"Totally outlcassed"; "you just can't argue with that they're just too good!"; "we're the best of the rest, at least...". But a selection of the comments I have heard from Manchester United fans in the wake of their club's second capitulation to Barcelona's incomparable passing football in three years.

By Chris Wright

Gareth Bale has posed in the new kit that the British football team will be sporting at the Olympics next year as part of an Adidas promo campaign and it's safe to say that the Welsh FA are particularly happy about it.

Their chief exec, Jonathan Ford, told the BBC:

"Gareth can make his own choices and make his own decisions.

Wigan are hardly the most popular of Premier League teams.

Pantomime villains as they survived relegation at the expense of little old Blackpool (or "the people's champions" as Match of the Day's Steve Wilson sickeningly described them), the Latics were seen as the party poopers on Survival Sunday.

It seems to me there are three distinct types of football writing.
First, we have the straight-up, journalistic, newspaper style match-report. There are some intriguing variations on this approach, like Michael Cox's Zonal Marking with its intense tactical hermeneutics, or the florid style you might sometimes find in a strange place like the Mirror, incorporating all sorts of colourful, often mixed metaphors that end up featured in the opening pages of When Saturday Comes.

Rumbling along quietly along in the background, the ongoing argument over whether a Great Britain team should take part in the 2012 London Olympics has been one of the slow-burning debates within British football over the last half-decade or so, but this debate ignited this afternoon after a series of statements, made in turn by the British Olympic Association, the Football Association, the Scottish Football Association and the Football Association of Wales, which already seems likely to turn into a full-blown argument.

An early morning scramble for tickets for London's 2012 Olympic jamboree this morning.
Not that I'll actually be going to London. I was one of the many unlucky customers who missed out in the first round of ticketing.
Today I had to make do with a couple of football tickets. When the eyes of the world are on London I will be in Glasgow and Newcastle, my fix of faster, higher, stronger coming at Hampden and St James' Park.

Liverpool and Tottenham are both reportedly keeping tabs on Celtic's highly-rated youngster James Forrest.
The 19-year-old winger was given his chance in the first-team towards the end of the 2009/10 season when Neil Lennon was in charge on a temporary basis. He became an important member of the team last season under Lennon's guidance and is entering his second full-season as a first-team regular.

Liverpool 1 Man United 3, January 30, 1960

You've got to love the Scousers. When Liverpool were drawn at home to Manchester United in the 4th round of the FA Cup in January 1960 it was immediately declared an all-ticket match, naturally enough as United had already attracted the two largest league attendances of the season, despite being in the bottom half of the table.

LIVERPOOL, England —Chelsea has agreed a fee with Liverpool to sign Fernando Torres in what could be British football's most expensive transfer. A Liverpool statement says the Spain striker "has now been given permission to speak to the London club." British media say Chelsea will pay about 50 million pounds ($79.

On the 5th of February we witnessed Cheik Tiote smash home the eighth goal in a wondrous Premier League affair in the North East. In the same afternoon another 35 goals were registered in record-breaking style as the most entertaining and exciting weekend in English Football dazzled the country.

Gary Speed manages a Wales side that take on England at the weekend, hoping to upset their British rivals and get a morale boosting win. Speed is new to international management, but he is far from new to British football. The Welsh midfielder has played 535 games at top flight level, and has played more games in the EPL than any other outfield player.

Quiet, isn't it? In years ending in an odd number, the Euro-centric football enthusiast's calendar suddenly opens out before them like the savannah plains. The 2011 Women's World and the European Under-21 Championships sit before us like twin oases and the press will continue to feed the constant thirst with a drip of transfer stories, many of which will come to nothing and many more of which will not become truth until the last possible moment before a ball is kicked in anger again.

The next in our series on the lost homes of British football comes from Reading, where Reading FC left Elm Park for The Madejski Stadium in 1998. Our thanks go to Rob Langham from the excellent The Two Unfortunates, for this story of the history and memories from Elm Park. We are still very much looking out for submissions on this subject, by the way.

For adults of a certain age, it is a memory that may have become submerged under the weight of what we have seen since. In the late 1970s, though, British television viewers would get an occasional view of football from a parallel universe in the form of the North American Soccer League. Football in America was different, that much we know for certain.

There were, without doubt, few genuine positives to arise from the miserable ashes of England's U21 European Championship failure in Denmark. Former Nottingham Forest hero, Stuart Pearce, is taking a great deal of criticism and apparently is suddenly the absolute embodiment of all that is wrong with modern British football.

You might be sick with all the gushing about last night's victory, but I'm sure not! So you'll have to bear with a little bit while I continue to gush over last night's game.

And you know what, contrary to what Landon Donovan wants us to think, I'm not this excited because we beat the LA Galaxy, I'm this excited because, for the first time in many many games, the Timbers played confidently, technically and, get this, they held it together after the 70th minute.

'Sir Alex Ferguson's success with Manchester United due to money, not mind games' former Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez

The Spaniard has hit out at his old foe's psychological approach, claiming the most successful manager in British football couldn't have done it without enjoying the club's wealth

View the full story here: Goal

A news article on 2011-10-13 18:33:00 from: Goal

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Dominic Matteo admits blowing £1m on horses

Former Leeds and Liverpool player Dominic Matteo has admitted to blowing £1million when he was gripped by the gambling 'epidemic' still rife in British football.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-10-27 09:38:18 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of what could, with justification, be described as British football's forgotten tragedy. Whereas the disasters of Heysel and Hillsborough took place in front of the nation, live on the television, and the Valey Parade fire of 1985 took places in front of photgraphers and television cameras which ensured iconic images that became instantly part of our mental imagery of the decay of the game during the mid-1980s, the Ibrox Disaster remains obscure in the memory, but it claimed the lives of sixty-six people and had ramifications that would go on to effect the way that everybody in Britain now watches the game.

In the first of an occasional new series on football grounds that never quite came to be, Ian King takes a look at an ambitious post-war scheme to move Derby County into a then-state of the art stadium that came to nothing.

In 1997, Derby County left The Baseball Ground, their home of 102 years, for Pride Park.

Update: Between writing and posting this the English FA seem to have announced that a 2013 home international tournament would be a one off to celebrate their 150th anniversary. Ah, well. Still think I'm right.
And so the home internationals might be on the verge of a return thanks to the money of Vauxhall.

One of the most important developments within British football over the last ten years or so has been the growth of the understanding that football supporters can be empowered to control their own destinies. The notion that football clubs could only be run as the personal fiefdoms of the self-appointed "great and the good" has become more and more discredited as the first decade of the new century wore on and, and the relative success and stability of clubs that are run by supporters trusts has been obvious to anybody that takes the time to stop and examine them.

The English are known for their eccentricities. Stamp collecting is so passe for them. So is collecting football programmes. The English have this breed of people called anoraks who are absolute nutters. I remember on time going on a football special to Leicester (normal behaviour, nothing extreme there) and there was this nutter who was tape recording the sound of the train doors closing!

Heurelho Gomes has shown that he has adjusted well to British football by announcing that Spurs must ‘take each game as it comes.'

We are heading towards some crunch fixtures which will be pivotal in our desire for success this season. There are some vital games ahead in the league, while our FA Cup 4th round tie and the AC Milan clash begin to loom large.

My late father wasn't a big fan of Andy Gray. Being a rugby union fan from South Wales, dad had issues with Scottish sports commentators anyway but Gray got his back up so much that over the years he developed a special 'impression' of the FoxSky Sports analyst that more often than not sounded like one of the characters from Rab C.

Photo by Yellow Book

The recent death the England legend known as The Lion Of Vienna recently took me on a hunt of archival footage and interviews of Nat Lofthouse. In doing so, I uncovered an incredible collection of audio interviews with football legends which is a required listening for any soccer fan and reader of this site.

The African Nations Championship (or CHAN) is unique amongst international football tournaments in that nations are restricted to selecting only domestic players in their squads. The 2011 edition of this tournament begins this week in Sudan with the hosts taking on Gabon in Khartoum.

As the competition only allows the selection of domestically based players the standards of each respective international side is a little different to "full internationals".

ESPN have warned commentater Craig Burley after his comments of Rangers loanee striker El Hadji Diouf.

Former Celtic midfielder told how the sooner Diouf left British Football the better. Diouf faces a baptism of fire on Sunday in the Old Firm Derby after Spitting at a Celtic Fan 2003.

Fernando Torres' much-anticipated Chelsea debut ended in disappointment for player and club as Raul Meireles sealed a memorable win for the Spaniard's former Liverpool team-mates.
Meireles hooked home from close range after 68 minutes to take the game - and potentially any lingering title aspirations - from the big-spending Blues.

If the Premier League is now, for many, something approaching the ultimate footballing experience, there is probably something to be said for the argument that, in its quest for purity, quality, our game has lost something. The idiosyncracies of football at or near the top have been whitewashed out of sight over time, to be replaced by a scrubbed up and sanitised version of what we might call The British Football Experience.

Rafael has been able to step up to the challenges that have come his way so far during his United career, but even though he has proved that he can deliver at the very top level, it will take time for fans to start to embrace him in the same way that they acted towards club legend Gary Neville.

If Rafael can start to show that he can be a longstanding part of a defence that could go on to establish United as the single most successful club in British football, whilst also starting to generate an intense hatred on the behalf of Liverpool fans (something Neville managed throughout his successful career to the delight of United supporters), he may just have the talent to one day rank alongside the now retired Neville as a United great.

Wales' European Championship clash with England on Saturday has a frisson to it which most international matches between a major footballing nation and one which has failed to qualify for a finals tournament for over half a century fail to generate. This is of course owing to a fierce local rivalry engendered by centuries of cultural and historical struggle between the two countries which helps to foster a healthy sporting rivalry.

The forthcoming Olympic Games and whether a united "British" team should be allowed to play in the competition has reopened one off British football's oldest debates. Jason LeBlanc takes a look at the history of this fractious state of affairs.

The subject of a unified British team partaking in next summer's London Olympics has been broached on this site before, but with the Euro 2012 qualifier between Wales and England featuring some players that would compete together if their associations—along with those of Scotland and Northern Ireland—agreed to the matter, it feels prescient to gloss over the matter again.

A trip to Cologne's RheinEnergieStadion told me all I need to know about British football's crouch-and-move seating strategy.
Sheepskin-wearing seating bores get my goat.

RoM were able to give away two tickets to the CL semi-final against Schalke thanks to Sony Ericsson.

They are now offering fans the opportunity to win two tickets to the final.

To enter you need to visit the Sony Ericsson Football FANatic Facebook page and explain why you are the biggest fan and why you should be chosen to receive the tickets.

"Not in the wider interests of football". We mentioned this astonishing statement, made on the subject of a new club starting in SW19 at the time that Wimbledon FC was being franchised to Milton Keynes, during our report of the first leg of this evening's Blue Square Premier Play-Off between AFC Wimbledon and Fleetwood Town, but it is a statement that cannot and should not be repeated enough when mentioning tonight's home team.

The attacking football, the flair game, that Hibs fans are said to hold so dear is oft maligned and often frustrates those managers tasked with satisfying the demands of supporters.
That footballing ideal, which perhaps exists more in theory than in practicality, owes itself to two gilded periods.

Bale! Walcott! Rooney! Owen! It's British football's Top 10 teenage sensations

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain reckons he has what it takes to be a teenage sensation. But where would he rate against our Top 10 tearaways? Gareth Bale (Tottenham)Moved from Southampton to Spurs aged 17 and 313 days in May 2007, after turning down Manchester United and Arsenal.

• Kop That: Dalglish will offload Aquilani and Cole to fund bid for Enrique http://bit.ly/nWvdge 23:35:10, 2011-07-19
• Kop That: Liverpool lining up their own Chicharito http://bit.ly/qbjqQ8 23:35:05, 2011-07-19
• Kop That: Bale! Walcott! Rooney! Owen! It's British football's Top 10 teenage sensations http://bit.

It's sometimes easy to laugh at Yanks. I remember watching a pulsating FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge in 1995 when Manchester United roared into a miraculous 5-0 lead against Chelsea only to concede three goals in the last twenty minutes, leaving them desperate to hang on for the 5-3 win. As the huge crowd drew breath at the end a lone American voice was heard saying, 'Wow, that was some game!