Dickheads #10 - Roy Keane

"Stick it up your bollocks, Mick"

Over to Ian Walsh of the rather excellent Touchline Views, WHO IS A MAN UNITED FAN ALRIGHT SO DON'T EVEN START WITH US.

Before I begin, a little preamble. When I mooted the idea of choosing Roy Keane for this series it seemed to cause hysteria among a couple of Manchester United fans (the club I also support). But then, I’m not one to pander to the demands of others and have no shame or remorse in saying that Roy Keane is a dickhead of the highest order.

This Be The Curse

"He fucking IS better than Ngog" 

In some sort of shite exclusive, the poetic ramblings of Adam Bushby and Rob MacDonald (because we were bored at work).

This Be The Curse

They fuck you up, do Yeovil and Hull.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They tempt you with their lascivious pull

And then concede at quarter to.

Dickheads #9 - Kevin Muscat

Getting somewhere near the ball for a change

To kick off this week of Dickheads, it's over to Chris Lines of Narrow the Angle. Shouldn't be many dissenting voices on this one...

I’ve no beef with hardmen in football. Occasional moments of brawn and skulduggery give the game a juicy bit of edge. If you play the ball then there’s nothing too wrong with being fairly physical, provided you’re not jeopardising the safety of your opponent. But there’s reasonable force and then there’s downright dangerous.

Kevin Muscat is not just a hard player, he’s an absolute animal. A snarling, ticking time bomb of a man, seemingly hell bent on raging against anyone and anything that crosses his path. Innocuous incidents can be enough to cause the red mist to descend (and in Muscat’s mind, the forecast is usually for heavy fog and the horizon a shade of deep rouge). A tricky winger giving him the slip, somebody fouling him a little bit, a raised eyebrow – in certain games you can see it coming. And then it’s just a case of how soon somebody is going to get horribly clattered into.

Dickheads #8 - ITV's Punditry Team

Pure evil



Here's the other, slightly better half of Magic Spongers, Adam Bushby, on his more-than-just-an-aversion to three men on channel three...

"[Watching him is] like being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech… A talking Toby jug full of steaming hot piss.” Comedian Stewart Lee on Adrian Chiles.

I am 27. I earn an average wage only made average by the overtime I put in. I would say I am slightly better than average looking; women would disagree.

Adrian Chiles is 44. He earns £1m a year, which is above average. He is below average in terms of looks because he looks like a potato that a child of below average intelligence has drawn a face on.

Dickheads #7 - Alan Shearer

'Hands up if you're a dickhead'

After Greg's Crazy Gang piece caused such a furore in south west London last week, we thought we'd piss off the north east this time. Welcome to Magic Spongers Mr Ryan Hubbard, who can be found at the excellent Ryan Hubbard's Modern Football and on Twitter.

I'm not really a man who hates people. I'll generally try to be nice to everyone I meet; even Nottingham Forest fans. Sometimes. But occasionally there are some people who get right on my tits. Wayne Rooney, Neil Warnock and Jedward to name a few; they all have the ability to do my nut right in - but I can cope with their minor dickheadedness. However, there is one man who stands hair, head, shoulders and, as Ramon Vega found out, elbows above the rest. Alan Shearer is the biggest dickhead I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. It has nothing to do with the fact he's a Newcastle legend; there are legends at Leicester too. And Newcastle is definitely one of the friendliest places that I've had the pleasure to visit. But there are many, many reasons why I reckon Alan Shearer is a dickhead.

Dickheads #6 - The Crazy Gang

Greg Theoharis of Dispatches From A Football Sofa makes his debut for Magic Spongers and as Jamie Redknapp would say "he's literally had a stormer". Here's why the Crazy Gang weren't loveable rogues at all...

“If God had wanted us to play football in the sky, He’d have put grass up there” – Brian Clough

Trawling through the channels the other day, I happened upon a vintage episode of ‘Gladiators’. I was immediately transported to a time, pre-pub age, when my Saturday evenings revolved around the steroid-pumping sweatfest being sandwiched between the twin guilty pleasures of Baywatch and Blind Date. So, paralysed by nostalgia I ended up watching. I’d forgotten. Oh had I forgotten. Because just as the commercial break came around, that cacophonous, mangled, ridiculous cry emanated from a man who quite unreservedly and unashamedly deserves the title of ‘dickhead’. John Fashanu. “A-wooooooo-gaaaaa!” From that point on, my day was ruined, consumed with memories of that vile period in the late ‘80s through to the mid-‘90s, otherwise labelled ‘The Crazy Gang Era’. Allow me to repeat. Dickheads.

Dickheads #5 - Diego Maradona

'Music loud, and women warm, I've been kicked around since I was born'

A warm welcome to Jake Harrison, whose distate for Diego has NOTHING to do with 'that goal against England', alright?

When I was growing up, there was always one name, one footballer in particular that really riled my Dad. This man’s name, when mentioned, was always accompanied with the word “cheat” – along with other, more colourful phrases – so I pretty much grew up thinking that this man was the footballing equivalent of Satan.

Dickheads #4 - People who wave at television cameras at football matches

A pair of dickheads

He's one of the best things to happen to football since Brian Barwick's Root and Branch. And he works for us. Ladies and Gentleman, the ever-excellent Andi Thomas of Twisted Blood fame.

What you are about to read runs counter to almost everything I hold dear, not only in football but in life. If I have any kind of creed, or overarching principle, it is that you shouldn't judge something, or someone, without first making at least some kind of attempt to understand the context. Obviously, this needn't be much effort – it doesn't take long to get a decent grasp on whether somebody's a twat or not – but it should be some, and it certainly shouldn't be done on the basis of a momentary television shot. Indeed, I've written about it at length elsewhere.


But with that in mind …


... anybody who waves at a television camera while they're at a football match is a dickhead.

Dickheads #3 - Arsenal; Or The Axis of Evil

"I'M A DICKHEAD"



Rob was so angry when he wrote this that he doesn't remember half of it. Like the Incredible Hulk, but not green, muscular or remotely moral.

About 10 years ago, give or take, Arsenal ruined English football forever. That may seem unfair, but I don’t care, because this isn’t a piece about rational appraisals of footballers. This is a piece about wholly irrational hatred and more specifically, the fact that the Arsenal back four of Winterburn, Adams, Keown and Dixon or as I shall refer to them from here on in, the Axis of Evil, are dickheads.

Dickheads #2 - Sky Sports News, Transfer Deadline Day

You're a BLOODY LIAR

A warm welcome back to Magic Spongers for Dave Hartrick, who takes up the baton of rage and fury and smashes Jim White firmly over the head with it.

Firstly, let me make something very clear, I genuinely love Sky Sports News - it soundtracks at least three quarters of my day every day.

However…

For two days a year it’s absolutely unbearable.

Dickheads #1 - Graeme Souness

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Welcome, fans of edgy and angry ranting, to Magic Spongers' new series, creatively entitled 'Dickheads'. Hate someone? Yeah? Good. This is the place for you. First to take the torch of fury for a run round the block is our friend Alex Bingle.

Being a teenager is full of traumas you wouldn’t wish upon anyone, or so I am told by Glee and Dawson’s Creek. Why can’t they just tell the truth: that we are (or were) simply young, pubescent and constantly horny? Do they ever portray how football can make you more miserable than any break up from your girlfriend of two weeks simply because her feelings have changed? Do they ever mention how Manchester United were doing their best to ruin my life back in 1991 (and still are) just because they are Total Bastards?