge the Big Three (PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord) for the Eeriedivision, McClaren quickly interrupted saying "Schtopp, schtopp, zis football teams ish clearly not ready yet!"

Ashton's transfer to Spurs held up by West Ham's demands

2008-08-13T12:43:00.000+01:00

England star and injury magnet, 'Destructible' Dean Ashton's proposed transfer across London from West Ham to Tottenham Hotspurs, has stalled after the East End chancers demanded a Premier League record fee of "all the tea in China or the equivalent cash value (£150 million)" for the breakable hitman.

West Ham's Icelandic owner, Magnus Magnusson, has said that it was well known amongst footballing circles that Spurs were prepared to spunk stupid money on English players, especially strikers, citing last years £17 million transfer of Darren Bent. However Spurs supremo, Daniel Levy countered that "at least Bent had scored lots of goals for Charlton and didn't appear to have legs made of balsa wood" but did admit that with the imminent loss of Dracula lookalike, Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United, the acquisition of a top striker, even one that is unlikely to start more than one game in five, is their top priority.

When questioned about Ashton's appalling injury record, Magnus responded "Well stupidly rich people pay lots of money for fragile items all the time, only last week a Ming vase was auctioned at Sotherby's for £28 million and even Dean Ashton is more robust than a delicate piece of chinaware".

Ashton, who has managed the princely sum of 15 appearances for the Hammers since his transfer from Norwich City, and is currently recovering from his latest injury, a repetitive strain wrist injury allegedly picked up from playing "Pro Evolution 2008" too much, has said that he is keen on a move to White Hart Lane as the North London club was recommended to him by previous Spurs favourite malingerer, Darren Anderton, as having the best treatment room facilities in the Premier League.

If Spurs fail to land Ashton it is believed that Juande Ramos could make an audacious bid for Samuel L.Jackson's character from the film "Unbreakable".

Threat of strike action by Scottish referees averted

2008-08-07T20:58:00.000+01:00

Thanks to last ditch negotiations the threatened strike action by Scottish referees appears to have been averted by the intervention of the 'Old Firm', Rangers and Celtic.

In a joint statement broadcast live on the Carlos Santana sports channel, Rangers owner, Sir David Murray and Celtic chairman, former Home Secretary John Reid, revealed that the two Glasgow giants were prepared to make up the difference between the proposed match fee of £800 and the current £575 (which includes the sponsorship money received from Specsavers).

Spokesman for the Scottish Referees Union, Hugh Dullass, claimed that this increase would bring Scottish referee's earnings into line with the officials of other major leagues, such as Lithuania, Bosnia Herzegovina and the Isles of Scilly.

When later quizzed as to why the 'Big Two' had stepped in at the brink to end the strike before the opening weekend of the new SPL season, Sir David Murray admitted "everyone knows that without the presence of the match officials, the duopoly of the 'Old Firm' would be impossible to maintain. I mean do you really think that our team, containing geriatric centrebacks David Weir and Christian Dailly could really manage to win the SPL without the help of 89th minute penalties, dodgy sendings off and excessive injury time? Football is 'Big Business" and in big business the last thing you want to do is give your competitors a level playing field, just look at BAe systems and the Saudis, sometimes you just have to keep the people in charge sweet."

With the dispute resolved fans of Scottish football will be releived to know that they can look forward to normal service being resumed from this weekend.

Festival of Football

2008-08-06T23:55:00.000+01:00

Welcome football fans to my latest blog which aims to bring you the inside track on all* of the breaking stories from 'Planet Football', with more red hot analysis and tip-top insight than Garth Crooks and Andy Townsend combined.

*in this context all means some...occasionally...when I can be arsed.