You Are Not A Loan

We’ve all heard the myth. That deep in an underground bunker, somewhere beneath Richard Keys’s house, Sky took a timeless sport, the most popular sport on the planet, covered it in bells and whistles and whooshing logos and created football in 1992. They made Sundays ‘Super’ too.

Obsessed as they are with the concept of ‘breaking news’, it came as no surprise that the Sky behemoth has been all over transfer deadline day since its inception in 2002-03 like a fly around the proverbial. Which leads me to what we think about the transfer window.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

His eyes are more powerful than you can ever imagine

It’s been said that David Moyes’s icy stare can see into your soul*. Were he to look into the fibres of most Everton fans, he might find they were trying to keep faith with the man who led the club to Champions League qualifiers in 2005, an FA Cup final in 2009 and is a three-time LMA Manager of the Year to boot. Were he to turn this totally fictional ability onto himself, however, one suspects these past accolades count for little without Moyes feeling that he is achieving more tangible success as his tenure on Merseyside lengthens.

The Man Who Would Be King

"This is going to be a piece of piss."

As the sky turned pitch black, the air grew heavy and the heavens opened, a deafening chorus of “Hallelujah” rang out. For a second, it seemed like a genuine second coming as the Shankly Gates rocked and the memory of the hunched, nervous little figure with the unfortunate lisp and penchant for rubbing his face really hard became nothing but a nightmare. “It’s over now,” they said. “The king has returned.” And the king held his hands aloft and the people did flock to him in multitudes and make big banners, reassured at once that they were in the presence of greatness.

Cut To The Cliche

'Four-Three-what-now?'

It’s fairly obvious to us that there is considerable disparity between the likes of Jonathan Wilson, Zonal Marking and chalkboards – regularly offering proper analysis – and Andy Townsend, Jamie Redknapp and Alan Shearer – regularly offering the feeling of being stuck in a small room watching paint that will never dry – in their analysis of the nation’s, or the world’s biggest football matches. Messrs. Cox and Wilson are the thin end of the wedge too. Should everyone have an in-depth knowledge of formations and tactics? Well no, probably not. Do they really matter? Yes, but – certainly in this country – you wouldn’t always know it.

Richard Butcher 1981-2011

There seems something particularly unfair about the fact that, after the Football League’s most romantic of weekends – the Third Round of the FA Cup – tragedy should strike one of its smallest clubs for the second time in less than a year.

The Cup of Good Hope

'What's up?'

'Bloody Burnley away son, that's what's up'

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we can find Harrison Ford’s most profound/cheesy/tediously predictable moment in film. Faced with choosing the sweet apple of the Holy Grail from a line-up mainly featuring gaudy onions festooned with jewels and bling, beckoning him with their shiny little cubic zirconia ring-adorned bastard fingers, Indy picks a small wooden cup. A symbol of humble hopes and dreams. A cup neither unblemished by symbols of the greed of man, nor blighted by the accessibility only great wealth can facilitate.

O Come All Ye Platefuls

Like people in all walks of life, footballers come in different shapes and sizes. If you wanted to classify them into types, you can normally stretch to something amounting to ‘nippy winger’, ‘commanding centre-back’, ‘powerful striker’ and ‘midfield terrier’. All are valid classifications. One other type though, is a bit more cult than all the others, inspiring affection and comedy in equal degree. At this festive time of indulgence, and given the evisceration of Levante’s Sergio Ballesteros on Twitter, we tip our caps to the ‘fat lad’ – a man who in Magic Spongers terms, is just as much brilliant shiny apples as he is stupid smelly onions.