Monday 21 October 2013

What does FA stand for?

Looking at the weekend's results you might be forgiven for thinking that all is rosy in football's garden (apart from the fact that your Dad keeps worrying about the windows getting smashed and if you keep whacking it over next-door the big fuck-off Alsatian will marmalise your casey with its canines.)

Andros (surely a brand of household bleach and not a name) Townsend, Daniel Sturridge, Ross Barkley, Jack Wilshere... well they're all pretty handy, aren't they? But nevertheless only 1 in every 3 first team starters in the Premier League are English. Which is a problem, apparently. (In Qatar there's a problem that only 8 in every 11 starters are Brazilian and this could have a terrible effect on the national team's chances in 2022.)

So Greg Dyke, in that bustling no-nonsense way of his, comes stomping in with this FA commission to investigate why English players are so poorly represented.  It sounds great. Greg, so much a man of the people that he can get someone to stuff his hand up a rat's backside and save a whole TV station, has really copped hold of a genuine concern for football fans in this country. Hasn't he?

Well, to start with, ermm... No, not really. Most fans I know don't give a toss what's on a footballer's passport so long as the player concerned has an instep that meets the ball more often than his shin.(Or, to put it another way, as long as it's not Titus Bramble). Me, I like the idea of a club whose playing staff represents its local community and principal supporters, but even I can concede that those days are long gone.

Much like our national cuisine, which we once cherished but now realise was stodgy, predictable and not much good for us, our football has been enhanced by spicy imports. Twenty years ago the presence of an Ivorian in your midfield was as unlikely as a pot of Thai fish sauce on your supermarket shelf. And these Thai meals and Ivorian midfielders have improved my life immeasurably.

The only time this issue becomes thorny is when the national team, as it has done many times in recent years, comes up woefully short on international duty. Then we all seek to blame them blinking foreigners who come over and take our jobs (and, at the risk of straying into Adrian Chiles territory, in the case of Poles and plumbing, for example, they tend to do it better and cheaper).

Now the commission's remit is to look at:

"1. The pathway from schools into academies;
  2. The progress of those young English players in club academies (ages nine to 16);
  3. The development of those young academy players into first team Premier League players."

(That's the first time I've ever cut and pasted from a David Bond blog. My punctuation is better.)

The original eight people who were going to explore this are Greg Dyke, Danny Mills, Glenn Hoddle, Howard Wilkinson, Richie Humphries, Dario Gradi, someone else at the FA, someone at the Football League.

They've now been joined by the England football manager and a black man called Rio Ferdinand. Had the FA Commission already had a minority ethnic person in its ranks, we might well be considering how much Ferdinand might have to offer. But for now it looks like the most blatant bit of tokenism since David Cameron allowed a grammar schoolboy into a cabinet meeting (actually that might be yet to happen).

Heather Rabatts was right to be so blazingly angry about this issue. As is Sol Campbell. It's a bleeding long time since Viv Anderson stuck his telescopic legs through a pair of England shorts. One only has to look at the England squad last Tuesday to realise just how important black players are to the national team.

And yet Dyke assembles a clump of horribly familiar and pasty establishment figures to his commission. All right Dario Gradi sounds like he might be a bit Italian or summat but you know what I mean. If there is a problem with the promotion of young Englishmen in the game, then half of these blokes have been overseeing it!

As for the ladies, well thank you very much dears but the last one of you to make a significant contribution to the well-being or otherwise of the FA was Faria Alam. Women have to be on this commission too.

Just as bad, there appears to be no true representation from people working with the youngsters at grass roots level. Obviously they'll be consulted but in a top-down, rather patronising way. Suited grandees sliding out of the back of Lexuses and shaking hands with kids doing keepy-uppies on a basketball court - that sort of thing.

Meanwhile the Premier League are outside the tent pissing in, which is pretty much their default position these days.

Dyke has rushed this through with well-intentioned zeal but I don't know anyone who doesn't see this gathering of minds as a talking shop for tedious duffers, most of whom spend none of their time with the young people whose needs they claim to be promoting. It's truly laughable.

I mean what's Hoddle going to say, exactly? The ones who can't make the grade at Premier League level probably did something bad in a past life? Wilkinson is just some past-it old chunterer. Only Gradi has any track record in converting potential into success.

The three objectives of this commission amount to pretty much the same thing. Better young players come from better coaches and yes, an infrastructure that keeps these players learning and developing. So who's going to coach the coaches? And can they have better facilities please?

When it come to clubs that doesn't even have to mean that the players or coaches are English. Hell, look at the players that have come through Ajax's system: Suarez and Erikson are just recent examples. They don't have to be Dutch. It's just a shame that they're never English.

I'd have been tempted to put Gradi in charge, pay him properly, give him a couple of community-based assistants and send him on a two-year mission. What the other nine blokes there will contribute is difficult to guess. And why so many?

I mean I wouldn't mind sitting around a table with Rio and Danny having a good old chinwag about the state of the game either. I just wouldn't make it a flagship policy for my organisation.

What does FA stand for? I think we all know. And it's not Faria Alam.






255 comments:

  1. I'd have thought it's been pretty obvious for years what the issue is Del Boy.

    Coaching youngsters properly.

    That's all the commission needs to say really.

    However,it'll no doubt turn into various junkets to Barbados.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Same problem with Dyke as when he was at the BBC. Too many repeats. I did like his target of us winning the WC by 2022 tho.

    Inspired by this I've set myself a target of becoming president of the USA by next Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't really agree with you about the England team becoming a kind of World Food section of Sainsbury's, Robbo. Nice to think we'd get the expensive delicacies but I suspect we'd end up with Thai instant noodles.

    Gradi. Dario T. Gradi. These are the voyages of the FA flagship Futility. Our 2 year mission to seek out new blazers, space monkeys and premiership leftovers. To boldly go where we've been before, every five years or so and achieve absolutely fucking nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 'scuse my ignorance in advance here...but this commission of duffers is looking at the shortcomings of the senior England men's team is it not? Then why, apart from the tokenism you are rightly against, does there have to be a woman on the committee? In that case, why not bung in a bishop and a mullah for religious balance, and a ten year old to represent the kids?
    Just saying... :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Equal Rights for Space Monkeys!

      Delete
    2. what about Space Cowboys, Maurice?

      Delete
    3. And a Gangster of Love, Trotts?


      Jedi

      Delete
  5. good stuff Robbo. Greg Dyke's Flying Circus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah...so the woman we want on the committee is a watery bint waving a sword as a replacement for democracy. Now I understand.

      Delete
  6. Yes Roger. Unless she has her own typewriter.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The FA doesn't stand for Faria Alam?

    Not what I heard Robbo. Good blog though.


    Jedi

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think it's about how young players are being brought through and surely that doesn't just mean lads? Or are we still all doing the 'I love women's football cos at the end of the game they exchange shirts' gag? And actually you're right, Rog, why would a woman know owt about men's football?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, a hairy arsed FA hasbeen of the male spieces has no right to pontificate on the women's game, otherwise he might recommend tighter shirts, or summat :)
      Now, where's me luvvly secretary? I want a cup of tea, purrlease... :)

      Delete
    2. Well, yes, Robbo, but what makes you think anyone at the FA has a clue about men's football?


      Jedi

      Delete
  9. Excellent as always Robbo. Not only for the sports content, but for the new vocab I pick up, such as 'marmalise'.

    If you really want to improve English prospects via player development, here is the outline of your ten-person committee:

    1. Dario Gradi
    2. The head of Ajax's youth development setup
    3. The head of Barcelona's youth development setup
    4. The head of Spain's youth development setup
    5. The head of Belgium's youth development setup
    6. Anson Dorrance (women's coach at UNC in USA--see Wikipedia for his record)
    7. Someone with extensive experience training Brazilian youth coaches
    8. Someone with extensive experience training Spanish youth coaches
    9. Pia Sundhage (or other former US women's national team coach)
    10. A token Englishman

    ReplyDelete
  10. Another wildly off-base set of predictions sure to be wrong:

    Portugal draw in Sweden but win at home to qualify.

    France hand Ukraine a pair of defeats to qualify.

    Greece squeak by Romania on away goals.

    Iceland upset Croatia.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nice one RR.

    The solution really is quite simple; properly trained coaches and more of them. I read in an article in the Guardian recently that England has 1,161 coaches at Uefa ‘A’ level compared with 12,720 in Spain and 5,500 in Germany.

    At pro licence level, England has 203 coaches, Spain 2,140 and Germany more than 1,000. Those figures tell you all you need to know. It's not that there is no new talent available, Britian just doesn't know how to harness and bring it to fruitition.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Who now for Boro ? Hiddink's still available I think, as is Heynckes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or not.

      1952:

      Tony Pulis leads the early betting odds for the Boro job, along with Nigel Clough.

      Delete
  13. Oh fuck me, Pulis! Players taller, pitches narrower, football duller. It's like watching pinball played by dull-witted pylons. no, no, no.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yet the poisoned chalice is probably your best chance of making the s playoffs. I dont think anyone else could come close really.

      Delete
  14. You mention Ajax in your post, who indeed have a proud history of bringing through young talent, the result of winning the CL back in 1995 was achieved with a bunch of young, brought through the ranks players. However, due to the changing economic climate of the game Ajax somewhat neglected their youth set up for a number of years, choosing to invest in the finished article, usually from the Scandenavian regions, this did not bring success and generated ire in many of the fans.

    A few years ago they rejuvanated their entire system. Frank de Boer was brought in (promoted) and he surronded himself with former Ajax players to tend to the whole running of the club from youth to the first team, these included, Bergkamp, van der Sar, Overmars and Blind (who had been realesed as head traner/manager) this move payed dividends with Ajax winning three consecutive Ere Divisie titles under de Boer.

    For the record, Suarez was bought from FC Groningen to replace the Liverpool bound Ryan Babel. Eriksen played under, then youth coach de Boer in Martin Jol's set up in 2008. He was a product of the Odense BK youth set up, he also had a stint at Barcelona's famous Le Masia. In fact, Sp"rs are not his first London club as he also spent some time across the Thames at Chelsea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ajax seem to have got their "new" youth set up about right H2, from what I can see. Reason they won't win the CL is more to do with having to sell their best players ("changing economic climate" as you put it) than lack of development.

      How many qualified coaches does Holland have? Probably as many as England?


      Jedi

      Delete
  15. I have it on good authority from blokes in pubs that the biggest problem with englsih football is too many foreigners, these educated fellows were all involved actively in football as they each assured me they were proud members of the English Defence League, they asked me to join, but as a lifelong member of the North Hampshire Midfielders Association i thought it would be a conflict of interest and declined.

    ReplyDelete
  16. R 2 Da B 2 da wickey scratch A

    SNH5 me ol' china plate.

    ReplyDelete
  17. easy H2 you old swine! how the devil are you.... the Sidwell goal has brought fourth the prophecy... as it was said so it shall be, when the ginger angel slays the eagle with a strike so i shall return to Robbo to once more type bollocks...

    hows holland then? still flat with a great selection of grumble mags?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Indeed it is nad indeed there are.

    Fine prophecy there young man, good to see ya back and you've lost none of that fine penmanship and good writing and humorous and jokes and stuff that you do so good and stuff.

    Me, I'm not too bad, still keep on keeping on, living the life, drinking too much, you know, the usual.

    How's your good self?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Shame they didn't get rid of Mow' a few weeks earlier, you could have had old Schtevie Mac back.

    Colin Wanker may be available (he usualy is)

    Is Alan Curbishly still alive?

    ReplyDelete
  20. I may have seen the problem at Boro.

    Former Ipswich defender Tony Mowbray is given the Spanish Archer,and is replaced by Mark Venus,1st team coach,also a former Ipswich defender.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So Boro fans can look forward to their next manager being ....... former Ipswich defender Titus Bramble.

      Delete
  21. Hi Trottski, hows america still vast with a great selection of burgers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chief!!

      How the devil are you RBA?

      How's them darts?

      Delete
    2. i already wrote this once, but it didnt publish - but it might do later, so if i seem to be repeating myself, it's not because i'm a loon-

      Jacks... i'm very well, how are you?

      Hows Buxton, still a Spa Town with great haircuts?

      Delete
  22. No ham (otherwise known as beef)burgers for a month, all the fatted calves are being used for the feast of your blogosphere return celebration.

    Unless you prefer tukey burger or chicken burger, ostritch burger, venison burger, elk burger, buffalo burger, bison burger or catfish burger and would you like fries? would you like to supersize for a dollar?. (don't have the elk, it's fatty).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hey its not every day I return to to the blog (its only once every 6 months or so) so screw it, i'll have the super-sized elk burger with a gallon of processed sugar juice and a barrel'o'fries...

      Delete
    2. Exactly what the average meerkan has for breakfast. ;)

      Delete
  23. before you ask rba, or just in case you don't, exile in north essex is still small with a small selection of smallness

    and how's aldershot these days?

    Woe!

    ReplyDelete
  24. OK i have written this 3 times.... so if make the same Ashot gag a bunch of times it is not because i have altzeimers or altzeimers.

    Hi Blogs...

    Yeah aldershot is still the culturally diverse sophisticated metropolis it always was... plus now we have a nandos.

    ReplyDelete
  25. http://www.newsfoxsatire.com/2013/10/15/arsene-wenger-stoke-restricting-foreigners-ages/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/arsenal-fans-is-this-the-spooky-truth-that-mufc-will-be-relegated/

      Delete
  26. Steve Kean now managing in Brunei. I believe he's in charge of Venky's Disunited. All hail the Chickenshitters!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24620318

    ReplyDelete
  27. Blatter to step down in favor of anyone but Platini.

    He was quoted as saying "Once you have been a horse you don't go back to the stable."

    Never mind the non-democratic handover of power; this is a damning indictment of the drug-testing program.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24624337

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The other problem with Platini is that he actually did something on a football pitch.

      Obviously not a good thing to put in your CV for football administration.


      Jedi

      Delete
    2. Once you been to the whores you don't go back to the table?

      What a wierdo.

      Love the fact that the guy he wants to succeed him is from the Cayman Islands, he'll know where to stash all those bribes and ill gotten gains.

      Delete
    3. Also, I see Webb succeeded Warner and Blazer at CONACAF. As I recall both Warner and Blazer were notoriously corrupt (so corrupt, in fact, they got kicked out of FIFA, which is hard work). Blatter making sure he knows where the bodies are buried (probably not literally).


      Jedi

      Delete
  28. french fries, texas fries, plantain fries, banana fries, sweet potato fries, onion fries, eggplant fries or parsnip fries? And would you like a pickle?

    ReplyDelete
  29. fried pickle? can we do that these days?

    ReplyDelete
  30. I asked the manager who asked the area director and they asked the regional VP who asked Corporate HQ and they said "Hell Yeah, does he want his pickle fried in sesame oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, coconut oil or olive oil?"

    ReplyDelete
  31. Try some deep-fried butter, too.

    I bet somewhere in a lab in the deep South, someone is trying to fry liquid nitrogen. It will be dessert for the deep-fried fatback, topped with fried lard cubes, accompanied by a piping hot mug of frying oil. (Which, one suspects, is actually rendered pig fat.)

    ReplyDelete
  32. They can fry fucking anything these days.CERN deep fat fried a neutrino last week in the large hadron collider and ass soon as they find the higgs Boson they're going to fry it.

    ReplyDelete
  33. What does FA stand for?

    Fried Anything.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Roy Keane has been fried in effigy in safs autohagiography so I hear.

    ReplyDelete
  35. FA = Fried Aldershot if he doesn't get his order in sharpish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i'll have oil fried oil with a side of pies and wheat grass gin please.

      Delete
  36. You mean the Piggs Boson blogs... the universe is explained by a standard model explaining that all matter is ultimately fryable, The fryable universe is held in place by 4 ultimate forces or Bosons... these bosons are heat, grease, footy and pies... the standard model explains all these principles and explains and predicts many of the truths of the universe however one area that is not covered is the effect of pies on the universe, in order to make the universal model stick there has to be some sort of universal pie field which all pastry covered matter must pass in order to gain fryable mass. This Pie field must come from a carrier particle - this is the Piggs Boson, or as some in the media have sensationally called it the "wrights pie particle". The scientists at CERN have being firing pastry at lumps of kidney and beef at ultra high speeds to to try and recreate this Piggs Boson in lab conditions... SCIENCE JOKES!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Safs autobiography....are there 5 extra unexpected pages at the end?

    ReplyDelete
  38. RBA yes apologies for the typo re the the Pigs Boson but I do feel you have neglected to take into account the effect of cheese string theory which has been shown to explain how the framus intersects with the ramistan approximately at the paternoster (which is my answer to everything these days)

    ReplyDelete
  39. And that's why arsenal need to buy lewandowski in January

    ReplyDelete
  40. Oh no it's ok you've got the padawan bendtner ... titter

    ReplyDelete
  41. My boy played vs Norwich academy at the weekend.they had a 13 year old they'd paid Northampton £70,000 for. That's a 13 year old.

    ReplyDelete
  42. once again blogs my friend you have placed the proverbial pie on the top shelf of the oven...

    although i do feel that cheese string theory is fast becoming the alchemy of modern pience.

    thats the real reason arsenal need to sign tony cotee on january.

    ReplyDelete
  43. £70,000 for a 13 year old.... now do i go for a Michael Jackson joke or a cheaper in Bangkok joke?????????????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i did both..... hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

      Delete
  44. Pience, tba...got me thinking about earth pience...earths crust...hot filling...see what I'm saying...we're inhabiting a pie, a vast pie spinning in the empty vastness of space gently baking as it orbits a giant solar pie oven...it couldn't be accidental that this is happening, it's intelligently baked and the divine baker in the sky is.....

    Frances Quinn

    ReplyDelete
  45. Norwich has gone downhill since they brought in Jimmy Saville as youth team coach, rba

    ReplyDelete
  46. Wenger..le prof ....we're 2-1 down...there's five minutes remaining....what shall we do prof....save the day with your mekon braininess ....bring on nicholas bendtner...genius..

    ReplyDelete
  47. CERN are working hard firing cheese at dirt in their Hadron Colander in an attempt to recreate the Bendner Boson... a universal foed of shit all bad footballers must pass through to gain donkey feet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the word foed should be force - ive no idea how i managed to spell it so wkthju?

      Delete
  48. You bastards. I'm craving a nice steak and mushroom pie now, covered in HP sauce.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Robbo, will the next blog be a review of Fergie's book?

    ReplyDelete
  50. How about getting Hope Powell on the FA commission? Got more success out of the England Women's team than the blokes have had since the dawn of the 1970's. And she'd tick several boxes, so to speak.

    ReplyDelete
  51. well, see, this blog and the RBA/Blog dialogue has finally led us to the final answer, the mystery of the universe solved. Amen, the earth is a pie!

    If Hope Powell is on the commission they'll sell a lot more calendars.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No they won't indeed circulation of calendars will fall by 99% with her included

      Delete
  52. It's all very well and good using your sciency theories and stuff, but what about the religous angles?

    If the earth is a pie, then what is heaven?

    ReplyDelete
  53. i should imagine heaven is some kind of lager?

    ReplyDelete
  54. ..Wrights of course (...as you pointed out rba..... that level of detailed local knowledge of pieology is v. impressive)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you flatter me, i am a pastry laymen in comparison to your self... still though, Praise from Ceaser.

      Delete
  55. the pie-niverse - an infinite number of pies with an infinite number of possibilities... Somewhere there's a pie where Lionel Messi cleans Titus Brambles boots....

    Also there is a pie where pies don't exist....

    ReplyDelete
  56. a lot of people would tire of endless pie jokes, but here we are 4 years on! and still a wealth of material.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Imagine. No Hell below us, above us only lager?

    ReplyDelete
  58. The problem is the phenomenon of entropie...when I say heaven is a Wrights pie I mean the old recipe before they made it smaller, the pastry less crisp, the taters lead spud like and replaced prime cut beef with pedigree chum. Entropie is a measure of the number of specific ways in which pie manufacture can be arranged, often taken to be a measure of disorder in the bakery, a fight in the pie Shop our a disagreement over the phone (as in 'I fucking ordered steak and this is fucking meat and Tater' )or a measure of progressing towards take over by conglomerate anonymity in the form of Ginsters or Walls. The entropie of an isolated pie-niverse never decreases, because isolated pie recipes spontaneously evolve towards being shoved in someones face which is the state of maximum entropie. And Walls have ears, which is why I never eat their sausage rolls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you just blew my mind, sealed the goo in a pastry case and baked it to perfection.

      Delete
    2. It seems bloggy is a blasted existentialist regarding pies

      Very worrying

      Delete
  59. 1304: Clough named Sheff Utd boss
    -------------------------------------------------
    Pulis to Boro it is then, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, it can be Holloway for Boro now.

      Delete
    2. Pulis to Palace I think is the logical move and Di Canio to Middlesbrough as he is probably still renting locally

      Delete
    3. hopefully Palace are in discussion with Bolton about taking DF back.

      Delete
    4. I'm not going anywhere near there....

      Oh.

      Delete
  60. Fifa president hints at increased term

    Fifa president Sepp Blatter has given his strongest hint yet that he plans to stay on in the role past 2015 and finish "his mission".
    ========================================
    Beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Sepp, the final frontier.

    These are the voyages of the F.I.F.A Eatthepies. Its never ending mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, build bloody stadiums that will only be used once, to boldly go where no man has ever really wanted to, especially in the summer when it's too fucking hot.

    ReplyDelete
  62. I have to read fergie's book to understand the context in which all these selective quotes and criticisms were written, it's a conspiracy I tell ya. They quote shit like "Joe Bloggs-fuckin idiot" then you read the actual content and it says "There were some that considered Joe a bit slow but I actually liked the lad and thought he had a great footballing brain". Here's my headline... Media - cunts.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Balance trot? Wheres the fun in that?

    ReplyDelete
  64. I was so upset they'd given me a steak when if asked for a meat n Tater that I stalled my car

    Cry, stall - pie lies

    COAT!

    ReplyDelete
  65. Simple Simon met a pieman, going to the fair.
    Said Simple Simon to the pieman,What have you got there?
    Said the pieman unto Simon
    "pies, you dickhead."

    ReplyDelete
  66. Simple Simon wore a walkman,going to the fair.
    Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
    What?

    ReplyDelete
  67. I suppose that should be updated to ipod,but it scans better.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Replies
    1. 160gb as well H.

      That would take some filling

      (steak and stilton )

      Delete
    2. Steak and Stilton - ooh, how the other half live!

      Blue Cheese in Aldershot is euphemism... You do NOT want to know what for.

      Delete
  69. Russell brand making mincemeat of Jeremy Paxman. I'd vote for him...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I heard that russell brand used to inject cannabis, so pardon me for not taking the word of a drug user too seriously.

      #paxosbeardishot

      Delete
  70. Blogidy.

    http://www.wsc.co.uk/weekly-howl/1157-2013/10558-weekly-howl-18-10-13

    ReplyDelete
  71. Put Roy Keane and Sir Alex F on the panel. They won't solve anything but it would be good to watch the fisticuffs and take all the headlines for a couple of days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, if there needs to be women on the panel for improving the English Men's team then there should be an Irishman and a Scot. And some disabled folk, an Arab, a homosexual and.....what about somebody who can bring in the crisps.
      I actually thought Gary Line-acre's column was very good. Ban parents all together, not just from kids football matches but from all forms of football.
      Rastafairy

      Delete
  72. That Russel Brands... you wouldn't want to play him at scrabble would ya.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Europa Cup Results:

    Fuzzy Meringue: 1 - 2 :Alphabetti Belearous
    Cous Cous Miow: 1 - 0 - :Constance Harpo
    Palargoo Diebetics: 4 - 3 - :Royal Participle
    WJGG Jurgen: 2 - 2 - :Real Bergerac
    Tinnitus B: - 6 - 0 - :Gigantic Frdge
    Palermo Faith: - 1 - 1 - :Thunbird Toothpick

    This cup really does matter...

    ReplyDelete
  74. I like Russell brand he's like Willy wonka except with drugs not chocolate and not being able to stop shagging the oompa loompas

    He also used to write a fucking funny football column eg....

    http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2009/mar/28/russell-brand-england-beach-football

    ReplyDelete
  75. I admire Russel Brand for being clever and honest and very funny, a rare combination. I like him being open about his flaws and failures and for takin' the piss out of cunts. I don't like him playing for Man City or Blackburn (if he ever did).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its not on his Wiki page.......... for now.

      Delete
  76. i try intensely hard to dislike Russell Brand and fail every time. Hes witty, smart, charismatic and hairy. Qualities i admire of men and women alike.

    However, well phrased social commentary is one thing but if he ever did play for Man City or Blackburn he can go to hell and die.

    ReplyDelete
  77. im pretty sure weve all grown in the last few years and you dont have to, what with me just showing up again out of the (red)blue but i have revived teh Aldershot Woes, but with a clever new title... peep it, or dont thats cool. i mean really. http://thealdershotwoes.blogspot.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brilliant RBA, best news since the resurrection. Just one point, can you take off the requirement that we type in the jumble of fkn letters that prove we're not a robot before posting a comment?

      Delete
  78. What Jack said about what trot said

    Thanks for that link jacks ...led me by means of google/ hyperlink trail to the Roman Portland vase on the badge

    ReplyDelete
  79. Poor old prince George.doesn't know yet he's been born into a circus family.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you suggesting John Major is his father?

      That would top the Empire Strikes Back scene.

      Delete
    2. He'll have the wake up call when he meets his granddad, The Great Racisto...

      Delete
  80. didnt know about the robot thing for comments.... if i can fix it with my limited intelligence i will... damn robots coming over here posting on blogs.

    oh and thanks for having a ganders...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Russell Brand is a robot RBA,he's been programmed with a random word generator.

      Delete
  81. Ha ha yes John major the only man in history to run away from the circus to become am accountant

    Mark steel on angels meerkats travails....

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/no-wonder-the-us-is-spying-on-merkel-i-mean-you-never-know-8902183.html

    ReplyDelete
  82. John Major was sick of all the funny outfits, clowning around, men in make-up and animal cruelty... and that's why he left the Conservative Party.....

    satire.

    ReplyDelete
  83. oh i have decrypted the comments section now... all you need to do is a simple D'n'A verification and pee test and you can post as many comments you like.

    ReplyDelete
  84. If black players are planning to boycott the WC in Russia, their team mates and countrymen of all colours should support them and boycott it too. The solution is to move the WC 2018 to England thereby improving our chances of back to back victories.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Thats a good idea trotts, but it more or less just clears the way for Italy to walk to a world cup victory unopposed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think the Italians have ever walked towards something unopposed unless they're waving a white flag.

      That's why my Fiat has 6 reverse gears.

      Delete
    2. Plus one for going forward in case the enemy attack from the rear.

      Delete
    3. AH one from the Second World War there, Jacks. Old school.

      Delete
  86. My wife's gone away for a few days and she asked me to brighten the place up in her absence.

    So I've built a pier and bought a couple of donkeys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. my wife once asked me the same thing, I invited over a hooker in a sequined thong.

      Delete
    2. I told mine nothing needed to be done as just her going away brightened the place up like never before.

      Delete
    3. I've been looking for my ex wife's killer for the last eleven years............

      Nobody wants to do it.

      Delete
    4. Only joking.


      We weren't married.

      Delete
  87. Afternoon all.

    I don't do Twitter, but there was some funny stuff on this;
    http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/347023/-AskHarry-turns-into-Twitter-disaster-for-QPR-boss-Harry-Redknapp

    #AskHarry If I draw a face on my bollocks & hang them out the car window, will security let me use your parking spot?

    ReplyDelete
  88. British actor Tim Roth, 52, has been cast as Fifa chief Sepp Blatter in the film F2014, which will be released to coincide with the 2014 World Cup and Fifa's own 110th anniversary.
    Full story: Metro

    Will he get to call Platini Honey Bunny?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He'll certainly be able to use the line "Everybody be cool,this is a robbery"

      Delete
  89. just saw this link on dailystar..:
    Arsene Wenger sweating over Jack Wilshere and Mathieu Flamini.
    Not an image I'm happy to have in my head, although I did click the link to discover that the word "fitness" was missed off the end.
    Rastafairy

    ReplyDelete
  90. Flying visit to say very hap-pie to have you back RBA

    But it's that exciting time on a Friday - wine time, so have a good weekend everyone

    ReplyDelete
  91. Pope supports Sunderland? Wtf

    http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-24669218

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well thats the youth team buggered then

      Delete
    2. Maybe Poyet should sign him up.

      Stick him on the wing, he should be able to get a few good crosses in.

      Delete
    3. Yeah granted the crosses will be good, but every time he thinks he has a chance at a conversion he'll set up a mission and ban Johnnys.

      Delete
  92. The Refinater:

    http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/madness-kuwaiti-ref-smashes-alnaser-player-in-retaliation-to-physical-intimidation-then-sends-off-a-cheikh/

    ReplyDelete
  93. I misread it. I thought it meant Tom Pope, port vales misfiring centre forward

    ReplyDelete
  94. Its an old number 9 Darren bent shirt so the pope will be walking around the Vatican with Bent emblazoned on his cassock

    They need some divine intervention tho, the space hopper which headed in against Liverpool is still joint tip scorer of the least few seasons

    ReplyDelete
  95. Hey RBA... good to see you typing again.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Hey RBA... good to see you typing again.

    ReplyDelete
  97. In the modern era of outsourcing why dont we send our kids to the academies of porto, barca, etc and have them trained there? Andy Murray seems to be a product of Spanish tennis why not do the same in football? Isn't there that scouse lad that now will play for Portugal b'cos liverpool gave him the boot years ago and then he went to porto and became a top defender?

    ReplyDelete
  98. Good luck today Trotts.

    But not too much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. same to you! Take Ngog home on your bus please.

      Delete
  99. There's still something fundamentally missing from the debate about youth football and that's social class and the impact of affluence. Fact is this is a wealthy country, the kids have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to options, options not available to kids in Brazil.

    Secondly we have a fully functioning class system in which football carries no social cache.

    Gary linekers article is well intentioned. These big mouthed ignorant wankers on the touchline should be shot. There's no reasoning with them, I've tried. But you don't get it at the cricket club. Football remains a working class sport, although i do think is starting to change, so there is hope, the fact is many middle class parents want their kids little Toby and co to play rugby, tennis, cricket because they want to imagine they're part of the elite which runs the country (they're not of course, most of them) and insulate their kids from hoi polloi moral degenerates who enjoy football.

    Parents on the touchline tend to be uneducated scum of the earth like me. But ALL pro club academies BAN parents from shouting their ignorant garbage from the touchline which might be exactly contrary to what the coach had told them to do. They might have been given individual challenges eg play sweeper when duck head dad is shooting for them to join the attack etc. So I'm assuming linkers kids are not good enough for academy football which means its fun football so yes let the kids enjoy it.

    There are thousands of kids in these academies most won't make it but after the age of 13 out does mean that most kids with talent have been spotted. Which is not to imply that we don't need more coaches in local football who know what they're doing, clearly we do... you'll still see coaching sessions in local leagues which involves the whole team queuring up for ten minutes to take a penalty.

    But the talent pool is smaller than you might think for two reasons. Eithrr because the middle class kids either aren't there -this is not the case in Holland for instance- in snobby old England often kids are not supported by their parents in playing football for reasons stated above, or they lose interest because in this country there is a huge range of choice of things to do with your time.

    Have no doubts about the commitment required from parents and kids....my boy trains three nights a week, plus Saturday morning and then a Sunday game usually in timbuctoo or outer Mongolia. If you think football its essentially a game for chavs, you're not going to do it are you?

    On the point of sending kids abroad, I think you've got to be a bit of a fucking monster to do that. If you're dropped by Liverpool, there's other lower level academies that would give you a chance if you're good enough.

    The academies have good coaches but kids develop differentially so kids are released in error but that doesn't mean they have to go abroad. Uprooting them and making a sport the be all and the end all of their life is what the east Germans and Russians used to do when gold medals equaled national prestige and it works but its not something I'd wish for my boy or wish on anyone elses'.

    So here's the real answer, more coaches yes, but then Revolution to dismantle the class system and establish a Communist state in which kids are bred eugenically and trained like dogs.

    OK let's just start with more coaches shall we?

    ReplyDelete
  100. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/10405888/Manchester-United-manager-David-Moyes-rejects-reports-that-Robin-van-Persie-is-unhappy-at-Old-Trafford.html


    Surprise surprise! Back to arsenal in January?

    ReplyDelete
  101. Watching the live game from Seldhurst Park.

    Palace trying to Yank things up with a bunch of cheerleaders.

    Pity that the best looking bird is the geezer in the Eagle suit.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Trot have you seen this? First league goal every was by a trotter (you lost the games tho)


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23397062

    ReplyDelete
  103. If stoke (16th in the table) score another two goals against mufc, they will over take them. Relegation then becomes a real possibility for mufc and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-one wants to see that

    ReplyDelete
  104. Good win for United, helping cement their grip on midtable.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Cazorla is a great player but why has he abandoned Orville the Duck?

    ReplyDelete
  106. Off-topic, rare here I know, but I watched a PBS show on how Bentleys are made. Every interview, except those with the executives, was captioned, despite the fact everyone was speaking English. I'm not sure if that says more about the accents or the average American viewer's inability to understand basic English.

    ReplyDelete
  107. So the NSA have been bugging Angels Meerkat's phone for ten years but not understanding a word?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I put it through a translator but I still don't understand what you just wrote.

      Delete
  108. At half-time: Pope 1 - 0 Ashley.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Borini with the winner from 25 yards. Can't be anything but divine intervention.

      Delete
  109. FA CUP FIRST-ROUND DRAW
    Standout ties:

    Shortwood United or Aldershot v Port Vale
    --------------------------------------------------------
    Only Shortwood United standing between another El Classico.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shortwood are a real threat, only a fool would underestimate them, but you have to believe that if we do make it past them we have to be favorites to go on and win the whole thing...

      Delete
    2. On the level though if we can set up a match against old rivals (shut up blogs, it was real to us) and unfortunately without a hint of irony that's a pretty big IF... Whose on a road trip to the mecca of football?

      I'll show you where the Daili Llama cursed us before last season... never had that speccy twat down as a Farnborough (spit) fan....

      Delete
  110. RIP Lou reed. Why do the good talented creative types have to die? Why can't it just be the editorial staff of the daily mail?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simple. The editorial staff of the Daily Mail are the undead.



      Jedi

      Delete
  111. I was going to say the readership but that would be wishing death on half the people I know + my mum.

    ReplyDelete
  112. From the good people who brought you joke-gate, iiiiiiiiit's (wait for it)...
    ...'swastika'-gate.

    FFS.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-24691368

    I blame Feldmarschall David von Moyes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pairing it with the New Order headline didn't help. Didn't they just get rid of a grumpy old dictator?

      Delete
    2. Yes, and there's the jaunty slant of the logo, as well. Still, I think you have to go some to arrive at that conclusion. I don't think I would have given it a second look if I hadn't been 'primed' to see it a certain way. Me, I'll reserve judgment - if I hear that United agents are digging near Cairo...

      Delete
  113. I'm up for that rba. All 6 of us arrive dressed as the deli llama invade the pitch and set fire to ourselves in the centre circle in protest at the opening of the Aldershot branch nandos in the heart of our sacred place

    ReplyDelete
  114. Planning to grow a moustache for movember, on my scrotum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You do realize you're supposed to start from clean-shaven, right?

      Delete
  115. So Bolton (no wins at home) v Ipswich (no wins away) ends up as a draw.

    No great shock there Trotts.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Yep, can't believe the highlights aren't all over the internet. It'll probably feature in a You Tube yawn compilation next week.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Should that manc New Order team play in the Joy Division every weekend?

    Or maybe only on Happy Mondays.

    ReplyDelete

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