Search: ' Spain'

Northern Ireland’s shock victory over England was a welcome tonic on and off the pitch, as Robbie Meredith reports

Strange as it seems now, the visit of England to Windsor Park wasn’t originally particularly important. Sure, it was a rare chance for us to ogle at the Team England circus and gain some attention from Motty, Wrighty and… um… Woolnoughy, but many Northern Ireland supporters initially viewed the Azerbaijan match the preceding Saturday as more vital. It was a realistic chance to pick up a rare win, whereas most of us assumed that England would stroll into town, patronise us with a load of guff about how they expected a tough contest, then cuff us with relative ease. 

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Cameron Carter struggles to see the funny side

It’s been a bit of a month for weak jokes. On September 15, John Helm interrupted his commentary on Bolton v Lokomotiv Plovdiv on Five to make a pun that is even now being investigated by forensic humorists in search of traces of comedic activity. John said: “Lokomotiv look rattled. Excuse the pun – Lokomotiv, rattled.” That was the entirety of his joke. Now we all know that his co-commentator that evening, Terry Butcher, is a brave lad who carries on playing when his head is broken, but even Terry bottled it when it came to asking for some form of explanation. Instead a wondering silence ensued until John returned to his day job.

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It may be no surprise that you can get great English coverage of football in Ireland, but Ian Plenderleith tracks down individual sites that cover Poland, Slovakia and even the whole of South America

Sometimes a Google search of your club’s name can take you to interesting places. Sligo, for example. If I hadn’t been looking for an obscure fact about Lincoln City, I would likely have discovered too late that the Imps were scheduled to play Sligo Rovers in a pre-season tournament in July. As it was, I was able to cancel my summer holiday in Tuscany and reschedule for the Emerald Isle instead (some parts of this paragraph are a lie).

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Michael Owen is a very good striker – but does his Spanish experience show that that is no longer enough? Phil Ball assesses what Newcastle have got for their £17m

The mildly interesting aspect of this summer’s Michael Owen yawn-fest has been the contrasting reactions of the English and Spanish media to the issue. In England, despite the prominence of a new hero in Andrew Flintoff, both the quality papers and the tabloids have demonstrated a touching insistence on not forgetting our Michael, stranded out there on the bench, surrounded by unappreciative foreigners. The Spanish in general, and Real Madrid in particular, have hardly raised a line about the matter – but neither would most writers if they had just witnessed the arrival of Robinho and Julio Baptista. However, the Madrileño press itself never once suggested that Owen was suddenly “fifth in the starting order” of strikers – the English phrase of the summer. They know that managers such as Vanderlei Luxemburgo do not think so simplistically. Owen could have had a future at the Bernabéu.

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Wednesday 1 Chelsea, Ashley Cole and Jose Mourinho are found guilty of meeting in a hotel for immoral purposes and face fines totalling £600,000, with Chelsea also receiving a suspended three-point deduction; all will appeal. “The public don’t expect players to move just at the drop of a wallet,” warns David Dein. Darren Bent joins Charlton for £3 million.

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