54 years ago in Munich, 8 of Manchester United's brightest stars were killed when the aircraft that was bringing them back home crashed. Along with them, 3 of the backroom staff, 8 journalists and 2 other passengers also perished bringing the total casualty count to 21. Nothing could have prepared the city of Manchester and indeed the whole footballing world for a tragedy of that scale.

The tragedy that occurred in Port Said on Wednesday evening has overshadowed all else in world football this week, and this is a subject that we will be returning to when the dust has settled on a disaster so appalling as to be almost incomprehensible. Reports from Egypt have been pouring across the world via social media, and we would urge anyone reading this to bear in mind when reading reports on this subject elsewhere in the media that the events of this week are representative of broader political issues in Egypt than mere football rivalries.

We should win.

Aston Villa
League Position: 10th, 16P, 4W, 7D, 5L, 18GF, 21GA, -3GD, 19pts
Home Form: 8W, 3W, 2D, 3L, 10GF, 9GA, +1GD
Last Meeting: Arsenal 1-2 Aston Villa (May, 2011)

Tomorrow we travel to Villa Park, the site of an Aston Villa team that has been mediocre in every sense of the word this season.

An historic night in tweets

Football rivalries were put to one side for three and a half emotional hours in the House of Commons last night for the first parliamentary debate over the Hillsborough disaster.

View the full story here: Liverpool FC

A news article on 2011-10-18 10:18:00 from: Liverpool FC

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

Maddy's Note: Baby step number 2 towards making this a regular feature on BigFourZa. Spot Kick is back taking a look back at the weekend's events. What the heck is it with NLDs and long range screamers? Danny Rose, Tom Huddlestone and now Kyle Walker. Being a gooner is hard work.

Dear Footballing Gods,

I'm not asking for a £40m marquee signing

I'm not asking for a £200k a week player

I'm not asking for a hard man in the middle of the park

I'm not asking for another behemoth at center half

I'm not asking for this manager to be sacked and a new one brought in, in his place

I'm not asking for Silent Stan to give daily interviews

I'm not asking for a fully fit ever uninjured squad

I'm not asking for a celebrity girlfriend

I'm not even asking for the Daily Fail to be shut down

All I'm asking for is that we don't lose to the bloody Spuds.

Maddy's Note: Ladies and Gents, presenting the latest in BigFourZa's long line of guest authors; Vivek. United fan primarily, but he supports his local team Real Zaragoza as well (at least he plans to when he gets there next month). You can read more of his work over at his blog; Afterthoughts where this post first appeared.

Maddy's Note: After a hiatus almost as long as Arsenal's trophy drought, the man with a million quotes is back. BFZ proudly re-presents long term contributor Vishwa

I would have opened this post with an extremely comical quote that featured a comparison between Benjani and Torres but the weekend's developments in the premier league put paid to that.

"Would you believe it? Would you believe it? WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?"

- Andy Gray or Navjot Sidhu, whoever does it for you.

No this isn't because the scouse get to be represented again. Nor does it have anything to with Joey Barton thrashing Gareth Barry with his verbal Basebats.

"Would you believe it? Would you believe it? WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?"

- Andy Gray or Navjot Sidhu, whoever does it for you.

No this isn't because the scouse get to be represented again. Nor does it have anything to with Joey Barton thrashing Gareth Barry with his verbal Basebats.

Before I start I want to make it clear that there are no words I can use in order to describe how it felt to finally beat Barcelona. When my father called me after the final whistle, I was still inside the Emirates, crying like a baby. And when he asked me why I was crying, I realised that only an Arsenal fan knows what that moment represented.