Saturday's demoralizing one-nil home loss to France in the first leg of their World Cup play-off sees the Republic of Ireland facing an uphill task to reach next summer's showpiece. As French fans start booking their flights to South Africa, the Irish faithful are left praying for a miracle.

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More than a decade before "The Full Monty", the decline of the city of Sheffield and the effect of the collapse of the city's steel industry was already well documented. This week's Video Of The Week goes back to 1984. "Steel City Blues" traces the decline of the city and ties it together with Sheffield Wednesday's attempts to get back into the First Division for the first time since 1970.

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Big Jack: The Waterboy

As age catches up with us, cynicism is a number of unwanted traits we acquire. Suddenly, scanning through the history of our lives, we focus on memories of our younger years. We scoff sneerly at pastimes, hobbies, favoured television programmes, fashion sense and cringe at times when we embarrassed ourselves through the folly of our youth.

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The Republic of Ireland are a few wins away from qualifying for their first tournament since the days of Jack Charlton.

They'll be hoping the luck of the Irish is well with them when the draw for the World Cup play offs is made.

We've put together our best ROI 11, we actually forgot how much talent the boys in green have had over the years.

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On this edition of the EPL Talk podcast, we get insights from Reuters Sports Writer Simon Evans on both Fabio Capello and Giovanni Trapattoni. Evans covered both gentlemen when he was posted to Italy.

We hear about Capello and Trapattoni's management styles, their interaction with the media and their history.

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The Italian hopes to follow the path laid by Jack Charlton and lead his side to the World Cup finals. Click to continue reading...

As we look forward to the Newcastle United v QPR game tomorrow evening, it has made me reminisce about an unbelievable match I witnessed between the two teams 25 years ago this month. I was a homesick student nurse living in London and in fact QPR was probably the nearest big ground to where I lived. Click to continue reading...

No Diomansy tonight. Because Eddie Johnson is leading the line!  Wicked.  Eddie may not get many opportunities but I remain convinced of his awesomeness, at least on a theoretical level.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Wilson has an article up about tactics.

He asks if the sweeper might come back, but the article is really about space.

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Today's video flashback is from the late 1960s when two quality teams, Leeds United and Manchester United, faced each other at Elland Road.

The video footage is interesting for several different seasons. It's in black and white. Plus you get to watch the opening of the show for a program that's simply titled "Football" with its title music that sounds like it's going to be the Match Of The Day theme but quickly transpires into a different song.

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Jack Charlton has urged the Newcastle board to keep Alan Shearer at St James' Park. Jack Charlton - urges Newcastle to keep Shearer at club Jack or Jackie as we knew him in his playing days at Leeds United and England, was manager of Newcastle from 1984-1985, before going on to have a successful 9 year stint [. Click to continue reading...

This weeks Ultimate 11's is Karl Savages Leeds United. Now they may have the most hated team in the history of football but they certainly have a wealth of talent on the pitch.

Do you agree with Karl's selection? Is he a Leeds Guru or is he a muppet?

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More reliable than an internet connectionThe glamorous life of the international football journalist? Not quite. As Christopher Davies shows in Behind the Back Page: Adventures of Sports Writer there are drawbacks. True you get to see the best games (in theory) and talk to the superstars (not always a pleasure) but along the way you have to deal Click to continue reading...

More reliable than an internet connectionThe glamorous life of the international football journalist? Not quite. As Christopher Davies shows in Behind the Back Page: Adventures of Sports Writer there are drawbacks. True you get to see the best games (in theory) and talk to the superstars (not always a pleasure) but along the way you have to deal Click to continue reading...