Gennaro 'The Clown' Gattuso

Before I watched Tuesday night’s game I held the view that Italian football was
Classy, technical, sophisticated and even as Ruud Gullit would say ‘sexy’ but after Gattuso’s performance against Spurs this view has quickly been diminished.

Hacking up players willy nilly and almost foaming at the mouth Gattuso behaviour was more like one of those crazy Looney tunes character rather than a critically a acclaimed football player. Indeed wearing his red and black jersey comparisons to an overgrown Dennis the Menace from 80’s comic ‘The Beano’ would not be far off the Mark. His final display of petulance came with a flying head butt to Tottenham’s assistant manager Joe Jordan which to be fair probably did more Gattuso damage than Joe as Joe didn’t even seem to batter an eyelid.

Albeit Gattuso’s has gone on to apologise, can Michel Platini and his cronies at UEFA HQ really tolerate this sort of behaviour? As if this was to happen in the terrace or even the streets Gattuso could have found himself up in the dock on a GBH charge.

Premiership Phycho

Now, I don’t normally do book reviews, but when I stumbled upon Premiership Psycho by C.M Taylor I thought what hell. A fantastic book, which had me hooked from start to finish. What I liked the most is that it was not the usual rags to riches tripe that we have become accustomed to in football books\films


On the contrary, far from being a 'Roy of the Rovers' type good guy, the main character 'Kev King' is an arrogant, paranoid serial killer who also happens to be a top footballer living the highlife in his cosy Essex pad. His girlfriend is a celebrity wag and his agent is a dodgy as Arthur Daley.

A very, funny and clever book that manages to expose the nonsensical, celebrity lifestyle of a top footballer while at the same time revealing the dark inside thoughts of a serial killer

A must read for football fans and will have you howling with laughter on your daily commute

Transfer madness

Ah the January transfer window. It never fails to disappoint with a total of 215 million spent in just 31 days, this could have helped George Osborne get us out of this financial mess that we are in. Alas the money was spent on overpaid footballers

Shock buy of the window has to be the 35 million quid spent on Andy Caroll. But perhaps even more shocking is that he arrived in Merseyside in a chopper which is something that Barack Obama would have been proud of.

While Andy Carroll was getting out of ‘ze choppa’, Fernando Torres was bombing it down the M1 to wrap up his ‘dream’ move to Chelsea for a bargain price of just 50 million! Abromovich, again flexed his financial muscle by splashing a further 21.3 million on David Luiz taking their total spending up to a mere 71.3 million.

Not to be outdone the sheiks at Man City Spent another 20 million on Wolfsburg hit man Edin Dzeko, while Spurs had a cheeky bid for Phil Neville rejected.

Whether these players go on to prove themselves and help their teams win the league is remains to be seen, as currently the top two teams in the premier league Manchester United and Arsenal haven’t spent a thing. This may go to show that spending ridiculous amounts of money on marquee players won’t necessarily win you the league.



(35 Million Pound man Andy Carroll with new manager Kenny Dagliesh)

Keys takes a hike

With Andy Gray gone, Richards Keys (above) has followed his old pal and left Sky Sports...To be honest it was about time too as had this saga continued any longer it would have surely ruined what little integrity there is left in the game.

Listening back to the comments about Female Referee Cian Massey and seeing some of the footage. I got the impression that these two had become complacent and somewhat caught in their own hype. Granted they have done an excellent job, but this doesn’t give them the right to have such an abhorrent attitude towards women in the game. The comments were like something from the 80’s …..50’s even where men were men and women stayed at home and ironed

Only 20 years ago we were having the same debate about race, black football players were seen as incapable, lazy and too aggressive and faced torrid abuse from the terraces, but they continued and persevered and went on to prove that they are just as good as their white colleagues and players like Ian Wright, John Barnes, Paul Ince
and Andy Cole have gone on to become house hold names and hold legendary status at their respective clubs.

The comments from Keys and Gray were no different from what we were hearing 20 years ago and I know some may argue that this is just a bit of banter, but if these guys had stayed at sky sports then it would have sent out a statement that this sort of behaviour is accepted. Don’t get me wrong this is not a crusade. But times have changed and sky sports who have moved on with their all singing and dancing technology (3D Broadcasting) need to do the same with their attitude towards women.

The Magic of the FA Cup

Ah the FA cup, that quirky, old fashioned, cup competion that gives hope and a day out to all clubs that take part in it.

This was certainly the case for Charlton Athletic fans. The N-Power league 1 outfit had a F.A Cup clash against their London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and they were going to enjoy every minute.

Running late for my train to see the game I jumped on the first carriage available at Liverpool Street which was packed full of Charlton fans in Party mode.Their optimism was sky high and the banter was thick and fast with one fan claiming that the score would be 5-0 while another shouted excitedly ‘ there’s only one team in London’.

To be fair Charlton gave a good account of themselves in the first half of the game.
This I believe was down to the downright loyal support of their fans who managed to out sing the spurs fans. Every time a Charlton player had a shot on goal the Charlton fans were at a delirium. And the half time score of 0-0 had Charlton fans singing there hearts out

10 minutes into the second half Charlton were 3-0 down but this didn’t stop the Charlton fans oh no, chants of Charlton ’til I die were relentless and the fans never lost hope. 10 minutes later it was 3-0 to Spurs. The Charlton didn’t even batter an eye lid at this and proceeded to sing ‘we gonna win 4-3’


Alas Charlton went on to lose 3-0. But as they Charlton fans clapped off their team with a standing ovation it dawned on methat this really what the FA CUP and supporting your team is all about just enjoying the experience for what it is win or lose

Up the Addicks!

Bent to Villa

Now When I heard about this I nearly knocked over my cup of tea, not only because it came from completely of the blue but the fact that someone was actually willing to pay 24 Million! Darren Bent will indeed prove to be a good signing for Villa and may yet prove to be a shrewd move for Gerard Houller. But the question is … If the premier leagues most in form player (Rafeal Van Der Vaart) was brought for 8 Million is Darren Bent really worth 24?



The Million Dollar Man

The Yeah Game

Can you guess How many times this Chelsea fan says yeah?


send all answers in on a postcard yeah!