Going For A Burton

Nice, isn't it? NOW GET RUNNING

An important moment in English football came and went this week. A day when the FA finally attempted to throw off the shackles of their abbreviation connoting ‘Fucking Arseholes’ and pushed forward into a brave new dawn of ‘Fingers out of Arses’. A day when incessant, ceaseless ranting on these fair pages – here, here, here, here and here… you get the picture – finally appears to have come to fruition. A day when the national game’s powers that be finally believe they have an answer to the age-old, 10-word conundrum, comprising in no particular order the words:

‘What, the, Fuck, happened, to, root, and, branch, review, the?’.

YOU’RE WELCOME, ENGLAND.

The Men Who Stare At Scapegoats

'And what have you ever won?' 

There's nothing like the red tops for shedding a bit of a perspective on a situation. We welcome back Dan Clark who is adamant that two games without a win doesn't make AVB a shit manager.

Two games is a long time in football isn’t it. I mean come on, it’s 180, maybe 187 minutes, including stoppages, of time just passing by. It’s a back-to-back Super Sunday session sat on the sofa. Back in the real world, it’s an unproductive morning in the office spent trawling the web and flicking back to actual work stuff when the shadow of the boss looms.

Robin van POINTLESS

Only half this problem has been solved


If you’re in the bath with the door open, not only are you getting cold, but there’s a chance people might see your balls and start laughing. So, do you pour in more Radox and hot water, in order to create even more bubbles, cover up your balls and keep yourself warm – even though this wastes your resources and threatens the composition of your bath (which was fine before), or do you just get up and shut the door so no one can see your fucking balls?

Depending on how much Radox and hot water you’ve got, there’s no right answer. But let us say right now that Sir Alex Ferguson has got some pretty soapy balls (and an overflowing bath) at the moment and he’d better hope for a fair wind this season to help him close the proverbial bathroom door or he could end up getting very chilly indeed.

De Only Way Is Errors (DOWIE)

Aw, look at his mercurial face

During the long summer months, it’s not unusual for a fan to seek solace in highlights packages and totally subjective countdowns of greatest goals, players, madheads, misses or donkeys. Interspersed with footage of Kanu scooping a chance over the bar and David Bentley attempting a rabona are typically rare gems of insight from… and here we go again… ‘experts’. And it’s from within these throwaway opinions, amid these throwaway pieces of programming, that it’s possible to learn not only precisely fuck all, but actually to get even stupider.

A Very British Olympics

OH WAIT IS HE NOT IN IT?!

Now that the Euros are behind us and England’s performances are disappearing from memory as quickly as the ball from their stewardship, it’s almost time for everyone to focus on the next group of unfortunates chosen to carry the expectations of a public starved of success, but renowned for lapping up any opportunity to overhype a sports match to within an inch of its life (and sometimes beyond). The Olympics are coming! Yay!

From Russia With Little Love Lost

"I am quite good... HONESTLY."

We welcome back Dan Forman (follow him @dannyforman) as he explains how, once upon a time, Andrei Arshavin could have been 'the one'. 

The first time you see them some players you just notice straight away and think wow, they can really, well, for want of a better word, play. The first time I saw Andrei Arshavin was one such experience.

It was at Wembley in September 2007 in a short-lived period when things finally, remarkably, seemed to be going quite well for Steve McClaren's England team. England ran out 3-0 winners and put their qualification campaign for Euro 2008 briefly back on track and Emile Heskey's stock as an international striker back from unpalatable to unplayable (these were strange days indeed).

Greece Lightning Strikes Twice

"I'm not saying Italy are shit, but..."

The national football team of Greece’s collective theme seems to be that of a slow, squeaky fart. Not a smelly fart, mind you. There’s nothing noxious about the Greeks. But there is something vaguely entertaining, comedic even about their ability to collectively take on the mannerisms of a long fart for huge swathes of matches, ultimately rendering themselves likeable, non-threatening and surprisingly reliable. Greece. As reliable as a fart. They should stick that on the posters.