Outside the Box – Football on TV: Comical Colin losing his seat could mean Match Of The Day 2 losing much much more

It could be argued that watching football on television has become a full-time endeavour. Well obviously for me it is because each week I force my rambling and churlish thoughts on the subject on to your computer screens in a senseless demonstration of puerile envy. But for all of us now, it ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A boring birthday for the FA as the stars fail to shine

For most people, an evening out at the local pub will be a largely stress-free excursion filled with raucous banter, sorrowful introspection and a touch of casual xenophobia. Nights out in this great country have followed that tight format for hundreds of years, never wavering in the face of adver...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A weekend of woe for Walters as the BBC put him centre stage

Do you remember the glory days of Saturday night TV? That wistful time before Simon Cowell was given the keys to the kingdom and filled the weekend evenings with a symphony of garish fairy lights, screeching teenagers and Louis Walsh. Things were so much simpler before: you knew where you we...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Love or hate him, 'Mourinho' shows Jose really is the Special One

There are times in this cruel cruel world of ours when desperate sad acts like myself look up to the heavens mournfully, unleash a shriek of despair before dropping our heads to the ground and mumbling incoherently about life being terribly unfair. In my case, it’s usually something to do wi...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A feelgood Focus for Muamba is the highlight of the BBC’s wonky weekend of football

As ever it was a big weekend in the Barclays Premier League. This after another extraordinary week in football with those League Cup games ending in rugby scores, referees accused of all kinds of ungodly crimes, Andrey Arshavin actually being of some use, and even Ashley Cole managing to go ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Sky soothe the Monday blues with a long weekend of football action

There was a time once when Monday was a day set aside for nothing but despair. Perhaps a day of recriminations as the heady exploits of the weekend come gushing into view and you’re forced to confront the disastrous consequences of your misdeeds (John Terry?) Maybe a dispiriting comedown aft...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Rodgers will never walk alone as the US cameras follow Liverpool around

I think it’s fairly reasonable to suggest that the first few games of the season have not quite gone to plan for Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool. Sunday’s defeat at Manchester Uniteds hands ensured that it’s the most dispiriting start to a football season since that year Middlesbrough handed a debut...

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Squarefootball's Team of the Week - Week One

And we’re back! So hello. How are you? How’s that sunburn? Okay, now the pleasantries are out the way we can get straight back into the important stuff. The Premier League is back. It’s not like we’ve had much sport this summer to keep us sane during the harsh football-free months, so to have 3pm ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Neville looking sharp as Sky’s fantasy football begins

The beginning of a football season is always a curious period. Our much-cherished teams turn up at 3pm on opening day looking ever so slightly different from the last time we saw them. New kits, new colours if you live in Cardiff, new players and sometimes even new managers. Whatever misty remnant...

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Is this the worst football kit ever?

Players and fans are supposed to wear their shirts with pride, but sometimes the tops are so hideous they make you utterly ashamed. Arsenal fans have complained about their Dennis the Menace away kit, Manchester United supporters have hit out over their new tartan home kit and some Liverpool fans a...

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QPR: Is Joey Barton finished?

It seems an absolute age now, but just three short weeks ago we were all digesting the seismic events of the final day of the Premier League season. The biggest story being Manchester City of course, snatching the sweetest of victories from certain defeat against QPR to clinch their first league tit...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Chelsea win, but there were plenty of losers in the final day of football

There are some days that it simply doesn’t pay to be a non-football fan. We have a tendency in this country to lurch en masse into things and render them inescapable to the more indifferent among us. We latch on to an event, a past time, even a television talent show and let it consume us until we...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 38

Well, that was tedious . . . Of course it wasnt! What an end to the season. What a season overall! It was sensational in every aspect. Sundays fixtures emphasised the point that Englands Premier League is the best in the world. We finally have the answer to the ultimate question: Manchester City ha...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A final day fanfare for Sky and the Blues

It all came down to this then. It’s been a gruelling journey, epic in its fluctuating fortunes as the favourites for the crown jostled back and forth. Each weekend millions looked on, eagerly cheering their chosen heroes, willing them to put in the performance that would clinch the prize they so ...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 37

The penultimate week of Premier League football has been and gone and now we are sadly left with just one more round of fixtures before the cruel summer months with no club competition. Yes the Euros are on their way, but nothing compares to Englands top league every week. Sniff. Anyway, heres your...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A long time ago in a Stadium far far away, ITV began their FA Cup Final coverage

The 2011-12 football season will probably be looked back upon with a real intrigue in future decades. It has been a long, incident-strewn expedition encompassing an abundance of controversy, drama and despair. It is hard to remember another campaign with more extraordinary talking points. The Luis S...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A bad week for some as United falter and the Olympics fail to inspire

It ended with Liam Gallagher bopping along to his own record at the Etihad last night in the her-uge title showdown between the Manchester giants on Live Ford Monday Night Football. Basking in his own genius is probably a nightly ritual for Gallagher junior but what certainly hasn’t been a regular o...

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The top 10 dives in football history

Manchester United’s Ashley Young and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba have caused controversy over the past fortnight by diving to win penalties and going down quicker than your average High Street hooker. Ashley Young started it all off by winning a cheap penalty against QPR’s Shaun Derry, when the tough m...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Time is running out for the Football League Show but Reading and the Saints defy the odds

Back in the hazy midsummer days of August 2011, while hoards of frenzied teenagers were marauding their way through the streets of London setting fire to police cars, looting Poundland and generally ruining Boris Johnson’s holiday; I was indulging in a regular pre-season pursuit. Like every footba...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 35

This weekends Premier League fixtures finally gave us some certainties, as the first side was relegated from Englands top flight. And after an amzing set of results, the Premier League title is still firmly up for grabs for the two Manchester Clubs. With all 20 teams taking part this weekend, we ha...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Tevez, title races and titillation in a terrific week of football TV

Well, it was a helluva’ few days in the Premier League title race last week wasn’t it? The fortunes of the twin Manchester clubs are weaving increasingly erratic patterns as the burden of the top trophy begins to heap its weight on their slumping shoulders. The last seven days or so have seen a numb...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A tough week of watching tough men taking tough action; and then there was Gary Neville on Super Sunday

There are many boulevards open to footballers when the time finally comes for them to hang up their boots, delete Sir Alex’s number from their Blackberry and say goodbye to the pantomime-drudgery of the Premier League. Obviously, the twin favourites for many pros are either a cushy job coaching the ...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 30

Arsenal were the shock losers this week as they went down 2-1 at Loftus Road while Manchester United tightened their grip on the title with a late win over Blackburn Rovers as Manchester City were sensationally held at home by Sunderland. But who has made it into our Team of the Week? Here is Mitc...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: One year on from Keys and Gray but is Sky burning any brighter?

It’s been around fourteen months since the corridors and offices of Sky Sports were rocked irrevocably by the now-infamous sexism scandal surrounding part-man, part-ape Richard Keys and his bosom buddy Andy Gray – the worthy winner of Nuts magazine’s 2006 ‘TV Personality That Most Resembles a Baby...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A tough week for the ‘football family’ but the future’s looking bright, and looking orange for the Toon Army

It has certainly been a difficult old week in football. Quite rightly, the grave events surrounding Bolton’s Fabrice Muamba dominated all stratums of the game over the past seven days, and by extension all of the football coverage too. This resulted in a strange ambivalence amongst the week’s acti...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Failure, hope and horror – just another weekend in the lives of Leicester City and ESPN

Despite the fact it has reached the ‘business end’ of the competition, I have so far abstained from reviewing ESPN’s FA Cup coverage; this is for two purely righteous reasons. Firstly, I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to watch England’s foremost domestic cup competition and I a...

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Beckham, Best, Henry or Cantona: Who were the coolest footballers to ever live?

We would all like to be footballers, right? The money, the women, the cars. Oh, and the playing of football. That’s pretty good. But some are cooler than others. Too cool, even. So cool they make everyone else look like silly, awkward, emasculated chumps. So who were the 10 coolest footballers to e...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A mad Mario meets a melodic Manc and the result is perfect harmony

The twin worlds of football and music have not always been cosy bedfellows. Lest we forget the audio abominations that still stain jukeboxes up and down this land: ‘Fog On The Tyne’, that god awful attempt by Ant and Dec to appeal to people other than 12-year old girls during the 2002 World Cup, ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: QPR’s cautionary tale of success, greed and sweaty men is a real winner for the BBC

In every avenue of the vast road map of life, there have been distinguished comedy legends. The political world has Boris Johnson, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher; in the music fraternity we have all had a good giggle at Keith Richards and Gareth Gates; and let’s not forget Jordan… she doesn’t re...

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Squarefootball's Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 27

Well well well, its been another interesting weekend in the Barclays Premier League. Theres been excitement and controversy not just on the pitch, but also in the boardrooms and manager offices. And I am sure we will get to the big stories in the game later on. However, beyond the talking points, w...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 26

Arsenals sensational comeback against Spurs and Manchester Uniteds last-gasp winner at Norwich were the highlights for many this weekend, but who has made it into our Team of the Week? Yet another enjoyable weekend of Premier League action has once again reminded us why Englands top flight is the ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: An evening of Eurotrash as United make their Channel 5 debut

European football returned to our screens last week as our plucky English clubs once more ventured to the four corners of Europe to mix it up with some of the mightiest names in continental football; goliaths such as Barcelona, Inter and FC Metalist Kharkiv could all be on the horizon. As the week b...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: No handshake for Evra and no love lost between the partisan pundits at Sky

Think about this for a second. How many times do you think you have seen Luis Suarez’s hand this weekend? Ten times? Twenty? A hundred? I’m sure I’ve seen his wandering hand more than I’ve seen my own two in the past 48 hours, such has been the swirling media-frenzy since he refused to settle his di...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 25

Wins for Arsenal, Spurs, Everton, Manchester United, Manchester City, West Brom, Fulham, Blackburn, Wigan and Norwich ensured there wasnt a single draw in the top flight this weekend and there has been plenty of action at the top and bottom of the table. The top flight recorded an impressive 37 goa...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Serious lessons to learn from Fashanu’s footballing family

I’m fairly certain we can all agree that football has its fair share of problems. If it is not the shady transfer dealings of murky agent types skulking around the bins at Tottenham’s training ground, it is the ignorant grunts of ill-informed morons as they boo a man purely for being the brother of ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A prosperous week for Liverpool in the cups but off the field is a different story

The days leading up to the weekend’s FA Cup Fourth Round ties were not particularly pleasant for many football fans, a week in which the unseemly and murky face of football was glaringly apparent. Many column inches were devoted to the tax-evasion trial of Spurs manager Harry Redknapp, as well as th...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Confusion reigns at City as Coleman fluffs his lines

Have you played Football Manager 2012? You may wonder how a game brimming with data, facts and incalculable statistics comes to contain such a dearth of information. Well, in the early stages of the games development, some spotty oik is charged with the task of finding someone close to each of the 7...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 22

What a weekend! I dont think anyone could have predicted such drama and excitement in the Premier League fixtures we were treated to. There are certainly many talking points and we will be covering them all! There was a staggering 35 goals in the Premier League this weekend, and that includes the sc...

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Premier League: Who would make up your ultimate 18-man squad?

We here at Squarefootball like to provoke debate and one question that has had us all thinking is one regarding an ultimate team. That is, who would make up the best possible 18-man squad? The rules are simple: our writers were tasked to create a squad of 18 players from the 20 sides in the Premier...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: An incident-packed week at the BBC leaves Savage short of support and Lineker lost for words

They say a week in football is a long time and it can certainly be said that there was enough controversy, incident and wonder crammed into the last seven days of football to keep Joey Barton’s Twitter account going for years. The fallout from the Manchester derby, the return of Scholes and Henry, t...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 21

And were back. I hope you didnt miss me too much these past couple of weeks, what with the busy festive period and then the magic of the FA cup taking over last weekend. However, here I am once again and we are ready to go with the Team of the Week and the Weekend Wonders. It was another engaging...

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Could these youngsters from Scandinavia be transfer targets for Premier League clubs?

Last time out I reported on the transfer speculation surrounding Ajaxs young Danish talent Christian Eriksen. While nothing has yet happened regarding a move by Manchester United, or any of the other mega-clubs supposedly watching him, we would do well to remember that he is still only 19 and des...

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Square Football's Festive Best - Team of the party season

Happy new year to all! Welcome to 2012 and to our holiday themed team of the week and weekend wonders! What a way for this years football to begin! Theres been some Christmas crackers in December and now were left to sort through the left overs and pick out the plums that reallty impressed us at ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A football overkill but Fabregas’ Barcelona adventure keeps us watching

At the top of this article you will see, if you can get past the crass, self-congratulatory overuse of my own name, that the tagline for this column mentions that there isn’t enough football on the TV. Obviously this pithy line is actually nonsense as there is in fact far too much football clogging ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Stelling and his merry mates bring festive cheer and genuine fear in the absence of any football

If we boil it down, there are two distinct ways to spend the festive period. You either endure the holiday wallowing in a pit of desperate desolation, alone with no hope of joviality, good tidings or communal kinship. Sat crestfallen in front of Eastenders on Christmas night, nursing a bottle of gin...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A battle of wits ends in defeat for Worthy’s warhorses, but football marches on

Let’s face it. Our footballing heroes don’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to brainpower and academia do they? A cautionary glance at the post-match interviews every week on Match Of The Day show us superstars struggling to grasp the complexity of questions such as, “How do you feel the ...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 16

Arsenal lost at home to the leaders Man City but Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United, West Brom and Stoke City all won at the weekend to keep the Premier League interesting. There were a number of top performances this weekend, but who has forced their way into our Team of the Week? Mitch Waddon rev...

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Team of the Week and Weekend Wonders: Week 15

It was a winning weekend for Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Sunderland, Stoke, Swansea City, Wigan and Norwich and there were many great performances from the cream of the crop in the Premier League. But who has made it into this weeks Team of the Week? Mitch Waddon rev...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A love-in for O’Neill as marvel Martin ruins Rovers’ day

It was clear at 1pm on Sunday what the overriding theme of the day was going to be on Sky Sports’ Live Super Sunday. Ed Chamberlain, growing more and more comfortably into the role of football anchorman, opened the afternoon’s football coverage by loudly proclaiming, “Sunderland’s new era begins tod...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: The rise and fall of the sprightly Savage is far from a waltz in the park

Do you remember the first time you ever saw Star Wars? That intoxicating and bedazzling rush of pure unadulterated excitement as you sat slack-jawed, unable to wrench your eyes away from all the bright lights, whizzing space ships and questionable acting? And perhaps you also remember the desolate f...

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