Transfer Rumours and Gossip

 Premier League, Transfer Rumours
Apr 292011
 

One of the first internet ports of call for a football fan should be the BBC football gossip page.  It gathers together all the crazy transfer rumours of the day from various news outlets, but mainly from the wonderful British newspapers.

One thing this section highlights is how easy it is to conjure up some exciting transfer news for the football fans around the country, as we see that Manchester United are linked with any future, current or probable international goalkeeper, to replace Van Der Saar at the end of the season.  This was emphasised when they devoted a whole section to Schalke and Manuel Neuer after his fine performance in the Champions League semi finals first leg.  It was as if Neuer had just burst on to the scene, and hadn’t been a top goalkeeper for the last three or more years at Schalke.  Not that the British press ignore the game outside our country, they must have just forgotten about his nomination for UEFA Club Goalkeeper of the Year in 2008.

Then we have Romelu Lukaku.  A player who has probably been linked with every club in the English Premier League bar Blackpool, who don’t buy players for more than 100,000 plus sticks of rock depending on appearances.  Lukaku is labelled the next Didier Drogba, or at least Roman Abramovic hopes so, as the ageing Ivorian must be due a spell at AC Milan or Real Madrid, or somewhere else where the big stars go in their twilight years for an easy trophy or two.  See there’s a transfer rumour right there!  I wonder if the BBC will pick up on it?…..

If it’s a bit of optimism you’re after, or you want to see your club linked with some players too good to ever sign for you, then head over to this page.  You’ll only end up with one of Roman Lukaku’s Belgian youth team mates, but it’s worth believing this stuff, even for only 5 minutes in the morning.

 

Cattermole – What a Card

 Premier League, Satire
Apr 232011
 

Sunderland’s Lee Cattermole, and his manager Steve Bruce, have succeeded in their campaign for the player to be allocated a special card when committing reckless fouls.  The FA announced that the new card will help maintain the physical nature of the English game, whilst alerting opponents that Cattermole is in one of ‘those moods’ which, despite his poor timing in the tackle, is a credit to the English game.

Referees have welcomed the decision, as it eradicates their conundrum of whether they are being harsh on Cattermole because he has a reputation, or not being harsh enough because of the complaints that he is being picked on because of his reputation.

A few players have welcomed the decision with Paul Scholes commenting “yes” when asked if he agrees with the proposal.  John Terry and Michael Essien were caught on camera performing an impromptu jig in delight at the news.

 

Why ‘Soccer Football’?

 Football History
Apr 222011
 

Soccer is an English word.  A shortened version of Association Football – the name given to the sport when it was first separated from it’s early footballing brothers.

The term was thought to have originally been coined by a posh bloke at Oxford University, who thought it better to refer to these football based sports using short names such as ‘rugger’ and ‘soccer’, in the same way they referred to a five pound note as a ‘fiver’.

This shortening of the word ‘association’ is often mistakenly seen as an Americanism, seeing as they have their own popular version of ‘football’ which we Brits imaginatively refer to as American Football.  They separate their most popular code of football with ours, by using the word which originated in England in the 1880′s.  So next time you have a go at a foreigner (it’s not just the Americans) for using the word soccer, you should really be having a go at posh university students from the late 19th century who helped populate the beautiful game in this country and abroad.  Either that, or don’t get so upset about word usage.

Countries tend to use the word football to represent what is the most popular version of the game in their country, which makes sense really.