Under Construction

The blog will be a mess for a few days while I try to remember how to write HTML.
Should be back in action by Sunday :)

Latest Stuff

Celtic's champions league dream seems to be over before the season has even begun after a 3-0 defeat in Portugal to Braga.
West Ham turn down a bid from the spuds for Scott Parker.
Sol Campbell seems to have signed for Newcastle ... phew!!
Luke Young is strongly tipped to join Liverpool.
and...
West Ham win their first trophy of the season :) The Southend United FC Youth Cup beating Arsenal 2-1 in the final ... we're on a roll :)

Nice Penalty

How to "wrong foot" a goalie, take it with your wrong foot.

Maradona

Love him or hate him the little fat guy in the suit was certainly entertaining as a manager as he was as a player, so it's a shame he has now been dumped by the Argentinean FA.
It seems they were going to offer him a new deal but wanted to replace his backroom staff but he wasn't willing to carry on without them so that was that.
Sergio Batista another star of 86 looks likely to take over.

Mascherano

Javier Mascherano is demanding a transfer out of Liverpool which will be Roy Hodgson's first big test as Liverpool manager.
Will he force him to stay and risk the surly Argie having a strop and refusing to play or take the easy option and flog him to Inter for a reported 25 million?
Seems an easy option as holding midfielders aren't usually worth that sort of money and the money could be better used probably on another striker to complement Torres.

Gary Hooper

I see that Scunthorpe's Gary Hooper is in talks over a move to Celtic for a £2.4 million transfer fee.
I've followed his career due to local connections, he started off at Grays Athletic during their glory years around 2004/6 and then followed Freddy Eastwood to Southend, unlike Eastwood his face didn't seem to fit despite several good performances and he was loaned to Orient and Hereford, he showed good form for both with 2 goals in 4 appearances for Orient and 11 goals in 19 for Hereford.
Both times he returned to Southend and was stuck on the subs bench? he was eventually sold to Scunthorpe for £125k where he has again managed to average a goal every 2 games.

I have no idea why he wasn't given a decent chance with a run in the Southend team in the years he was there and it seems wrong that Southend will now benefit if the deal goes through after treating him so shabbily.
One of the few things the Southend management seems to have done right was inserting sell on clauses in a few players contracts, they received 20% of the profit on the recent Nicky Bailey transfer to Middlesbrough and look to have hit the jackpot with a similar deal on Hooper which will hopefully pay off their latest tax bill.
Hopefully he will sign for Celtic and be a success, he's only 22 and still has time to come back to England and maybe sign for his local team that play in the same colours as Scunthorpe :)

England 1970

Here's a bit of nostalgia, I recently found this pic on the net and it's a scan of a poster that came with A&BC Football cards bubble gum in the 1970/71 season.
I still have the cards in a scrap book but this poster has been mislaid so it was nice to see it again.
As with most world cup squads printed before the actual announcement of the official squad they took a few guesses and with 37 players on the poster managed to get 21 of the 22 players in the actual squad, they obviously didn't think Nobby Stiles would make it but he did.
The players who missed out were - Simpson, Coates, Summerbee, McFarland, H Newton, Shilton, McNab, Smith, Kendall, Thompson, Reaney, Storey-Moore, Oakes, Jones, Harvey, Madeley.
Domestic honours on the 69/70 season were: League - Everton, FA Cup - Chelsea, League Cup - Man City (with Arsenal winning the Fairs cup in Europe).

I would like to reccommend this website for all things nostalgic such as Football cards, Stickers and all those little football items you used to get back in those days - Nigel's Webspace

Club Websites

I've just added a selection of club website links (to the right) which might be useful, as these are old links some might be incorrect and I will work my way through them and update where needed, and add more as required.
Currently in league order, Premier teams at the top.

Various Stuff

Sorry if I haven't replied to some of the comments, I think I've set this blog up differently and it doesn't tell me when there are new comments.

Thanks for the insider information Gobshyte you were right about Jol, but from what I was listening to tonight it seems it's not a done deal yet, they were saying either Jol or Fulham have to pay 2 million Euros to secure his release from Ajax and at the moment Ajax don't want to part with him, it could be Ajax are holding out for more as they are broke at the moment or it was suggested Jol might be using the Fulham interest to strengthen his own position at Ajax and try to get some funds for new players? we shall see.
I like Jol he has that classic sleazy dutch accent which makes me think of old porn films :)

Gerrard sounds enthusiastic about what's happening at Liverpool, with Hodgson taking over and the signing of Joe Cole, could be a better season for them .. (shame) :)
Although word coming out of Liverpool is that Hodgson may rest all his World cup players for their opening Champions league qualifier next week, sounds a bit Rafa like.

My local team Southend have signed 9 players even though they are under a transfer embargo? and 4 of the remaining 7 players want to leave.
The taxman is trying to get the club put into administration so the truth will come out about the clubs mysterious finances, and dodgy wheeler dealer chairman Ron Martin has been elected onto the board of the Football League??

A large selection of Premier league clubs have now banned the vuvuzela's for a variety of reasons, Tottenham on health and safety reasons, Everton were honest and said they were just irritating and trust West Ham to point out they could be used as weapons.

I just remembered where I left my last Football blog - Footy Fantasy not updated since January 2008 oops, I'll try to do better with this one

Arry

Transfer News

Joe Cole joins Liverpool, Yosser Benayoun joins Chelsea.
Both being ex Hammers I liked both of them, Joe is still a favourite of mine and if some football loving multi billionaire ever decides to take over West Ham I hope he comes back one day :)
Who's got the best of this player swap (yes I know the 2 deals are unrelated) that's a hard one to pick, Joe Cole undoubted talent and you would hope Roy Hodgson plays him in a favoured position and regularly so we can see the best of him, it will interesting to see if Hodgson keeps a settled team which he favoured at Fulham (due to lack of players I suspect) or catches the rotating bug that Rafa loved so much.
As for Yossi Benayoun, thought he was brilliant at West Ham and seemed to make a lot of difference to Liverpool when he was given a chance, if he can hold down a starting position I think he will certainly add something to Chelsea and it seems like a really good buy.

West Ham News

Three new players signed so far all foreign, two known to English fans so that's a plus point.
Thomas Hitzlsperger the former Aston Villa player nicknamed "the Hammer" looks the pick of the bunch, he was in the German team for nearly all their qualifiers but missed out on the world cup finals for some reason.
Pablo Barrera is a Mexican international winger and did make 3 appearances at the world cup although I can't say I remember him.
Frederic Piquionne was on loan at Portsmouth last season and as I recall looked really good in one or two games, but totally anonymous in a lot more so I'm not sure if that's a good buy, sadly I think it might be cover for Carlton Cole who despite his lack of form at the end of last season was on a few managers shopping lists.

The new away kit.
Although the West ham website seem to be making this out to have been worn by Bobby Moore I'm sure the design is an an old Crystal Palace kit? but I might be wrong :)

Rumours

I know we are entering the silly season for transfer rumours, but all the Hammer fans where I work have been having a bad day after several people claimed we had signed Sol Campbell while having a laugh at our expense.
I can't find anything on the net so I'm hoping it was a giant wind-up.

The World Cup Final 2010

That's it all over for another 4 years, the result everybody expected - Spain 1 Never Never Lands 0.
As it turned out it was an "interesting" game with the Dutch cloggers (there's a joke there somewhere) trying to kick Spain off the field in the first half and managing to make Spain look like the victims despite some of the cynical Spanish tackling during the game.
Best moments were De Jong's kung fu attack on Alonso, and the display of synchronised diving by the Spanish at the start of extra time.
Howard Webb managed to book 13 players and red card Heitinga, while missing most of the worst stuff that was going on, he could easily have sent off Van Bommel, De Jong, Puyol, Iniesta and Sneijder before Heitinga saw red.
Holland had 2 great chances both for Robben, and Spain's best chance fell to Fabregas before Iniesta finally scored 4 minutes before the end of extra time.
Holland were right to complain about our ref's performance at that time as he had just awarded a goal kick for a clearly deflected free kick then missed a blatant foul in the lead up to the goal, but if he'd been on top form they would have been down to at most 9 players at that point so swings and roundabouts as they say.

As for the English based players Torres made a brief appearance from the bench at the end and managed to injure himself again, so that's him out for the first month of next season I guess. Fabregas looked good after coming on and must have added a few millions to his transfer fee from Arsenal, Heitinga got sent off, De Jong should have been sent off, Kuyt ran around a lot before being taken off and Van Persie was on the pitch I believe.

I see Diego Forlan won the Golden ball for being best player of the tournament which I agree with, Alex Ferguson must still be scratching his head over him.

Overall it's been a reasonable World cup, the vuvuzela's annoyed the hell out of me at first but you get used to them eventually, Germany were probably the star turn of the teams with their win over Argentina being the performance of the competition, England were even worse than we could have dreamed although the French were worse, Brazil and Argentina failed to live up to the hype, and apart from Ghana the Africans probably had their worst showing in recent memory, Spain proved they weren't a flash in the pan and can do it in the big championships despite being incredibly dull to watch.
Roll on 2014, it's supposed to be in Brazil but from what I've read the Brazilians might not be ready so we could be off to America again? hopefully England might make it and they get all our hopes up again :)

The Final

Only 17 hours to the World cup final and everyone I talk to seems a bit underwhelmed by it all? The common consensus appears to be we want Holland to win, but expect the Spanish to win 1-0 in a dull game, so hopefully we're all wrong and it's a goal bonanza with a penalty shoot out :)

Will Torres play to please the Liverpool fans (and give the dutch a better chance) or will Spain play the 4-6-0 formation of the semi-final? I see Liverpool have slapped a £100 million price tag on him which should be more than enough to scare off anyone willing to take a punt on an injury prone striker who might get them a few goals in the odd game he plays.
The rest of the Spanish team should should have the technical ability to snuff out the dutch their midfield of Chavvy, Iniesta, Shabby Alonso, Pedro, Bisquits and David Villa certainly have the ability to hold the ball for 90 minutes while hoping for a defensive mistake or a set piece chance.

As for the Dutch will Van Persie actually look like the top class striker he's supposed to be or just flit around like he has in previous rounds, will the Spanish let Robben play as he looks the class of this team when he's got the ball, Sneijder has impressed, Kuyt always tries his best and clogger Van Bommel should be able to take out a few Spanish stars before getting on the wrong side of the ref.
Talking of the ref at least we've got an Englishman in the World cup final, Howard Webb is one of our best although like all English refs he's prone to the odd cock-up but hopefully he'll have a good game.
So as I write the 2009/10 season has about 20 hours to run and then we can start looking forward to another season of domestic drudgery where all those world cup flops will suddenly look like world beaters again.

I'm Gonna Support?

Don't think I'm the only one, but always have to support a team in any televised match I see but tonight's game causes a dilemma.
For historical reasons I am obliged to dislike the Germans, but for some reason I have always hated the Spanish as well so this has turned out for me as the international version of Tottenham v Liverpool, the easy option would be not to watch the match.
But I have been won over by the Germans who are looking really good and their current style is appealing, I love the counter attacking style they are using so tonight I am hopeful of a German win, it's also made easier by the fact my boss at work is part Spanish and gave me a lot of shit when we lost to the Germans.
So a 5-0 win to Germany would be something great to take to work tomorrow :)

Edit: Well that put the mockers on the Germans!!
Spain bore their way into the final in less than impressive style, c'mon the dutch.

Paul Sturrock

Continuing the Southend saga, they have just appointed Paul Sturrock as manager despite still having Steve Tilson on gardening leave?
For a club that faces winding up again on Thursday it could be a short appointment, and if they can't afford to pay the players how can they pay 2 managers?

As for Paul Sturrock his managerial career is quite impressive achieving success at Plymouth, Sheff Wed, Swindon and in Scotland with just the blemish at Southampton, but this could be his toughest test, not least because despite all Southend's financial and on field problems Tilson is still well liked by all Southend fans and if Sturrock is seen as chairman Ron Martin's man it's hard to see them getting behind him.
On a personal note I was a fan of Paul Sturrock during his Dundee Utd days, I started watching them on TV when they appeared in European competition and looked pretty good, also they had sold us Ray "Tonka" Stewart (penalty king and thunderbolt shot).
Here is one of the best games I remember from that era a 5-0 thrashing of German giants Borrusia munchengladbach, Sturrock scored the third.
A couple of names that English fans might remember here - Ralph Milne (Man U) and a brilliant goal by former Chelsea player Eamonn Bannon.

Holland In The Final

The first semi-final saw Holland beat Uruguay 3-2 and reach their first final for 32 years, the game itself featured several great goals but also gave me the opinion that the winners of tomorrow's game would go into the final as favourites.
The dutch were just about worth the win, but were made to look average by a committed Uruguay.
One question everyone must be asking is what does Mark Van Bommell have to do to get booked? the over the top tackle in the lead up to Van Bronckhorst's wonder goal was well worth a red card but the ref didn't even see the foul?

Southend United

With the World cup going on it's been easy to forget the turmoil going on at my local club Southend United which is turning in to a nasty soap opera.
The latest piece of news we didn't want to hear was that manager Steve Tilson has been relieved of his duties and put on the proverbial "Gardening leave"?
For anyone not familiar with this story Southend's 2010 has been nothing short of a disaster, relegated from Division one after looking like an outside chance for the play offs at the turn of the year, late wages for the players every month this year showed that the clubs financial situation wasn't too rosy and a first winding up order served on them by the inland revenue was a sign of what was to come.
Top scorer Lee Barnard was sold for a paltry £175k to Southampton in January which made no sense as he'd scored more than half the teams goals, assistant Paul Brush was dismissed after a dismal run after Christmas which coincided with 2 months without pay for the team.
Slowly the team slipped into the relegation places despite some good performances, the lack of a top goalscorer (like Barnard) costing them dear, more rumours of late payments and another winding up order served on them which was narrowly avoided after Sainsbury's (who are buying Southend ground Roots hall) stumped up the £2.3 million owed to the taxman.
All along dodgy chairman Ron Martin claims the club is in a good financial situation with a new 22,000 seater stadium due to be built in the next couple of years at nearby Fossetts farm, Sainsbury's have also underwritten £3 million for that project which surely means there isn't much more to come from them.
Since relegation most of the loan players have left leaving very few players at the club, this week Damien Scannell went to Dagenham and Captain Adam Barrett and Alan McCormack had their contracts cancelled, 2 other players are close to leaving: goalie Steve Mildenhall and fans player of the year Simon Francis which will leave only 7 professionals on the books and Southend are under a league transfer embargo so no players can come in.
With the manager now gone things are looking in a really bad state, they face yet another winding up order from the taxman and one from a loan company as well, the remaining players haven't been paid since March so possibly they wil leave as well?
Maybe I should get down there and offer my services as they'll need another 4 players at least.
I wonder how many of the 22,000 seats they will fill in the conference or lower if they go out of business?

Europe 3 South America 0

You probably could have got good odds on Holland Germany and Spain all making it to the semi's shame I didn't get on.

I guess we've all under estimated the Germans they looked really good against England, but England looked so bad that the feeling was anyone could have done that to us and the previous German results weren't that impressive, a narrow win over Ghana who already knew they were going through, a loss to Serbia and a good win over an ageing 10 man Aussie team, but the performance over Argentina was superb.
I felt the Dutch had a chance against Brazil because they've looked good so far and the Brazilians hadn't really been tested.
Spain struggled against a well organised Paraguay but David Villa was again the hero.
Uruguay are probably the luckiest with their penalties win over Ghana, the unlikely match winner turning out to be Suarez who's goal line handball saved them in the last minute of the game, he'll have to serve a ban but surely it was worth it for keeping them in the cup. Who said cheats never prosper?

So the Semi's are - Holland v Uraguay and Spain v Germany.
The final should be Holland v Germany on current form but who knows, if it is I'm hoping for a dutch win to make up for those 2 final losses in the Seventies, but I have to say the Germans tonight were so impressive that even I was cheering them on!!

Dutch Delight

Every world cup I love watching the dutch from the dream teams of 74 and 78 to Bergkamp's goal against Argentina in 94, but this years team must have their greatest ever chance to win the trophy.
I had a feeling they could shock the Brazilians but Brazil have the individual talent to win any match whereas the dutch seem lacking in individual stars but make up for it with a great team ethic.
As it turned out if you put the Brazilians under enough pressure they will crack as they have done in many world cups and the dutch did it so well.

Roy Hodgson

Roy Hodgson has become the new Liverpool manager.
Personally I am quite sad about this, before he took over at Fulham I often wondered how they kept surviving in the big league? small crowds, a ground only really suited for division one, and a succession of average managers and players.
Since his arrival they have become a team I like to watch, players he's bought seem to be a collection of those players who promised much at previous clubs but didn't really deliver, a rag tag bunch of journeyman footballers who play more like a team than virtually any other club in the league, players like Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Andy Johnson, Jonathan Greening, Zoltan Gera and the ex hammer trio of Bobby Zamora, Paul Konchesky and John Paintsil who all have had their moments in the spotlight at previous clubs but never really fitted, add to that a great goalie Schwarzer and my favourite American Clint Dempsey who together were capable of giving anyone a game last year as the Europa cup run and many league games showed.
So I'm not sure what the future holds for Fulham now their leader has gone?

Hodgson probably has the most impressive CV of any English manager currently managing with European league and international successes at clubs and countries with limited resources.
Anyone that knows me will tell you I have an unnatural dislike of Liverpool based on experiences from my football supporting days where all the nastiest incidents to happen to me at games over the years were all perpertrated by Liverpool fans, so from a personal point of view I wanted Rafa to stay, as he was doing a great job of putting them back amongst the also rans of English football.
I'm not sure Hodgson is the sort of manager Liverpool fans would want as most I know still seem to think that Liverpool are up with the cream of world football and should be going for world famous managers.
Most of Hodgson's successes have been at clubs short of money where he has been able to get the best out of ordinary players, Liverpool seem to have bottomless pockets for buying players and the pressure will be on to spend some of those millions on a selection of this World cups stars while keeping the likes of Torres and Gerrard.
I imagine Hodgson will want to clear out a large proportion of the non Brit players that Rafa seemed to like so much, which might be popular with the Liverpool fans considering most of their glory years happened with an all British team.
I don't think players like Ngog, Insua, Degen, Kyrgiakos, Plessis, El Zhar etc have really inspired them and to be honest how many football fans had even heard of any of them when Rafa paid millions for them.

2010-11

I see that the new season has already begun before the old one has even finished, Early rounds of the Champions league and Europa league began on the 30th of June even though the World cup has over a week to go.
I'm guessing players from Tre Fiori (San Marino) and Rudar Pljevlja (Montenegro) were not involved in the world cup so there shouldn't be an overlap.

World Cup 2010 QF

Today sees the start of the Quarter finals, the matches are -
Holland v Brazil
Uruguay v Ghana
Argentina v Germany
Paraguay v Spain

The form book suggests Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Spain to go through but I don't think it will be as clear cut as that.
Holland are probably Brazil's first serious opponents and could cause a shock, Ghana have the African continent behind them and might get lucky, Argentina look the best team left but Germany can never be discounted and Argentina's defence have yet to be seriously tested.
Spain should go through but Paraguay might stop David Villa better than previous opponents.

England v Germany

Moved here from the non football blog, so it's a bit late

It all seems a bit strange around here at the moment?
The England flags are disappearing one by one from houses and cars up our street, there aren't any kids outside playing football in their new England strips, there has only been a few sirens heard flying past on the nearby main road less than a normal Sunday for some reason?
Everyone appears to be in a state of shock or more likely have all gone to the local seafront to lap up the sunshine on one of the hottest days this year while getting completly plastered and planning tonight's riots.
I don't have a German car so it might still be in one piece tomorrow, an I'm far enough away from the pubs and supermarkets so my house windows will hopefully survive.
That lot will have a lot to answer for come the morning.

The rant - read no further if you don't like bad language

Fucking disgrace, fuck the lot of them off and let's start building for 2018 they're all too old and had their chance and let us down again.
Fucking Gerrard fuck off back to scouse land and never pull on an England shirt again, we even played in all red so you'd feel at home.
Rooney fuck off on holiday and get fit, you ain't over that ankle injury and you're just kidding us all you were supposed to be fit.
Fucking Calamity James retire now you're too fucking old even Rob Green wouldn't have dived the wrong fucking way every time the Germans had a shot and he would have been quicker off his line for the first, useless cunt.
Terry dreaming of your next fumble with some wag were you, you weren't paying attention to this game.
Fucking Barry, man you're over-rated holding midfielder usually means someone who can hold the ball or pass to one of ours, I'd dump those lead boots you were wearing as well.
Judas maybe you could get involved in the game once in a while, thanks for the goal last week but you've done fuck all other than that.
Fucking Johnson learn how to defend, you weren't bad a few years back what happened.
Lampard you actually played well today but it doesn't happen much in an England shirt, so you can go too.
Ashley Cole even you were shit today just sunk to the level of the others.
Upson nice goal but what was you doing for their second? although you probably didn't expect Terry to follow you out to the wing.
Milner not that bad, you finally got in the game with a couple of nice crosses and Capello takes you off?
Joe Cole disappointing but came on just as England fell apart.
Heskey why oh why?

The Uruguayan ref and lino probably didn't need to take the bribe as England were shooting themselves in the foot anyway, but they should both be made to visit specsavers straight away and then banned for life.
Would it have made a difference? who knows we were on the up at that point and being level wouldn't have pushed up as much and been so open at the back, but even when we were level at the start we couldn't deal with the breakaway's so probably not.
Oh well another World cup over and four years to wait, but with the lack of young talent and this mob over the hill I reckon 2018 is what we should be aiming for if I'm still around.

The siren's are getting more frequent so I expect everything to kick off soon :(