By Billy the Dog McGraw Landlord, The Toppled Bollard, Islington As usual for a Friday I trotted off to the allotments on Hackney Marshes where I bumped into Dennis Bergkamp who was bemoaning the state of his turnips. “But what about that Terry Enry?” I enquired, ingloriously. “But what about my turnips?” said Dennis, and …
Read More “Do we always need someone to boo – plus team from Billy the Dog”
It was a tedious morning of “Henry is a disgrace” and “Henry, Eduardo, we investigate the cheats in football.” Then BBC Radio Five Live decided to get Republic of Ireland assistant manager Liam Brady on. Liam sounded as if he had not slept for a week. But he spoke slowly and clearly, and utterly refused …
Read More “Liam’s attack on FIFA corruption scares the hell out of the BBC”
So here we are – for the second time in a couple of days an Arsenal player has been injured playing in a pathetic pointless international. VP is out, and now Gibbs. Will it ever end? So it seems an appropriate time to consider one of the two organisations that seek to destroy our enjoyment: …
Read More “UEFA – is there a chance of reform?”
In terms of English clubs that are facing financial disasters we are used to discussing WHU, Liverpool Beachballs and Manchester U. To that list we can now add Portsmouth. Their new owner in September turned out not to be the billionaire Sheik Yermoney but a guy who borrowed £50 off a bookie’s runner and …
Read More “Rangers face financial meltdown”
I can’t tell you how brilliant the correspondents of this site are. The other night “LRV” summed up the forthcoming Arsenal/Evil Empire game from this saturday with a perfect quote from Yeats: “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” How good is that? And would you know it, while we were discussing the appalling nature …
Read More “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world: Arsenal vs Birmingham Evil”
This week Arsenal play yet another club whose ownership is unknown. It is the club of Martin Taylor. It is an evil entity owned by Grandtop International Holdings, who are owned by…. Well what a surprise. We don’t know of course because they are all registered in the British Virgin Islands. So what bunch of …
Read More “This weekend Arsenal play the evil empire”
Ten insane events from the weekend. 1: England blast ref and security (BBC) England joined FIFA in 1905, and you’d think they would have got the hang of things by now. But in case this helps guys: everything FIFA does is a shambles, aimed to make a profit for those in power (well over £100m …
Read More “Top ten stories from insanity weekend”
It looks like the insanity and greed of those who run football (in terms of the leagues and associations) is starting to impact on the real centres of football: the clubs. Of course the clubs are not all sweet darlings themselves – and we spend much of our time here debating the lunatic actions of …
Read More “Gazidis says Arsenal could join breakaway league.”
Last night, instead of doing a commentary on Uzbekistan Generals vs Dynamo Fulham in the Euro League Group Z, Radio 5 did a piece on betting in football. There was some horror in it – beatings and death, Chinese triads etc, and I don’t wish to minimise this – but mixed up within the report …
Read More “Who stole football? More from the insanity files.”
Let me explain that headline. Arsenal, being an open club, all above board, honest and thoroughly middle class, there’s nothing to hide. Unlike some north western clubs we aren’t late with our reporting of our figures, and unlike most clubs we make a profit and don’t hide behind multiple company structures. But that is not …
Read More “Who owns Arsenal? Just don’t ask!”
PS: Yes I know you don’t normally have a PS at the start, but this is a long article and I doubt anyone will get to the end, so here’s the PS. By chance I have a spare ticket for tuesday night’s game, upper tier, north end above Red Action. If you would like to …
Read More “Campbell, Vela, Cesc, lies: its “Ask a stupid question day””
Yesterday the stories about Liverpool flowed around like a dark murky flowing thing you would not want to put your hand in. We knew that the owners were trying in utter desperation to do something, anything, that would allow them to refinance the £350.5m of debts six months ago. We now know from leaked papers …
Read More “Liverpool: the financial collapse and what the papers did not say”
There are sounds and signs around that things are improving – but, beware the false dawn. Since I started wandering around the by-ways of football in this blog I’ve been moaning about rotational fouling (Wigan are the latest to adopt it), and it is cheery to note that the Great Lord Wenger is now “set” …
Read More “When the FA hand a corruption file over to FIFA you know football is out of control”
The organisation running the top league in English football has a long history of corruption – dating back at least to 1919 when Manchester United and Liverpool, who had been found guilty of match fixing in the final pre-war season were allowed to go unpunished and continue unhindered. Arsenal benefitted from the final outcome of …
Read More “The CORRUPTION FILES: 1 – The League”
Oh what to do in Cripplegate Week – the week when all our top stars go off and get injured while playing not for the Arsenal who pay their wages but for a bunch of morons called “international managers” who treat them with utter contempt. Well, the first thing is, if you fancy doing a …
Read More “Cripplegate Week: cherishing the injured”
No sooner was the Chelsea ban on transfers announced than BBC Radio 5 rushed out an interview with an ex-KGB player who linked this case with the Eduardo case. It was one of the most sickening pieces of anti-Arsenal propoganda yet launched in the media war on Arsenal. Chelsea are banned from signing new players …
Read More “Why Chelsea are banned, why Arsenal is different, why we boycott evil Amazon and amazing cock-up by Daily Mirror”
At last, a club willing to stand up and fight against the insane, bent and discredited UEFA. Arsenal’s statement over the Eduardo affair was everything we could have wished for – a complete catalogue of everything that is wrong with the warped European governing body, including its arrogant belief that it can get away with …
Read More “Arsenal must fight bent UEFA to the bitter end”
Below we print an open letter to Mike Dean, referee, from Walter Broeckx, referee. But just before that, here’s a quick summary of Mr Dean’s career… In 2005 he was suspended from being a ref because he was involved with a betting company. His official crime was “breaching the terms of his contract”. He was …
Read More “Mike Dean: the referee, the man, the history, the scandals”
The trouble with the UEFA vs Eduardo story is that the number of strands within it keeps getting bigger. It is a bit like trying to grasp the nature of the universe. Just when you have got your head around the fact that space and time are all part of the same entity, along comes …
Read More “UEFA: corrupt, criminal, incompetent or deluded?”
Here’s a stange story. Michel Platini says that he will pass legislation to ensure that from 2012/13 onwards every club in the Champs League have to have accounts in balance. That presumably means that the club has positive assets – take the money they owe away from the assets they have and if it is …
Read More “UEFA demand clubs cut debts. KGB Fulham agree – and other rubbish”
A single defeat in the season is, of course neither here nor there. Last season I was at Arsenal 2 IOU 1, and it was one of the very best matches I have ever seen in a lifetime of watching football. Today wasn’t remotely a match in that sort of class; we lost by the …
Read More “IOU game will give us all the strength we need to win league”
Last year was, according to the muddleheaded, the year of going backwards. We entered league match number 3 with and win and a defeat, plus a comfortable saunter into the Bent Cup (as I’m now forced to rename the Champs League). Match three was Arsenal 3 Newcastle Zebras 0. Line up was Almunia Sagna, Toure, …
Read More “Man IOU / Arsenal, score and report & SFA/UEFA corruption – new evidence”
By Tony Attwood So we’ve been thinking about owners of late, because they are the people who can make or break a club. And two bits of news have come up on the owners front. First, there is the story (completely unconfirmed of course) that Kroenke will make a major cash injection into Arsenal. That …
Read More “Where does Arsenal stand in the battle between UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar?”