Liverpool FC's inability to win the title since 1990 has been blamed on a various people over the years, including David Moores; Rick Parry; Graeme Souness; Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier and, most recently, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. The real blame, however, for the club's abject failure to bring home the trophy Bill Shankly famously called ‘our bread and butter' lies solely at the feet of one man: former President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist, Nelson Mandela.

The current controversy over the vuvuzela at the Confederations Cup in South Africa is hardly the first debate about "artificial" noisemakers used by football fans. In different forms, their use has been common across the world for over a century. So is the vuvuzela an organic instrument of South African football culture we should respect, or a commercialised nuisance that should be banned?

It is fair to say that US football is not seen in a very positive light on the British side of the pond. There are years of prejudice to overcome, but the national team's impressive display at the Confederations Cup are helping to change the attitudes of British football fans who cannot help but notice the increasing number of American imports into their leagues.

More news seems to be filtering through over the continued rumours that Setanta Sports are in financial difficulty here in the UK and are desperately trying to find some finance to help them through after they only won one of the six Premier League Packages for the next deal that starts in 2010.

Now I don't mean to rip off the idea Dexy, but this whole best XI business somehow got my mind racing. It got me thinking about those past and present who have been our eyes, ears and experts on the game, and just what we think about them. Who do we appreciate (see below) and who are best forgotten (see David Pleat, Mark Lawrenson, John Barnes, etc.

It's been a while since I've had a general rant about football tactics in these pages, so herewith a lengthy and mildly topical ramble.
Brian Glanville, that dean of British football writing, recently commented at length on the pros and cons of zonal marking/defending. It's a topic worth considering, especially given that the zonal v.

With takeovers and titles galore, the 00s have seen Manchester United cement their position as the leading club in British football.
Not the only odd omission...

FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round. Sheffield FC 1-3 FC United of Manchester. Coach and Horses Ground, Dronfield, Derbyshire. September 14th, 2009. Their dreams of Wembley glory ended last month after a 3-0 loss to Northwich Victoria.

Photo credit: Matthew Wilkinson on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

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Whilst reading the latest football gossip recently, a story about Bayern Munich tracking Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc in a £7m summer swoop caught my eye. Now, why Bayern want to sign a man who must currently be considered the dodgiest keeper in British football is a whole article in itself - but I'll leave that for another day.

Legendary British Football Presenter Jon Champion joins host Kartik Krishnaiyer on the EPL Talk Podcast. Champion currently works for Setanta Sports, ITV and TWI International.

Hear Champion's thoughts on this Saturday's FA Cup Final, his coverage of the Premier League and his five previous World Cups.

Winter's coming, so here's a reminder of British football as it's meant to be (except this was a spring game!): Norton United FC v FC United of Manchester at Vale Park, April 9, 2006.

Photo credit: Matthew Wilkinson on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Stan Kroenke has purchased even more shares in Arsenal today taking his holding to 29.9% of the club. With only another 0.09% required to reach the threshold to make an offer for the rest of the clubs shares, Kroenke has purchased 627 shares this week for the princely sum of £5.3 million.

The FC United of Manchester radio crew.

Photo credit: FCUM photography on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Related posts:

1. Photo Daily: FC United of Manchester's FA Cup Dream FCUM fans on the long road to Wembley, back in September.

There has been no more emotive event in British football history than the Hillsborough Disaster of April 15 1989. It was the spring afternoon when a simple game of football became a massed human tragedy. Having failed to learn the lessons of Burnden Park in 1946, Ibrox in 1971, the Bradford Fire of 1985 and, in the same year, the Heysel riot, it was the watershed moment that football had to change or face extinction.

"Feck."
Joey Barton is the King of Premier League Dickfaces. He's had a million second chances, but still he makes an indecently decent living out of playing football.
Barton was sent off for a reckless tackle on Xabi Alonso during Liverpool's 3-0 defeat of Newcastle on Sunday.

Their progress may have gone unnoticed amongst the flashy corporate driven Premier League but their achievements over the past few years perhaps should be recognised as they sit alongside those of Manchester United when put into context.
Nine years ago this month Wimbledon lost to Southampton at the Dell, a result which saw them relegated from the Premier League after 13 years.

World football's governing body FIFA has now given the green light for Great Britain to put out an all English line up for their football team in the London 2012 Olympic games. The decision to allow the host nation for the games to include a British football team in world sport's centrepiece had previously courted a great deal of controversy amongst the home nations, as the governing bodies of Nothern Ireland, Scotland and Wales had all voiced understandable concerns that the move would compromise their independent status for other international football competitions - a sentiment seemingly put forward by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

The biggest story of the Sixth Round was Tampere United's decision to play their home tie against Jaro at Tammela Stadium, a ground considered by many to be Finland's best. The significance of this is not obvious to those who have not been closely following Tampere football in recent years, so I will recap briefly.

In their 1983 book "The Encyclopaedia Of British Football", writers Phil Soar and Martin Tyler use a photograph of a match between Norwich City and Southampton as an example of the changing face of football. They compare the rise of smaller club from affluent cities in the south of England with the decline of traditional clubs from their Northern equivalents.

Yes They Can Can...If the Gaffer Reads the Writing on the Wall!!!

Well, having had his head handed to him twice last season, Sir Alex Ferguson still seems bound and determined to ignore the handwriting on the wall. The sheer depth of talent in his his squad, however, will always allow the Gaffer to peek into the abyss, throw out some appropriate barbs meant to psych out the immediate opposition and still find a way to pull a nineteenth trophy.

Sir, I read your magazine with interest each month and so was particularly excited to see my own city, Liverpool, featured in your mini-guides this month.

Alas you saw fit to label stoop to gaining lazy, easy laughs at the expense of Goodison Park, home of Everton FC. I presume this stems from a lack of editorial judgement on your part and a mischevious streak on the part of your correspondant Richard Vaughan.

British football magazine FourFourTwo, just published (in the November issue) the list of the "100 Best Players in the World." The choices are based on the input of the magazine's journalists. Of course it will lead to all kinds of debate as "lists" are always subjective and don't mean anything beyond getting fans talking.

Our Manchester theme of the week continues, and United fans welcome City to their stadium with a not-so-subtle dig.

Photo credit: theandrewstewartshowiii on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Related posts:

1. Photo Daily: Retford United vs.

div align="justify"span style="font-family:verdana;"According to the adage that time is a great healer, the gaping wounds which opened up on Merseyside and beyond on April 15, 1989 should have long since mended.br /br /But in 11 days' time the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough will arrive and hearts will weigh just as heavy as they did in the hours, days, weeks and months which followed British football's biggest ever disaster.

Manchester City's former fanasy footie stud forward Robinho won't face charges following allegations against him of a serious sexual assault.
West Yorkshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service completed an in-depth report and cleared the most expensive British football transfer in history of any wrongdoing.

Summer is coming, the evening is getting longer and some football chairmen are giving every impression of having too much time on their hands already. This week's insane plan comes from a repeat offender - the Bolton Wanderers chairman Phil Gartside. Gartside, you may remember, was shot down in flames last year over his brilliant idea to introduce a second division to the Premier League with - you guessed it none of that irritating promotion and relegation business, to save him from having to deal with the hoi polloi.

Yes, the first half of Bayern's match against Barcelona at the Camp Nou was embarrassing for the Bavarians. Sure it could have been worse had Barca not taken their foot off the gas in the second half of that game. And no, we can't know what the outcome would have been back at the Allianz without the the K2 like obstacle.

It's a British football special this week, with the Old Firm derby, the Manchester derby, and a more important than it looks London derby between Arsenal and Chelsea. Read on for predictions, and also the best work of Drogbacite's career... Rangers vs Celtic, May 9th, 12:30pm You know the deal here.

Their progress may have gone unnoticed amongst the flashy corporate driven Premier League but their achievements over the past few years perhaps should be recognised as they sit alongside those of Manchester United when put into context.
Nine years ago this month Wimbledon lost to Southampton at the Dell, a result which saw them relegated from the Premier League after 13 years.

There haven't been too many Italians that have made that considerably bold step leap of moving from the proverbial comfort zone of Serie A to the Premier League. Although if young Federico Macheda needs any advice on how he may be able to forge a long and fruitful career at Old Trafford then he may be best served having a quick glance at my run down of five of the best (and worst) Italians to have plied their trade in England's top flight.

If you open this morning's newspapers, you'll see that, in the opinion of the hacks, it's already a foregone conclusion that this year's European Cup final will be the greatest football match of all time. This may or may not come to pass, but it has some stiff opposition to overcome if it is to join as much as the greatest European Cup finals of all time.

A witty Villa fan's attempt to deface a poster of the club's ex-skipper. Fail And so Gareth Barry joins the sorry ranks of British football traitors, along with all the other Judas Iscariots who had the nerve to leave...

Might as well get this up before the internet breaks completely - thanks to Gary Andrews for reminding me, via Twitter, of Jacko's most tenuous of links to British football. RIP Wacko; long live the Grecians....

Gordon Smith is a man who, judging by his ever present tan, enjoys summer. For years now he has preached the joys of summer football with an evangelical zeal the equal of anything Billy Graham ever managed.Perhaps he is scarred by memories of turning out on the mudbath pitches that British football used to do so well.

Liverpool have announced that they are close to finalising a deal to bring experienced defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos to Anfield. Speaking to LFC.TV Rafa said: "We have nearly done the deal subject to a medical. He is a player with experience who can hopefully help us in defence. "He has experience in British football and Rangers.

Good cover option signing confirmed by club.

Liverpool today agreed a deal with AEK Athens for centre-back Sotirios Kyrgiakos , subject to a medical.
The 30-year-old Greek international will arrive at Melwood for a medical examination before the weekend.

It's been one of those weeks when business meetings got in my way of watching the mid-week Champions League playoff games, so I finally had a chance to sit down Wednesday evening to speed through five or more games that were waiting for me on my DVR player.

Fox's production aside (I thought they did a spectacular job for the first dip of their toe in the water; small improvements are still needed before the next round), the games for me seemed to have a magical quality about them.

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez insists Sotirios Kyrgiakos will not fall foul of Premier League referees despite his reputation as a footballing hardman.
Greece international Kyrgiakos has signed for £2million from AEK Athens, and the 6ft 5in centre-back will be embarking on his second spell in British football.

The only surprising thing about the violence at Upton Park in the Carling Cup tie between West Ham and Millwall was that anybody was surprised by it.

From the moment the draw was made, all the signs of trouble were there. Two clubs with supporters from the lower-end who genuinely hate each other.