At this stage of the season, with all the Euro excitement, the race for the Prem, and the race for the drop, traditional sayings are being trotted out in such a flurry that there’s hardly time to pause and say, “Hey up, is that really so?” Hence it’s time for a round of “True or False”.

Football is a cruel game.

I didn’t see one death in the Chelsea-Barça [...]

About 12 years ago I interviewed Igor Stimac, the Croatian international, then playing for Derby County. He’d just been to the club’s Xmas party, where they all began drinking at two. By four he’d given up and gone home, but the Brit players were still at it until the early hours.

“I don’t know how they do it. After a couple of glasses of a wine, a normal footballer in [...]

This is the season the cuckoo

likes,

And so do I;

When Man United, Chelsea, Ars ’n’

Pool betumble the Euro heights,

And so do I.

I learned that poem at school, but never knew it was by Thomas Hardy. Very perspicacious.

And it really is exciting, fair cheers me up in these dreary times, our clubs doing so well in Europe. By next week, our four could well be [...]

You probably haven't got your copy handy, so let me remind you of a paragraph in Grimsby Town's programme for their home game against Sheffield United on 17 November 1956: "The Supporters' Accident Policy for Supporters' Club Members has been raised to cover 30,000, so it behoves any Town follower, who is not a member, to join and gain this free cover against any possibility."

There are no more details, [...]

There is one thing still mystifying me about the arrival of Guus Hiddink at Chelsea. Not his name, because the commentators have decided we are calling him Goose, as in the bird, not Hoose, as in the Scottish for house.

Roman Abramovich will always remain a delicious enigma. Does the club's owner speak English yet? We don't know. He doesn't appear vain, in it for ego, but if it were [...]

I was a weed as a child. Now look at me - still a weed. But having asthma made it worse. Dribbling, passing, that was fine, but shooting from any distance, that was agony, especially on wet pitches when the ball was like a coconut. It just sort of dribbled forward expectantly a few yards, then came to a halt, prematurely. Would I ever play for Scotland, or even Carlisle United? [...]

I used to say, when asked for three heroes, Glenn Hoddle, Alfred Wainwright and Paul McCartney. I can hardly believe I used to worship Glenda, turning up early at White Hart Lane just to see him tie his bootlaces. My love affair ended when he was England manager, producing that diary about players he was still in charge of.

The Blessed Wainwright is no more, but he's up there, oh yes, [...]

It took several centuries for a pig's bladder to evolve into a spherical football. Björn Borg didn't come round to the idea of the metal tennis racket for ten years. By comparison, then, it hasn't taken the rest of us long to accept computers as the ultimate piece of sporting equipment, or to decide that the best way to develop an athlete is by hooking him or her up to [...]

It's a time of New Year's resolution for England's cricket team. This week they arrived in the West Indies under a new captain and coach, the old ones - Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores - having gone the way of a so-called power struggle, although I fail to see how it's much of a struggle when you both lose.

Anyway, some of Andrew Flintoff's words, as they prepared for [...]

I feel sorry for Steven Gerrard. I'm not talking about him being up in court in the next week or so because of that affray in a Southport bar . . . OK, I am talking about that, but not about his guilt, or innocence, just all the attention. Really, it's not fair. Young lads in their twenties being picked upon, just because they earn £100,000-plus a week. Come on, [...]