It's so obvious that Liverpool and Everton, each of which has been planning to build a new ground, at a total cost of £500m, should build just one ground and share. So obvious, they therefore probably won't do it. They'll blame the credit crunch and put everything off for another decade, by which time we'll have a better name for the current credit crunch. It's such a piddling, puny, meaningless [...]

For a couple of years now, I've gone off going to evening games. Saturday afternoons, what else would I do, it's what God created Saturdays for. But evening games muck up supper, as the staff, ie, Mrs Davies, have to have it on the table at six instead of seven and I can't drink, not if I'm driving. It's usually on the telly, so by staying at home it takes [...]

I blame computers for this obsession with stats, though I shouldn't as I'm at last coming to grips with them. I feel faithless to my trusty Amstrad, on which I have written ten million words, but now I'm using the latest Apple iMac, I think that's what it's called. Or is it Eye Mac? Computers mean that even halfwits can create stats - and then throw them at us, whether [...]

I regretted agreeing to go to Leeds the moment I got to King's Cross. It must be the coldest station in northern Europe. On the train there was no free food, just tea and coffee, even though I was in first class, paid for by Harrogate International Festivals Ltd. Don't ask me who they are. Just wrote to me out of the blue, and for some reason I can't remember [...]

Footballers are like politicians. We think they don't but they do, we hope they won't but they will, for if we prick them, they don't half bleed. They have phobias, depressions, worries, jealousies, sulks, just like any run-of-the-mill person who has been damned lucky in their life and chosen career. We don't expect it in players, because the weak have been weeded out at an early age, in the hothouse [...]

The booing at Spurs during the Hull game started at half-time. We know it doesn't help. The players are human, poor petals, so booing them only makes it worse. But what else can we do? Booing is part of a long and ignoble tradition - but usually fans have booed the other team.

I've been looking through my copies of the Sporting Chronicle for 1888, the first season of the [...]

Joe Kinnear used to have a message on his answerphone which said: "If you're ringing from Real Madrid or Barcelona, leave a message now. If not, piss off."

This was during his years managing Wimbledon, taking them to sixth in the League and three Cup semis. Then, in 1999, he had a heart attack. While he was recovering, I went to his house in Mill Hill most days, writing his [...]

I'm still waiting to hear from Gordon Brown, but I've given up all hope of Sven Göran Eriksson. I wrote to Sven just before Euro 2004, offering him a few tips. Not on football, though I am a total expert, but about the Lisbon hotel where the England team were based. I'd recently stayed there, so I warned him that a five-a-side pitch in the grounds was overlooked by a [...]

Two exciting things happened to me at Carlisle United - well, I thought they were pretty exciting. Usually, here in rural Loweswater, the most noteworthy event of my day is a red squirrel opening the feeding box and, on finding it empty, turning and glaring at me. That's my cue to rush into the garden to quickly fill the feeder, muttering, "Sorry, your worship."

I went into the big city [...]

It always seemed obvious that the housing market would collapse when short-sighted banks and building societies started giving out mortgages for more than houses were worth. It seems patently obvious that the Damien Hirst art market will implode, now it's become a conveyor-belt operation with new items coming off it by the hour.

And obviously, football will eat itself, disappearing into a black hole - because clubs can't keep on [...]