Every league in the world has its derby matches, those entrenched local, political or social rivalries which give added fervour to the average game. Some of these derbies, however, spill over into frequent violence, hatred and all-out warfare between the fans of the respective clubs.

In this article I list ten of the most vociferous and aggressive derbies in world football and look into the violence which has made them so notorious the world over.

Being a football fan isn't all champagne and skittles you know. Whilst some may see the glory, the celebrations, the bunking in, and the excitement as the perfect life, there are some drawbacks. The damage the game puts on your mental health is immeasurable I have lost count of the occasions I have pronounced [.

Cast your mind back to Saturday August 15th 1998. Manchester United were kicking off their season with a home game against Leicester City and one David Beckham was making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. His infamous moment of petulance at the 1998 World Cup saw him transformed from hero to zero in the [.

The summer transfer market just went off with a couple of high powered Exocet missiles from central Spain, leaving some of us thinking that nothing will ever be the same again. A seemingly obscene (vulgar even!) amount of money may be about to change hands with many of Europe's top clubs in the market for a striker (amongst others).

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Soccerlens takes time out to reflect on the most glorious and visceral expression of footballing joy the goal celebration. We look at some of the most famous goal celebrations of all time. Have a look, then join in the discussion.

The Most Memorable

Marco Tardelli – Italy v West Germany, World Cup Final, 1982

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Integrity, sportsmanship and pride. If there are three words that make up the foundation of the sporting world, these three would most certainly be at the top of the list. All sports are built on a drive to improve, the chance to compete against your peers, and the opportunity to build strong bonds with others.

You might not know it as you zip up your coat to brave the rain and the wind, but summer is here in England. And that means one thing. Cricket. The Ashes are in full (reverse) swing at the moment, and the feelgood factor is pretty high following England's triumph at Lords.

I have to admit it, I like cricket, I enjoy playing it and watching it.

Footballers and Cars - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

"No other man-made device since the shields and lances of the ancient knights fulfills a man's ego like an automobile." Sir William

Who is (was) Sir William you may ask....to which I have no answer, but we must agree that he was right on the money with that one!

In the wake of Ireland's heartbreaking aggregate defeat to France, where Thierry Henry's handballed assist for William Gallas to score an equaliser in extra time denied a team who had performed magnificently to haul themselves level, we pay tribute to five of the greatest footballing heartbreakers in recent memory.

So that's it. The curtain has fallen on another season in English football and what a season it has been too! We've seen Manchester United look as though they would win every conceivable trophy and yet their season ends with ultimate disappointment. Liverpool's recent form was the stuff of champions but in a campaign that looked to be promising so much, they ended up winning nothing.

In this series I will be looking at some of the greatest Brazilian players to have graced the game of football over the last sixty years, using the 1950s, the decade in which Brazil marched to their first World Cup triumph, as a starting point.

In part one, I take a look at the finest footballers to have pulled on the yellow and green jersey of the Selecao during the 1950s and 60s.

How does one go about measuring greatness in football? I mean real, obvious, blatant greatness; that rarest of qualities. Today "greatness" is such a woolly, over-used term that sometimes we lose its meaning and start labeling all sorts of mundane, workaday things as "great". The evolution of language has distilled its meaning, reduced its potency, but we still know greatness when we see it.

Welcome to what I hope you will experience as a four or five night midwinter-lull footie video festival, to warm your hearts and hearthsides as we trek together round the globe in search of the 2008 perfect goal... This feature purports to represent many of the best goals of 2008 by way of video evidence.

Where I come from, there tends to be two kinds of boys. Car boys and football boys. You can like both of course, but essentially you know at some point you are going to have to choose. Are you a Top Gear guy or a Match of the Day man? It may be a sociological problem at some level, but the fact remains that despite sharing the tag of being "sports", football and motor racing are poles apart.

Although football today is a multi-billion dollar globalised industry which has spread its commercial influence to all corners of the planet, sometimes it pays to look back into the game's annals and revisit the humble origins of what has now become the most popular sport in the world.

In this article I look at the ten oldest football clubs still in existence today and try and put the magnitude of their impact upon the game into some sort of historical perspective.

There are winners and there are losers in football and it's time to weed out those who suffered in 2009. But losing is not a simple concept. Some are major contributors to their own downfall and deserve the brick bats that come their way, while others are victims of circumstances and probably deserve better.

With Christmas season in full swing and a completely, utterly depressing past few weeks of sports news for me, (Roy Halladay being traded to the Phillies, Liverpool football club as a whole, rumours of Steven Gerrard being sold) I thought it would be nice to take a step back for a second and insert some temporary amusement into my life.

Cast your mind back to Saturday August 15th 1998. Manchester United were kicking off their season with a home game against Leicester City and one David Beckham was making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. His infamous moment of petulance at the 1998 World Cup saw him transformed from hero to zero in the [.

Brazilian football, unlike any other cultural interpretation of a particular sport, has the ability to conjure up in one's mind an essence of mystery, of carnival, of rhythm, of unadulterated joy and freedom.

Futebol is so deeply, so passionately interwoven into the fabric of Brazilian culture that the two entities are inextricably linked, they define each other and share an intrinsic identity, an instantly recognisable global image.

At first glance man's best friend has little relevance to football. I mean let's face it, if you're sitting on the psychiatrists couch and he/she is doing that word association thing and comes up with the word dog are you likely to answer football (or vice versa)?

I didn't .. err.. I mean.

As a young star-struck kid, like most of my peers, my unswerving ambition was to meet some of my heroes (all footballers needless to say), get an autograph... a photograph even, and become the envy of my football crazy mates.

It never actually happened though! My being in Dublin and my heroes hanging-out in Manchester didn't help and, in truth, I never actually had a cohesive strategy.

We live in a world obsessed with superlatives, constantly being sold by marketing ploys promoting their individual items. Football is sadly no different, how often are we told that Cristiano Ronaldo is the World's best player, only to be told the same thing about Lionel Messi the very next day.

In this article we look at the world's ten largest football stadiums, some perhaps better known than others, and assess their legacies and impact both on the game and in their individual countries.

We also look ahead and ask what the future may hold for this selection of magnificent sporting venues.

The two latest Soccerlens podcasts [1, 2] have seen Clarkey & Spraggy trying to tickle your funny bone with their suggestions for the film remakes they'd like to see football folk in.

It's been a hit-and-miss feature so far, so we're asking you to put the dynamic duo out of their misery and come up with some genuinely funny offerings.

Once again it's that time of year when we like to kick-back and ask "where did that one go?", break out the Christmas spirit, and reflect on the football year that was. What were our highs and lows? Who stole the headlines and, more importantly, who won the prizes and is most deserving of our applause, however begrudging an exercise that may prove to be at times.