“This weekend sees the second Non League Day. With Engerland playing on Friday night and no distractions of the Premier and Football League, Non League clubs up and down the country are throwing open their gates to encourage those fans who have never really experienced real football to give it a go.” The Ball is Round

“It’s funny how these things start off. A casual conversation with Neil, my brother, after a Chester game and a few months later there we were, fanzines in hand, selling as hard as we could. It had taken us around four months to launch the first issue of The Blue & White and after all the work we had put into it, we were desperate for it to be a success. It all came down to a few hours of standing outside the Exacta, hoping it stayed dry and that people would be interested enough to buy it.” In Bed With Maradona

Peter Oborne: “David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.” Telegraph

“I love football. No seriously, I do. And when I was little I loved Lego. Who didn’t. I was a very serious Lego builder. But I had rules. All of my constructions had to be in one colour. I couldn’t half finish a structure using a different shade, oh no. I would have to take it apart and build it smaller. I would spend hours sketching designs before building them, making my Dad take loads of pictures before knocking them down again. Nobody wanted to see a day old structure, irrespective of how good it looked.” In Bed With Maradona

“If there is one particular role within football that is analysed more than any other, it is that of the manager. So much of the culture of the modern game is wrapped up in the cult of the football manager that it would be easy to reach the conclusion that their value is over-stated, but when they get things right, they can set a club that may have been heading towards choppy waters towards, perhaps, a brighter future. One of the more understated success stories of the last couple of years or so has been the appointment of Owen Coyle by Bolton Wanderers. Coyle’s appointment wasn’t without a degree of controversy and the nature of the way in which he was poached from Burnley left a sour taste in the mouth for many. Bolton Wanderers supporters, however, may wish to reflect instead upon the extent to which Coyle has been a success on the pitch and how this has reflected upon the club’s well-being in a more general sense.” twohundredpercent

“There is a particularly notable passage in Friedrich Nietzsche’s book The Gay Science (a play on Thomas Carlyle’s The Dismal Science) which encapsulates much of his thinking in an arrestingly allegorical fashion. In it a madman rises in the early hours of the morning, lights a lantern and runs screaming into the local marketplace with great agitation.” The Equaliser

“I suppose that I’ve always been prone to pessimistic over-analysis, that’s just who I am, but the handful of weeks that have passed since I finished my educational career have given me far more time to occupy myself with the indulgences of introspection. Naked to the urgent winds of post-university reality, I have taken it upon myself to take a step back and look more fully at the tasks over which I regularly obsess. Needless to say, as I spend a great deal of my time writing (or at least attempting to do so), my activities as a blogger have not escaped close scrutiny.” The Equaliser

“In a more recent piece for the Financial Times, Simon Kuper informs us that top flight football clubs have rapidly turned the business of player evaluation into a quantifiable pursuit. As opposed to a more personal scouting scheme where a club manager might have to rely on whether the opinion of whomever he sent to watch whomever he’s watching is worth a flutter, instead a few statisticians can torture the mountain of numbers at their fingertips sufficiently enough to objectively assess a player’s potential value to his squad. Having read that piece, one might wonder why the Alex Ferguson who misinterpreted the stats on Jaap Stam made, what thus far appears to be, another error in statistical analysis when he signed Bébé without having seen him play.” twohundredpercent

“Here’s a quick one for you: what do Alexander the Great, Josef Goebbels, William Blake, and Keith Southern have in common? Their personalities and abilities are all combined within Henry Winter. Or Paul Hayward. Or Patrick Barclay. Or whoever else you care to mention that lives that dream, the important role of god of war – controllers of information, directors of foot-soldiers in the great struggle, inquisitors, commissars, and giants among men – the football journalist.” Surreal Football

“Each window provides big stories and the next few months will be no exception as teams across Europe prepare for intense negotiations and skullduggery from antagonistic rivals.” Sky Sports

“The English lower leagues are always fertile ground for Icelandic footballers. With a startling lack of supermarket puns, Football League archduke David Bevan reports on the season that was.” Stone by Stone

“When a football legend parts from the game either through retirement or death, ink splatters as tributes are furiously written to consider the man’s style of play, his memorable moments on the pitch, his connections with his fans, and his contributions to club and country. Even for an almost legend, debates commence over whether the player had been underrated, if he should indeed be a member in the pantheon of the greats instead of simply a distinguished guest, or what flaws he might have had as a player or person that prevented him from achieving truly legendary status.” twohundredpercent

“BAB has always represented one of the great mysteries of football sticker producers. Now, with the help of a website visitor, Mark, this website is proud to exclusively reveal at least part of the mystery. Bernard Babani began publishing technical books in 1942. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Clive Sinclair was an employee, and the author of some of their books on transistors.” Nigel’s Webspace

“The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) came into being after a walk in the park. That walk in the park occurred about 30 miles north of the Belorussian city of Brest, as the leaders of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine formalised the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The alliance, signed on the 8th of December 1991, not only changed the landscape of eastern European politics but precipitated the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup.” Slavic Football Union

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we all know that a good idea instantly becomes better when shared with the World. If you keep a good idea to yourself how can it ever truly blossom? Where would the World be if Thomas Edison had been a selfish fool? Whilst you ponder that question I shall cordially invite you, and any guests that you may wish to bring to join Jamie Cutteridge in an Art Project crossed with a Socrates meet up crossed with a Football Singalong. Intrigued? You better bloody be!” onestepovertoomany

“This isn’t really a book about football. Football is all around it, providing means, motive and opportunity, but this is a book about a group of very strange people. It is an investigation undertaken with a lot of affection, a dose of hostility, and above all an incessant curiosity into their strangeness. What makes them men apart?” Twisted Blood

“‘The Big Match’, directed by Joel Simon, depicts one man’s recollection of a special day in his childhood, and it’s something we can all relate to. The film uses animated archive video footage and photographs to bring this personal story to life. Music was written and performed by the Brian Irvine Ensemble.” In Bed With Maradona

“With the 2010/11 season coming towards an end in England, attentions turn once again to the Nordics for my regular fix of football. Denmark still has a few rounds of matches left although in the Superliga there is only pride to play for after FCK wrapped up the league two weeks ago. That and second spot, which this season sees the Danes steal a Champions League qualifying place from the Scots. With five games to go three teams were still in with a shout including Brøndby, who if anyone could do with a slice of luck it was them.” The Ball Is Round

“We’ve reached 1994 in our 25 years of WSC retrospective. Many reasons were posed for England’s failure to qualify for the World Cup in America that summer. In WSC 93, Simon Kuper proposed that players in England would become more sophisticated – and more successful – if they were encouraged to express themselves more off the pitch” WSC

“Non-league football is often described as a family, and one of its more recurring themes is that certain names have a tendency to turn up over and over again, like half-forgotten uncles at a reunion. Take, for example, Gary Calder. Calder was the chairman of Hornchurch FC when their money suddenly ran out towards the end of 2004 and he pitched up some time after this at Weymouth, as the Chief Executive of the club. Calder arrived at Rushden and Diamonds at the start of December with the father and son team of Steve and Liam Beasant in tow.” twohundredpercent

“Clever footballers seem destined to fail. When Craig Bellamy questioned Roberto Mancini’s tactics at Manchester City last season, he was punished – and rightly so, said the pundit mafia – but what if he was right? What if an eloquent, insightful player did know better than his consistently average manager?” surreal football

“Every Monday I look at my email account with trepidation. Since the first week of the season around 3pm I get that ‘ping’ sound signifying the arrival of the latest excuse from the pen of Avram Grant. Although it is obviously not from Avram, but rather from someone employed in the club to make such trivial facts such as we are bottom of the Premier League with just three games to go seem inconsequential.” The Ball is Round

“The English FA’s website wonders plaintively how players such as Luis Figo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robinho and Roberto Carlos managed to ‘develop skills that set them apart… What did they do as youngsters that provided them with the basis to becoming some of the world’s best players?’ Reading this you might think that the FA are about to reveal new plans for youth development. But the article continues: ‘If you are interested in the answer then you need to learn more about a game called futsal.’” WSC

“Today is the last day to vote for the Best EPL Blog (qualification round). Since there are so many good Premier League-related blogs to choose from, we decided to have a qualification round for many. Out of these, the top three winners (the polls close at midnight tonight) will enter the final round of voting next week for the Best EPL Blog.” EPL Talk

“What is the fundamental importance of football? The support of its fans. Brendan begins our three piece ‘For Sake of the Game‘ feature with an overview of the predicament modern football finds itself in, before a swift follow up through both sides of the debate later next week.” The Oval Log

“Just as the Champions League has a qualification round to narrow down the field of teams that will compete in the Champions League proper, this year’s EPL Awards has had to do the same in the ‘Best EPL Blog’ category due to the sheer quantity of quality blogs this season.” EPL Talk

“First we take Colchester….then we take Sudbury. Not my words, or those of Leonard Cohen but actually Boudica in AD61 when she attacked the Roman garrison and capital of Britain, raising it to the ground resulting in the centre of power moving down the Roman road to a little settlement called Londinium.” The Ball is Round

“The relegation from and promotion to the Premier League is starting to shape up. Still room for decisions and intrigue but nowhere near as unclear as it was a few weeks ago. First, Premier League relegation. In my opinion the bottom six teams are still in the fight. Those above that could, technically, face trouble based on their points total but it’s tough to imagine all six teams below them doing enough to overtake them. So that leaves us with this setup…” EPL Talk

“There are two very different types of football fan which clash. The first type is a thinker. They are intellectuals. They base their opinions on reason and evidence. They listen to Football Weekly, read Zonal Marking and Run of Play. They follow Iain Macintosh and Swiss Ramble on Twitter. They have read Brilliant Orange and Inverting the Pyramid many times. They stream the Argentine Apertura at 2am on their laptops.” Watching and Thinking

“Bangor City and Napoli are both currently challenging for the championship in their contrasting domestic competitions of the Welsh Premier League and Serie A respectively. While the two clubs appear to have little else in common other than their tradition of playing in blue, their one and only meeting on Welsh soil 49-years-ago has been brought back into the spotlight this week as the ground that hosted that famous Bangor City win is now set to be replaced by a leading supermarket.” In Bed With Maradona

Seaham Red Star
“The sun shone on the Tyne Valley and roared on by their third-highest crowd of the season, Ryton Football Club won their first home game of the season – and their first three points in any competition since a 2-1 win at Sunderland RCA on Tuesday 10th August 2010. Northern League Day really began a few minutes after midday, when 106 fans at Whickham (including Northern League Chairman Mike Amos, George Caulkin of The Times and at least one football blogger, saw Washington’s Joseph Mence put through his own goal. By that stage, the Socrates Ryton football writers had come to the unanimous conclusion that Mordue Brewery’s Riverboat was far and away a better choice of brew than ice-cold Foster’s Lager. Well, the near unanimous conclusion…” northernleagueday

“The Greek fabulist Aesop was attributed to the famous old fable of the hare and the tortoise and a new re-enactment of the story has evolved from the current Principality Welsh Premier League season. The modern-day comparison reached a poignant stage in the story last week when The New Saints overtook, and then extended their lead, over Bangor City at the top of the table without breaking a sweat while their rivals continued to reacted to letting go a one-time sixteen point lead by further losing ground on their consistent professional rivals with yet another defeat.” The Ball is Round

“Sunday 30th April 2006 was a memorable day for Reading fans. With the Championship title already clinched with a hearty sixteen-point cushion, Queen Park Rangers visited Steve Coppell’s peerless champions on the final day of the season. The match was played in a fine spirit and blue and white placards were held across the ground before kick-off.” In Bed With Maradona

“As a football fan it’s highly likely that at some point in your life you’ve collected football cards or stickers. For many of us it will have been Panini stickers, and for today’s kids it’s all about Topps Match Attax. But the addictive combination of football and collecting has been around for more than 120 years, and young Victorian football fans just couldn’t get enough of Baines Football Cards.” In Bed With Maradona

“I’ve worked full time with hundreds of football bloggers for the past two years now and prior to that, another two years part time with a handful of dedicated guys (and girls). So, into my 5th year of football blogging, what have I learned?Well, the first thing is that there are plenty of people who have been doing this for a lot longer than me! But I’ll get to that.” FootballUnited

“Whilst the Premier League now is enjoyed by millions around the world, Norway has always had a unique relationship with the English game. Welcome to IBWM, Michael Moruzzi.” In Bed With Maradona

“Hero – one of the most divisive & debated words in football. With a look at the subject taking in The Stranglers & Michele Platini, here’s Chris King.” In Bed With Maradona

“If you fly into Bratislava and take a number 61 bus from the airport towards the city-centre and railway station, you will pass some of Slovakia’s principle sporting venues. There is the excellent National Tennis Centre, where the likes of Lukáš Lacko and Dominika Cibulková play Davis Cup and Federation Cup matches, and a gleaming new ice-hockey arena, which will stage the final of the 2011 World Championship later this spring. In the same area, within a goal-kick of each other, there are two football grounds. Each is watched over by an impressive quartet of floodlights but each is, to put it mildly, in less than ideal condition.” In Bed With Maradona