Alan Smith's comments today and his absolute first rate attitude and dedication to Newcastle should ensure his captaincy for the start of the season. Alan Smith-Has what it takes Alan Smith impressed me yesterday with his comments about the team and their attitudes for the season. His words yesterday reminded of a border collie corralling a [.

So I wore my scarf today, and my Emerald Pitch tee, and in reading the Seattle Times blog, I notice that they adapted it a little bit. What are you doing to grow the sport in this fair city? Have you noticed people's attitudes toward soccer changing? And Larry Stone as a photographer? National Baseball [.

Good piece from The Stranger in Seattle on the success of Sounders FC and what it (and soccer) mean in the grand scheme.

"Go to a game, you'll see: Soccer is awesome. Fact. The negative energy sent by the Romes and Olbermanns of the world is like a dare; let them judge our motives, our attitudes, our pretensions—we'll be over here enjoying the match.

The young Newcastle Reserve team were hammered 5-1 by Leeds United in a behind closed door game against Leeds United at their Thorp Arch training ground, on Tuesday night. Alan Thompson - in his playing days at Celtic And it looks like Alan Thompson, our young Geordie coach, is not too pleased with the attitudes of a [.

The most glib response that one can give to the issue of football hooliganism is to say that it has simply gone away for good. Anybody that regularly goes to matches will know fully well that it is constantly there, bubbling away under the surface and waiting for an opportunity to raise its head. As clubs, the game's authorities and the police themselves are often more than eager to tell us, the success that has been had in tackling the issue in and around stadia - the area in which there is no dispute that clubs have to take responsibility for the behaviour of those claiming to support the clubs - has been largely due to more sophisticated stewarding and policing methods.

Is it just me or is there a less frenzied and almost contented feeling around the place at the end of this season. The poem by BBLG and the entertaining summary by rez9000, riffing with the editor, seem to set the tone for a more relaxed attitude to the events of the 2008/2009 season.
Our performance on Sunday was poor but nobody seems to be really bothered.

Vanderlei Luxemburgo has made a shock exit from Palmeiras. On Friday, the coach said he was annoyed by the way he had been kept out of the loop over the transfer of Keirrison to Barcelona and added that if the deal fell through, he wouldn't want the player back whilst he was in charge. Palmeiras acted swiftly and shortly after, the coach announced his departure from the club on Twitter in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Brazilian coach leaves his port via internet Palmeiras coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo has used social networking site Twitter to temporarily reduce his network of business contacts. The ex-Brazil national team coach quit his job in a tweet on the site. He wrote: "I'm no longer the manager of Palmeiras. I was sacked because of disagreeing with Keirrison's attitudes.

She's away tonight. Her lover is here, tasked with filling her slot !
On my way home (black skoda fabia 1.9tdi driven slowly) from work in Purgatory this evening, I chanced upon this pair discussing the thorny ishoo of Women in Football.
In particular, Hope Powell being subject of debate.

When we were first linked to Michael Owen in the summer, I laughed it off. Another bollocks transfer rumours with too many reasons for it to be impossible.

Then, when the pictures of him arriving at Carrington were all the net, we all had to face the strong possibility that the player that ranked fairly highly on our most hated list would soon be wearing our shirt.