Some of the words that come to mind when I view this video are stupendous, incredible and goosebumps. It's BBC's promo video for the 2010 World Cup that it'll be airing across its television channels to get everyone excited about the Beeb's coverage of the tournament. And, as usual, it's incredibly well done and leaves me wanting more!

By Ollie Irish

Photo: Peter Robinson / EMPICS

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Heysel disaster, which claimed the lives of 39 supporters. The poor state of the stadium and below-par policing by the Belgians contributed to the disaster, but of course without the fighting between Liverpool and Juve fans, for which a section of the former must take the greater responsibility, it wouldn't have happened.

IT'S FAIR to say that it's not just ITV that has taken some stick for some of their coverage at this World Cup, particularly the coverage of the tournament's lesser lights. The BBC have been getting it in the neck as well. To give you an example, what I'm talking about here is things like Alan Shearer's self-proclaimed "expert analysis" that amounts to a conveyor belt of cliches and the kind of insight that even a child of six would describe as laughable.

Nicholas Otamendi for Javier Zanetti? Maradona needs to get his head examined

Tim Vickery in his Sunday column for the Beeb posits the theory that Diego Maradona was too "emotional" for the team's good. It clouded his judgment.

Instead of starting Juan Sebastian Veron, he went with Carlos Tevez.

Having been directed to this Lee Dixon piece on the beeb website I felt the burning need to share, it really sums up what a lot of us have been suspecting about our defending or lack of it. There may been some rather systemic problems in our setup as a club, I suspect we play a bit too much mini-football that focuses on close control and passing, while defending is ignored.

By Ollie Irish

A very high-quality teaser from the Beeb, as you'd expect. The rainbow theme works a treat.

My World Cup whistle is wet. My vuvuzela too.

It was a transformation more complete than a Doctor Who regeneration. "North" Korea went from "well-organised, but more than that, they can play" just before half-time to "this lot" by the end of the BBC's coverage, by-passing "plucky" completely. In fact, the transformation was quicker than that.

By Ollie Irish

Spain play with their shiny new toy

In terms of viewing figures for Sunday's World Cup final, the BBC handed ITV its arse, with almost five times as many people choosing Gary Lineker over Adrian Chiles.

The BBC claimed its match audience average was 4.

By Ollie Irish

Featuring the cutest mascot you ever did see...

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A young Scunthorpe United mascot on the pitch prior to kick-off

Fergie missed a senior United game for only the third time in his tenure at Old Trafford, because he was in Spain scouting Champions League group rivals Valencia.

Moaning about Match of the Day has become a regular occurrence at In The Stands, but last night added fuel to this fire...

Q: What do Gabby Logan and Roy Hodgson have in common? A: They are both considered lucky to be in a job.

Before watching MOTD2 I got into the Halloween mood by watching the later part of the Exorcist as well as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original, obviously).

By Chris Wright

Those in the know (i.e BBC Sport) are suggesting that West Ham have handed their manager Avram Grant a 'one-game' ultimatum to save his job, meaning that if the Israeli doesn't manage to garner a single victory from his next three games (Blackburn, Fulham and Everton) he will be jettisoned back into the managerial wilderness from whence he came.

The third round of the FA Cup is like Christmas to me. There's always a surprise or two that you never expect. Plus, I usually get up early in anticipation of the matches that are before me. And this year, it was great to see the added touch of snow across England to make the games more festive.

Mini match report: This was one of only two Prem matches to survive the cold weather, and what a fine match it was, with plenty of entertaining, end-to-end play. The only predictable thing about it was that Arsenal would somehow get out of jail with a late equaliser. And so it proved, with Tomas Rosicky firing in off Lucas Neill, their second deflected goal of the game.

A minor plug for occasional Unfortunates commentator Gerschenkron, whose Edible XI was read out a week last Saturday on 5 Live's the Danny Baker Show. I hadn't been this excited about the radio since I was 11 years old when Plymouth Sound awarded me with a week-long residential football course after correctly predicting that Argyle would hold York to a 1-1 draw at Bootham Crescent.

By Ollie Irish

So Tony Mowbray, rubbish or what? (That's the sort of incisive football analysis you get at Pies.) And the answer is... half-hearted drum roll... yes, he is a bit rubbish, and obviously out of his depth at a big club like Celtic.

By Ollie Irish

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Arsenal 1-3 Man Utd. Or, Fergie 1-0 Wenger. United got their tactics spot-on, Arsenal didn't.

This must have made very depressing viewing for all Gunners, especially as it was spookily similar to last year's Champions League semi final at the Emirates, when United crushed their hosts on the counter-attack.

Yesterday's entertaining share of Midlands spoils at the Walkers will have been seen only by an anti-Murdoch few, pitted as it was against the Manchester Ship Canal derby. That's a pity. Leicester and Coventry served up a textbook example of what's good about this league. The Foxes purred in the first period, adroit passing in and around the penalty box handing them a 2-0 lead in no way devalued

Just a quick nod in the direction of the BBC's live coverage of Leicester Vs Coventry this Sunday. With Gabby Logan otherwise engaged with the egg-chasing, Jake Humphrey will host the show. I think that might be it for live games until the final day of the season, although this web page indicates that the Forest Vs Cardiff game will receive attention, for the second time this season, on Easter

This post hasn't got too much to do with the Cocaleague, but two advertising campaigns caught my attention at the weekend, and not in a good way. First, leafing through my copy of The Guardian's Guide magazine on a train to England's Northwest, I was flabbergasted by a two page spread proclaiming the christening of the new England away kit by Kasabian, live in Paris.

By Chris Wright

Adrian Chiles has quit the BBC after a 'dramatic falling-out' over his reduced role on the channel's tea-time tossbag of nonsense 'The One Show'.

Chiles has quit the Beeb after hearing of plans to give DJ Chris Evans the Friday evening episode of the daily magazine show.

By Ollie Irish

Shorts!

According to the Sun, Sir Alex Ferguson has chosen his successor at Man Utd... it's fellow Scot David Moyes. Everton's gaffer is a fine choice, but I wonder how much say Fergie will have in the hiring of his replacement?

By Chris Wright

Along with the dire news that Colin Murray has been installed as the new presenter of Match Of The Day 2, The BBC have also confirmed that Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor will join their World Cup team as a 'guest' pundit along with Gordon Strachan, Jurgen Klinsmann and Clarence Seedorf.

Thus far, The Two Unfortunates has passed on the opportunity to appraise the primary source for most Championship fans' weekly fix, BBC Television's The Football League Show; its first airing back in August being met with some engaging reviews elsewhere. We may well cast the microscope on the antics of Lizzie, Clem, Manish and company once a full campaign is completed, but for now, I'd like to

From my experience, football fans tend to enjoy hypothetical conversations. Whether it's conjecturing which lower league strikers would look good a level up, compiling themed-XIs, or arguing the toss over club versus country scenarios (for the record, The Two Unfortunates advocates the "I'd rather see my team win a corner kick in the 90th minute when they're 3-0 down than England win the World

4th July 1990: I'd like to say I remember it like yesterday, but it's coming up to 20 years ago now which is genuinely scary. After a dreadful group stage, England beat Belgium with David Platt's goal with the last kick of the game in the second round and generously allowed Cameroon to take the lead in the quarter final with under half an hour left before finishing them off in injury time.

By Ollie Irish

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Exeter City's Richard Duffy and Huddersfield Town's Theo Robinson battle for the ball

High drama at St James Park (the other one), as Exeter City came from behind to seal their survival in League One.

By Ollie Irish

Probably the best thing the BBC has ever done. Scratch that definitely the best thing the Beeb has ever done.

And it almost makes me pine for Ray Stubbs. Almost.

By Ollie Irish

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Valley Parade fire disaster, which claimed the lives of 56 fans. When one thinks of tragedies in English football history, the likes of Munich, Heysel and Hillsborough rightly spring to mind. What happened at Bradford on 11 May 1985 should never be forgotten either.

Back in March, Terry brought you a popular and much needed retrospective on those top UK TV football theme tunes that filled the air of our halcyon days. As he explained at the time, however, his list was devoid of classic World Cup theme tunes - namely because we were saving them specifically for our World Cup Pull-Out.

Back in March, Terry brought you a popular and much needed retrospective on those top UK TV football theme tunes that filled the air of our halcyon days. As he explained at the time, however, his list was devoid of classic World Cup theme tunes - namely because we were saving them specifically for our World Cup Pull-Out.

Sloppy, unprofessional, boring, unimaginative. And that was just Guy Mowbray and Mark Lawrenson in the BBC commentary box. Whilst not personally agreeing with the decision, I could see reasons for Guy Mowbray getting the Beeb's number one commentary spot ahead of Jonathan Pearce. Pandering to Mark Lawrenson's base instincts was not among those reasons.

By Ollie Irish

Henry Kissinger, a brainy man but a man nonetheless (see above), gives his thoughts on the history of the World Cup to the NY Times:

"Brazil has played the most beautiful football, while Italy has specialised in breaking the hearts of its opponents, and for Germany everyone attacks in a way suggestive of Erich von Falkenhayn's huge flanking movements in World War I and everyone defends.

Brilliant insights from the Beeb's Jonathan Stevenson >>

Why he links to a trashy betting article is anyone's guess, but the rest of the article is a good read. Maradona has his players behind him - that is clear. Perhaps all that team building is paying off.

Humberto, are u ready to eat your words?

Japan v Denmark has to wait until the boys on the Beeb can get Italy's exit out of their system. But this is probably fair enough. Earlier group results have switched the focus from Netherlands v Cameroon, which means we've got Martin Keown summarising. The BBC had Manish Bhasin on the stadium gantry in Cape Town.

14+ minutes: Patience advised. Slow loading but good quality. The Beeb's commentary.

For all that touted experience, England really played like naive schoolboys, especially on those two counterattacks. That maybe too charitable a description.

The Germans played brilliantly as a team but there if one had to choose, the combination of Mesut Oezil- Thomas Mueller- Bastian Schweinsteiger- Miroslav Klose proved lethal.

10+ minutes highlights. Patience advised. Slow loading but good quality. The Beeb's commentary.

This match could have been a 1-1 stalemate heading for a penalty shootout if it had not been for another ghastly refereeing error and an equally ghastly giveaway by Ricardo Osorio.

Messi sends Tevez racing through and Oscar Perez gets to his pass but does not collect cleanly and gives the ball back to Messi.

I'm not sure what channel I'm watching but it's not one of ours. The pundits sound refreshing. There's a Scotsman who looks a bit like Hansen but uses verbs and sounds interested. In fact, it's as if it is Hansen but he's next to proper pundits, so he has to raise his game so as not to sound lazy and under-informed.

Sir Alex Ferguson is known for many things, among them winning and mind games. One thing he hasn't made his name for is keeping quiet. Whether he is decrying the tactics of "typical Germans" or just playing with Wenger's head again, he is rarely short of talk. But there is one fairly large media outlet to which he has gone stone cold silent, and that's the BBC.

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ALEX Ferguson still refuses to have anything to do with the BBC. This season it was expected that Man Utd's manager would finally end his self-imposed boycott of the corporation, which he once accused of "breathtaking arrogance". The stand-off resulted when, in 2004, BBC show 'Panorama' aired an investigation into Fergie's son Darren, currently the manager of Preston North End, but working as a football agent at the time.

By Chris Wright

BBC Sport are reporting this morning that John Toshack is currently clearing his desk and getting ready to quit as the manager of Wales, after taking the team as far as he feels is humanly possible.

Toshack is not thought to be under any pressure to resign by the Welsh FA, but has held talks with his superiors after his side lost out to Macedonia in their Euro 2012 qualifier on Friday night.