There’s plenty of life in the Panini brand as it celebrates its 60th birthday in 2021. Politics and religion may top the list as the most divisive topics in conversion but football will always rank highly. Few aspects of the beautiful game find a way to unite supporters – no matter what team you follow […]
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Scorched Earth Thatcher’s dark shadow was cast over England in the Eighties. A bleak and desolate country. The Specials serenaded the decade with the haunting anthem, ‘Ghost Town’, to a backdrop of inner-city decay and industrial decline. The working class were conflicted between the sceptre of mass unemployment and the gratification of council house ownership. […]
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At the World Cup in Argentina 1978, Scotland’s team was brimming with talent with the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Archie Gemmill and Joe Jordan in the squad making them fifth favourites with the bookies to lift the Jules Rimet trophy just behind hosts Argentina, Brazil, West Germany and Holland. However, it seemed that […]
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Why Steven Gerrard is breaking the hex at Ibrox It’s taken him a while to get going but having romped to the Scottish Premiership in style this season, overseen some memorable performances in Europe and with a domestic double still very much in his sights, Steven Gerrard is bucking the trend of so many England […]
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1990-91 My first live game watching my beloved Chelsea was on the opening day of the 1990/91 season against Derby County at Stamford Bridge. On that day, I got to see Chelsea’s first million pound players make their debuts in Dennis Wise and Andy Townsend who had arrived from Wimbledon and Norwich City respectively. The […]
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Born in 1989 in Liverpool and grew up in Croxteth just down the road from a certain Wayne Rooney, I’ve been privileged to see a lot of good players come through the Liverpool ranks during that time. Here is my greatest LFC team from the Premier League era. Formation: 4-2-1-3 Goalkeeper is Alisson Becker. Since […]
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Where Expectations Started… My favourite Liverpool game, where do you start, so many memories. Winning Number 5 with the Miracle of Istanbul, the European comebacks vs Olympiakos or Dortmund, the still mind blowing 4-0 win vs Barcelona. My initial thought was the 2006 FA Cup final which I was lucky to get a ticket for, […]
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You can’t tell the story of Irish football without the story of Irish footballers in England. For as long as the professional game has existed Irish players have made the short trip across the Irish Sea to earn a living. A combination of Brexit and a better-funded domestic league may see a gradual decrease in […]
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“The greatest player in the world” That was the view that then-Scotland manager Tommy Docherty had of Hotshot. Eddie Gray’s view is that you wouldn’t get a Lorimer in today’s market for £50-60m. It was while playing for Scottish Schoolboys against England at Hampden that Gray first saw just how good a player Lorimer was, […]
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I had already been up for a couple of hours, pacing around the house in my Aston Villa shirt, waiting for my dad to come home from work. He’d been working all night on the railway and our taxi to take us to the train station was booked for 10am. Just before I started to […]
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