Euro 2012 Fantasy Football invitation

Calling all fantasy football fans. Have we got a treat for you. If you think you are a better manager than Englands Roy Hodgson or that you could leave Germanys Joachim Low feeling really down in the dumps then why dont you prove it? Weve set up our own Euro 2012 mini-league with the Sun and youve...

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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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Did Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley really play football together?

As football fans, in our lives rarely is there a greater spectacle than a mouth-watering Champions League semi-final between two expensively assembled sides. Rarely is there a more exciting prospect than the thought of Arsenal and Manchester City at loggerheads, with both teams in need of three ...

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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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Racism is in the spotlight but what is being done to tackle homophobia?

The FA stamped down on Luis Suarez’s racism towards Patrice Evra. And it’s quite right that they did, isn’t it? For when we look back into the past, and certainly in football’s past, we see things that are shockingly vile. In the seventies and part of the eighties, black footballers were subjected ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A test of comedy quizzing is passed with help from the inspiring Irish

Ok, before we go any further let me first congratulate the Irish team on their impressive qualification for the European Championships next summer. There was the inevitable party mood for the second leg of the Republic of Ireland v Estonia match last Tuesday and I’m sure there are not many that begr...

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Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Birmingham: What game would you like to erase from your club's history?

I think it is safe to come out from behind the sofa now. The trick and treaters have gone into 12 months of hibernation, giving the nation’s doorbells time to recover. The BBC can put the series of Halloween movies back into cold storage. Just how many were there? As football fans we too have exper...

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Stoke City And Greece: Why Should 'Pretty' Success Matter?

The European Championships 2004. Ah, what a tournament. The Greeks told every single one of us that fairy tales can come true. They defeated France and Portugal along the route to triumph and won a major international tournament for the very first time as rank outsiders. Unfortunately, what came...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: ITV begin to repay their debt with a feast of Man City delights

It’s the 12th June 2010. Seven thirty-four on a warm summer’s evening. My friends and I are huddled around my television, just as a million more expectant eyes are doing at the same moment up and down the nation. Then pffft … nothing. A moment’s darkness was followed by some guff about Hyundai cars ...

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Could ex-players as referees ever work?

Ah, referees. Nasty men in black, the forever stern officials of our game, often painted to be rather humourless beings who get out of the house on Sundays to escape their nagging wives and only serve to annoy us. There is a theory, which Roberto Marinez brought up back in January of this year,...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A bad week for JT just gets worse and worse as the news hacks attack!

It’s been a bad old week for Chelsea and England captain John Terry hasn’t it? The on-going racism row between Terry and his accuser Anton Ferdinand has been front and back page news since the incident occurred a week ago and the story shows no signs of halting. Like most I have seen the footage...

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Arsenal, Coventry and Leicester: Can a new ground be blamed for a lack of success?

It has been a traumatic decade for followers of Coventry City. The Sky Blues were relegated from the Premier League in 2001 and in the proceeding 10 years the Midlands club have rarely threatened a return to the big time. You could argue that the club’s move to the Ricoh Arena has hindered their pro...

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Manchester United got off lightly: Here's five of the worst results ever

Manchester City rocked the champions at Old Trafford, hitting Fergies men for six, but Hugh Larkin recalls five of the worst beatings of all time. As Chris Pettit reminded us elsewhere on this site - Manchester Citys spectacular 6-1 victory at Old Trafford was the second jaw-dropping scoreline of t...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Mancini’s Manchester magicians spoil the party… and this column

Why always me? This week I was going to talk to you about the light-hearted Sky Sports knockabout quiz Take It Like a Fan. I was armed with reams of faint praise for the show and was readying my keyboard for a glittering review and even a possible recommendation for you all to check it out. But al...

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Can any player, including Messi, be considered 'the greatest'?

Ah, the Champions League. Bringer of drama, stopper of dreamers, platform for Ray Wilkins to say ‘my word’ 50 hundred thousand times. And there are other things that are nearly always discussed, certainly when seeing the two dominant Spanish sides play. The great debate has moved from trying to ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Football on Sky is becoming a fairytale thanks to Wilkins the Wizard

So we were repeatedly told that it was the ‘biggest club game in world football’ as Liverpool and Manchester United met at Anfield on Saturday for the ever-intense North-West derby. The fevered atmosphere was apparent at Sky for Live Ford Football Special and there was an almost fairytale mood in ...

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Top 10 bizarre injuries to footballers

Swansea City’s vice-captain Alan Tate is set to miss most of the Swans’ debut season in Premier League after breaking his leg in a freak golfing accident. The versatile defender was a passenger in a golf buggy that lost control and Tate will have to watch the majority of the club’s rollercoaster adv...

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Shamrock Rovers Get Spurs Reward

Romance is in short supply in modern European club competition. Where once the small nations were pitched into knockout competition with Europes elite, now its all about the UEFA co-efficient and a long haul of qualifying ties in far flung parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Time was when Bang...

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