Haircut of the Year

At last, after three years in which this award has not been given, gathering dust in a corner ever since Becks decided to go legit, and I mean that very sincerely, we have two excellent contenders. Marouane Fellaini of Everton, with his big hair, has done wonders for the Goodison wig industry. Special mention, in the beard subsection, must be made of Jonathan Greening of [...]

I have this doctor friend in Loweswater and once again he’s sent me an email showing a cupboard with empty shelves.

The caption is “Arsenal’s trophy cabinet 2008-2009”.

He thinks it’s hilarious, but then doctors have a funny sense of humour. His team is Spurs and he calls Arsenal “the scum”. Of course not, don’t be daft, he doesn’t actually go and watch them play. Or go to [...]

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 [...]

What’s the difference between Fergie, Wenger, Benítez and Hiddink, the four toppermost managers of our toppermost clubs, which once again have risen miles above the rest, not just in the Prem but in Europe? Well, Fergie is British, unlike the other three, but that’s not it. Hiddink is only a temporary manager and just passing through? But I bet he’s here to stay. Benítez has got a silly beard and [...]

I was listening to Today on Radio 4, which I never miss, love the betting tips, when on came the new Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols. He was congratulated on getting the gig and he modestly, nicely, deflected the compliment. “I will give it my best shot,” he replied.

Heh up, I thought, as I’d only been half listening, has he taken over at Newcastle United? A [...]

I want them all to stay up. I rush to the screen when I see the tragic faces, the young and old, ugly and pretty, especially the pretty, as it’s surprising how many pretties get spotted, head in hands, their nails bitten, uttering moans of total anguish. I long to kiss their wounds better, pat their worried brows, and say don’t worry, you little supporters of West Brom/Boro/Newcastle/ Sunderland/Blackburn/Hull/ Portsmouth/Stoke – [...]

Have you noticed England’s new shirts? I could hardly keep my eyes off them, even though I was distracted by Nationwide’s new adverts: “Proud to be a building society.” Quite cheeky, suggesting banks must be ashamed to be banks. In years to come, the reference will be lost.

The shirts are ever so ducky, little plain white numbers in what looks like Aertex, as worn by primary school kids in [...]

I once spent a day with Brian Clough, which was excellent, funny, informative and great fun – except for one little incident. Well, everyone else has got in their ha’porth, not to mention their books, documentaries, TV series. Strange how this Cloughfest has happened, five years after he died.

It was in the autumn of 1972, the season after Derby County, of all clubs, had won the League title.

The tide is turning. After the long invasion of foreigners taking over our football, providing players, managers and owners, at last one of our own, home-grown native stars has moved the other way and has just joined one of Europe’s top clubs, Real Madrid.

The reason why so few of our best players play in Europe today – compared with the Seventies and Eighties, when every half-decent English or Scottish [...]