Santo, Sam & Ed's Total Football

We don't make humorous football TV programmes along the lines of Baddiel & Skinner's Fantasy Football League in England any more, but thankfully they do in Australia. Santo, Sam & Ed's Total Football is the perfect antidote if you're fed up with football being taken so damned seriously all the time; and what makes it even better for those of us not living in Oz, is the fact that new episodes are uploaded to YouTube weekly. Here's last night's, featuring a guest appearance from Alessandro Del Piero no less. Get watching!

Sing Up For The Boys In Green

With the Republic of Ireland having just crashed ingloriously out of Euro 2012, this might not be the best time for me to be plugging a tribute compilation album to just that team. But we've always been one to support the underdog here - even if the underdog in question has just been packed off with its tail between its legs - so please do show your support for the Indiecater Records compilation Sing Up For The Boys In Green, which is packed with smashing tunes just like this, the title track, by Idaho's The Very Most.

You can download all 11 tracks from the album for a measly 5 EUROS here

He can't stand up for falling down

Took this footage on my phone from this evening's Euro 2014 qualifier between Turkey and Croatia. In it, Turkish playmaker Hamit Altintop takes what I would have to declare to be the most outrageous dive I've ever seen perpetrated by a professional footballer (and I've seen Cristiano Ronaldo). There was no one within three feet of him!

(Apologies for the rather shonky picture quality, by the way, but I literally filmed the video direct from my mobile phone while pointing it at the telly! Still, though, a couple of clicks later and it was uploaded to YouTube. Isn't technology marvellous?)



The Bluebells - I'm Falling mp3

Fantasy football time again

With just two weeks to go before the new English Premier League season starts, there's never been a better time to sign up for the 2010/11 Fantasy Football league, and the fifth annual Group of Death - i.e. our own private league. (It's all 100% free by the way.) Bearing in mind that literally anyone who enters our league can emerge triumphant, this competition's harder to win than the actual Premier League itself. (Or at least more than two teams have a chance of winning our version!)

Joining is easy. Sign up here. If you were in our league last season and sign up again using the same log-in details, you should be automatically re-entered into it once you've selected your squad for the new season.

If you've never played before you'll simply need to enter the following code (in the create/join bit of the Leagues section) after you've created your team in order to join the Group of Death: 41220-14155

Hope to see you - yes, you! - there!


The Cardigans - My Favourite Game mp3


In homage to that talented bunch of Muppet musos who played with Dr Teeth (pictured right), I've named my team The Electric Mayhem this season. What's yours?

More World Cup shows (good ones this time)

ITV may have plumbed the depths with their venture into light-hearted World Cup spin-off programming this time round, but the spirit of Baddiel & Skinner's old Fantasy Football programmes lives on in other parts of the world. Places like Australia, for example, where SBS are running the splendid nightly half-hour show Santo, Sam and Ed's Cup Fever presented by amiable funny types Santo Cilauro, Ed Kavalee and Sam Pang. This programme really is a breath of fresh air, and best of all, thanks to the wonders of the interweb, we can watch it in other territories too, at this rather fantastic blog, where all episodes to date are gathered in a one-click, embedded YouTube stylee. Marvellous.

Baddiel & Skinner themselves, meanwhile, are doing regular podcasts for Absolute Radio during the World Cup, just in case you hadn't heard. These are very good also, as you might expect.

Completing what appears to have turned into a bit of a round-up, I'd also highly recommend the Guardian's World Cup Daily podcasts with James Richardson and various journos from said newspaper. But then you probably already knew about those as well. I'm just wasting everybody's time here really, aren't I?

Righto, bedtime I think. Big day tomorrow. Many football matches and related shows to enjoy! I think I might be going a bit dotty with the excitement of it all you know.

EDIT: I really ought to have mentioned the fact that all episodes of Cup Fever can be streamed directly from the SBS website too. Terribly remiss of me.

May God have mercy on arseholes

Just spotted this in tonight's Radio Times programme listings for ITV1:

9.45
James Corden's World Cup Live

New series. 1/14. In this regular post-match magazine show the Gavin & Stacey star is joined by model Abbey Clancy - England striker Peter Crouch's other half - for an alternative view of the tournament.

Now I'm not a big one for profanity, as you know, but really, ITV can fuck right off.

Anne Soldaat - Going South mp3

Three of a Kind #105

With, at the time of typing, a mere ninety hours to go until the 2010 World Cup begins in earnest (well, South Africa) there's never been a better time for me to start blathering away about how much I'm looking forward to this summer's soccerball shindig. Non-football fans may wish to look away now - and possibly for the next five weeks or so. I suspect there'll be a lot more of this type of thing to come.

Actually, what am I saying, stick around! For the consistently choice selection of mp3s if nothing else!

I think I've done quite well holding back this long before launching into some of what erstwhile 6-0-6 host David Mellor would have cretinously termed "red hot soccer chat" actually. It's reminding me of the restrain you have to show as a music blogger towards the end of the calendar year, when you're dying to let loose with the Christmas songs but, conscious of the fact that they're not exactly everyone's cup of char, don't want to start posting them too soon for fear of pissing people off. But hopefully four days before the big event is acceptable.

So yes, the thirty-two competing squads will have mostly (if not all) arrived in South Africa by now (probably); the various World Cup shows and podcasts have begun in earnest; I've started counting down the hours rather than days till the big kick off (South Africa v Mexico, 3pm Friday, ITV); my When Saturday Comes World Cup wallchart is firmly in place (albeit, in an act of astonishing rebelliousness on my part, not on the wall at all, but rather the fridge door. Hell yeah. Like some kind of - or actual - maverick wallchart pinner-upperer, I don't play by the rules), and I am ready to go. Or at least ready to go and plonk myself down on the settee and stare at the telly for a month or so straight.

As for who I reckon's going to win the thing, well, Spain and Brazil are the bookmakers' favourites so the sensible thing would be to tip one of those two. But I don't really do sensible, as you know. Besides, I feel there's really only one team I can throw my full weight of support behind at this particular time. In fact, I feel compelled to cheer them on after that Eurovision debacle the other week. They are, of course, the Netherlands!

Oh yes, things are going to be different this time, I can feel it. For one thing, I've done my research this time and, unlike their Eurovision counterparts, the Netherlands football team have actually qualified for the finals, so we're ahead of the game already!

And for another, they have a fine attacking tradition and many technically-gifted and exciting players such as Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart in their current squad. Mind, they also have Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel, a dearth of truly world-class defenders, and a not-so-fine tradition of internecine squabbling within their championship squads; oh, and van Persie and Robben are injured half the time anyway. But I never said they were perfect. Might be worth a punt at 11-1 though.

Anyway, now we've got the World Cup ball rolling, so to speak, here are some songs on a theme. Mostly. I suspect I'm going to run out of actual football-related songs pre-tty bloody quickly.

Agent Simple - Friday mp3

Woog Riots - Football Round the Clock mp3

Colourbox - The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme mp3

By the way, in case you were wondering, the accompanying picture at the top of this post comes from Jack Rosenthal's 1972 parks football TV play, Another Sunday and Sweet F.A., which is now, thrillingly, available to buy on DVD. Woo.

This charmless man

A typically graceless response from Sir Alex Ferguson in the wake of Manchester United's latest hilarious elimination from the Champions' League last night, the bolshie Scot bemoaning his team's bad luck and branding the victorious Bayern Munich team "Typical Germans" for their on-field behaviour. This is what he had to say about Manchester United full-back Rafael's second yellow card:

They got him sent off," he said. "There's no doubt about that and they would have never won if we had 11 men. He [Rafael] is a young boy, inexperienced and there's a bit of immaturity about what happened but they got him sent off. Typical Germans."

So, that's a team full of "typical Germans" like the Belgian defender Daniel van Buyten, Mark van Bommel and Arjen Robben from the Netherlands, Argentina's Martin DeMichelis, Croatia's Daniel Pranjic and Ivica Olic, the French Franck Ribery and Turkey's Hamit Altintop. Oh, and they're managed by another Dutchman, Louis van Gaal. But then no one ever claimed that any of Ferguson's rants-as-deflection-tactics were supposed to make any sense. Typical Englishman.

Half Man Half Biscuit - Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess mp3

Buy Half Man Half Biscuit stuff

Over the moon, Jimmy

Sometimes I get a bit jaded watching football, and end up asking myself if it's really worth all the bother and time invested (I'd add money to that list, but I'm strictly an armchair, non-Sky-subscribing fan these days). Admittedly this normally coincides with watching an especially dour, attritonal goalless encounter between Fulham and Spurs in the FA Cup, for example. But happen it undoubtedly does; and quite often at that.

Then, once in a while, you witness a moment that genuinely gets you off your feet and makes you punch the air in delight - especially when it occurs at a crucial stage in a big match - as happened with this Samir Nasri goal in Arsenal's Champions' League Matchweek 74 First Knockout Phase Second Leg Sponsored by Accurist game against Porto last night. As an Arsenal fan I'm clearly open to accusations of bias here, but come on! This is sublime:



Then to top it all off, Backside (as the hyper-sensitive anti-swearing software on a 'net forum I used to frequent used to change the word Arsenal to) went on to score twice more in the game, through a brilliantly-timed counter attack started by Andre Arshavin and finished, after a lung-bursting run from his own half, by the much-maligned but actually rather decent and thoroughly committed Emmanuele Eboue. As if that wasn't surreal enough, Nicklas "Barn Door" Bendtner then went on to complete his first-ever hat-trick with a penalty in the final minute. I'm going to wake up in a minute.

The Kane Gang - Closest Thing to Heaven mp3

Biggerer and betterer

He's big, he's red, his feet, apparently, stick out the bed. He's scored twenty goals in seventeen starts (and twenty substitute appearances) for England; he's taller than an especially far-fetched story about a family of giants living on the roof of a skyscraper. He is, of course, the brilliantly (sur)named Peter Crouch.

Yet despite that impressive strike-rate of international goals - 20 in 17 starts! - plus the fact that he has a decent first touch, links play and holds the ball up well, is good in the air and frightens the bejesus out of his markers (to be fair, it's not every week your typical international centre half is pitted against a gangly 6 foot 7 bundle of arms and legs), some people, seemingly in all seriousness, ask whether Crouch is really worth a place in England's World Cup squad for this summer's tournament in South Africa.

Not whether he's worth a place in the starting line-up, mark you, but whether he's worth a place in the squad of twenty two! For fuck's sake. If it were anybody else clocking up all those goals we'd be lauding them as world class, but for some reason Crouch's footballing pedigree is so often called into doubt.


One theory - not an especially original one, I'll grant you, but a theory nonetheless - is that those who continue to deride or dismiss the big man's abilities and achievements ("He only scores against small teams", "All his goals are tap-ins" etc - all complete bollocks, by the way) are merely, subconciously or otherwise, exercising a form of body fascism - cos 'e is wel tall 'n skinny 'n freaky looking innit LOLZ.

Now I'm no psychologist, clearly, but I suspect there may be some truth in this theory: some people just can't get their heads round the idea of someone who looks so unlike the quintessential professional footballer or athlete (unless we're talking about a high jumper) being so good at his job. But the facts speak for themselves.

Crouch is far from unique in this, though. The Swedish centre forward Kennet Andersson, for example, enjoyed a fair bit of success at international level in the 1990s, notching 31 goals in 83 caps, despite his similarly beanpole-like physique; the Czech Republic's own ungainly 6 foot 7 striker, Jan Koller, fared even more impressively, scoring 51 goals in 91 appearances for his country.

And, like Crouch, these players were both surprisingly good on the ground (although quite why we're surprised at a tall person's ability to be able to control a football in the first place, I don't know).

Anyway, at the end of the day (Des), there's a lot to be said for having a lumbering target-man who can also play a bit in your starting XI - just so long as you don't do what Spurs have lately with Crouch and neglect the player's aforementioned ability on the deck and instead settle for the easy option of lumping long, high balls up to him all the time for other, smaller players to feed off (the scraps). Which is effective to a point, but not very aesthetically pleasing, and doesn't do the player justice.

Also, unlike most of the current England team, Crouch actually seems like quite a nice bloke when you hear him being interviewed. Whisper it quietly but he may even possess a bit of humility (although, unlike Countdown champion Clarke Carlisle, he probably doesn't know the meaning of the word).

So yes: stick Crouch in the team for the 2010 World Cup, I say. England will still get knocked out at the quarter-final stage, but it'll be a lot more enjoyable with him in the team - because, if nothing else, you know how mad it'll make his detractors.

Hot Puppies - King of England mp3

Sky Definition

Walking through one of those increasingly prevalent indoor shopping centres a few afternoons ago (I was on an errand of mercy to seek out some Pick 'n' Mix) I espied one of those stands companies set up in these places to try and get people to sign up for their wares. In this case it was Sky TV who, as you'll doubtless be aware if you live in the UK, have been pulling out all the stops in order to flog their latest emperor's new clothes-style subscription option, High Definition TV (which costs an extra tenner per month on top of a normal Sky sub, plus an initial £49 for the HD box, which may possibly explain why they're so keen on everybody having it).

Anyway, in order to show us SD (Standard Definition) luddites exactly what we've been missing by not "upgrading" to Sky HD, Sky set up a couple of biggish High Def TV screens on their stand in the aforementioned shopping centre (I refuse to use the word "mall"... doh!). And I have to say I was mightily impressed with the crystal clear picture quality you get in High Definition... or at least I might have been had their two operatives not chosen to leave the TVs switched on to the History Channel, which at the time was showing the grainiest black & white footage imaginable of some old World War II battle! How I laughed.

Sky's other big selling point, of course, is football; and with another season upon us they've wheeled out one of their old advertising slogans in order to promote their coverage. So basically, any time you look at a billboard, newspaper or TV advert at the moment there's a fair chance you'll be greeted by the following legend:

"Sky: Football. We know how you feel about it because we feel the same"

Yes, yes, very pithy I'm sure. I can't help feeling, though, that a more honest statement would have had the following wording:

"Sky. Football. We know how you feel about it because we feel the same about taking your money"

Just a thought.

Tribeca - The Sun Always Shines On TV mp3

Perfect pop

A spot of sparkling new indiepop for you today, courtesy of London-based four-piece Perfect People. I can't get enough of this at the moment.

Perfect People - They Don't Make 'Em Like You Anymore mp3

If you like what you hear (and why wouldn't you, frankly?), check out Perfect People's MySpace page for more music, tour dates and the chance to sign up for a free EP. Smashing.

Also, before I go, and with just 48 hours to go before the new English Premier League season kicks off, now might be a good time to remind you about our fantasy football league for 2009/10, the Group of Death (now in its fourth - or possibly fifth - great year!). 26 people have signed up so far; care to make it 27?

Fantasy Football

With less than a month to go until the new English football season begins in earnest, there's never been a better time to sign up to play the free, official Premier League fantasy football game for 2009/10. As ever, we here at Too Much Apple Pie are running our own private league, which you, our uniquely talented and universally good-looking readership, are invited to join. Please feel free invite your friends along too - the more the merrier!

To enter, simply register for free here and then, once you've selected your squad of 15 players, click on "Leagues" in the left hand menu. Once you've done that simply click "Join", then enter the following code in the "Join private league" box:

34127-11064

And voila! Your team will now be enrolled in the fourth annual "Group of Death". Hope to see you there! (My team are called Optimists Anonymous, by the way. What's yours?)

Marit Bergman - This Is The Year mp3

Three of a Kind #86

Today's Three of a Kind is inspired by hubristic Manchester United winger and unwitting bringer of mirth Cristiano Ronaldo for his spectaculary petulant reaction to being substituted while his team were strolling to yet another routine Premier League victory at the weekend.

Bemusement, anguish, rage, frustration, denial: he experiences the whole lot in a mere forty-seven-seconds during this clip. Really, is this the kind of behaviour anyone over the age of about seven should be indulging in?



Malcolm Middleton - A Moaning Shite mp3

Viola Wills - Gonna Get Along Without You Now mp3

Whistler - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself mp3

(Bananarama's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye, Sulk by Billy Bragg, Kate Bush's Man With The Child In His Eyes and Bitch Went Nuts by Ben Folds all narrowly missed the cut.)

What would Barry do?

A multiple choice quiz for you today, based on the following hypothetical scenario:

You're the 31-year-old captain of Glasgow Rangers and the Scottish national football team (that's Scottish national, rather than Scottish Nationalist; you don't have to be a chum of Alex Salmond's to play in it or anything). Your team have just been beaten 3-0 in a vital World Cup qualifier in the Netherlands. Do you:

a) Take the defeat on the chin. You have been beaten by one of the world's most famous footballing nations in their own back yard, after all.

b) Give your team-mates a dressing-down in the dressing room after the game. After all, you've just been roundly beaten in a vital World Cup qualifier. "Come on lads, we can do better than that!"

c) Stay up boozing all night with the reserve goalkeeper in the team's hotel bar in full view of all the other guests and stay right there, hard at it, until lunchtime the following day. After all, as team captain it's your responsibility to break the curfew, disrespect the management and drink yourself into oblivion for at least fifteen hours after the day you've had.

If you answered a) or b) to the above question, you're clearly some kind of lily-livered pinko communist, and I wouldn't trust you to captain my football team for all the Buckfast in Bellshill. You're a disgrace, frankly, and I hope you're feeling thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Now go away and read some poetry or press some wild flowers, or something.

If, however, you answered c), then please proceed to the next question.

For some reason your boozing antics in the hotel bar after the Netherlands game didn't go down too well with your management, your national football association or the country in general; and, after originally being sent home in disgrace in advance of the team's next game, you're given a late reprieve and reinstated (along with your goalkeeping drinking buddy) to the substitutes' bench. But no sooner have you sat down on said bench than the bloody paparazzi start photographing you left, right and centre. How do you respond?

a) Keep your head down. You're in enough trouble as it is so you're just going to have to try and ride this one out. The fuss is bound to die down sooner or later anyway.

b) Start to look a bit fed up, but quickly adopt a stoical expression. However annoying and intrusive these photographers may be, you did bring this whole sorry mess on yourself. And it would be foolish to exacerbate the situation unnecessarily by giving them a reaction. How very dare they, though!


c) Agree with your goalkeeping/drinking buddy beforehand to adopt a policy of surreptitiously 'flicking the Vs' in an extremely juvenile and actually quite blatant fashion every so often under the pretence of resting your digits on your face (and thereby literally sticking two fingers up at the Scottish nation), whenever you're feeling particularly hard done by and sorry for yourselves during the course of your enforced exile on the bench. That'll learn 'em!

If you answered c) once again - congratulations! You are now the Scotland captain. Please feel free to be banned from the national team for life, stripped of your club's captaincy, suspended and sent home for a fortnight to think about what you've done, and to apparently seriously contemplate premature retirement from the game in the summer. Still, though, you showed them, eh?

Club 8 - Football Kids mp3

The Unlikely Lads

A football fan for as long as I can remember, I grew up supporting Arsenal and Southend United. Arsenal because my mate Timmy Hardwicke supported them, his dad would take us to home games occasionally and, crucially, because they used to reach the Cup final every year; and Southend because they were my local club and my dad used to take me to their home games, which usually fell on Friday evenings. (Even now Friday feels more like football time to me than the traditional Saturday afternoon, despite the fact that it was only us and Tranmere who used to play our home games on that particular weeknight.)

Anyway, a lot of my strongest childhood memories are associated with going to Southend's ground, Roots Hall:

At my first game, aged 7, thinking that the vendor carrying round a tray of snacks at half time was giving them away, and helping myself to a bag of his crisps - or at least trying to before dad explained that they actually cost money and I had to put them back. So naive!

Being a ballboy, along with the rest of my junior team, Larches FC, for a home game in late 1982 against Bristol Rovers, who included in their ranks Mick Channon, an aging ex-England international. As we formed a guard of honour for the players as they took to the pitch, Channon pinched the cheek of one of my teammates as he ran through, to which some waggish club official joked to the kid that "I bet you won't wash that for a week now!". No one laughed.

Seeing then Division 3 (in old money) Southend holding the mighty Liverpool to a goalless draw in the 3rd Round of the F.A. Cup in front of 30,000 fans (about 25,000 more than we were used to getting for league games), before racing back to the car in a bid to get home in time for the highlights on Sportsnight. This was back in the pre-Sky & Setanta days when your local, lower-division team being on the telly was still something of a novelty.

At the risk of plagiarising Arthur Fonzarelli, happy days!

Alas, my enthusiasm for the Shrimpers waned when we moved away from the area in 1983 and didn't renew our season tickets, and I've not actually been back to Roots Hall since about 1992 or 93. So definitely a lapsed fan.

But all the old memories came flooding back last Saturday when the team I used to watch as a kid (who, incidentally, are back in the same division they were way back then, albeit it's now called League 1 rather than Division 3 - don't you just love pointless rebranding?) somehow managed to come away from Stamford Bridge with a 1-1 draw against the mighty Chelsea, once again in the third round of the F.A. Cup, despite the fact that Chelsea are owned by a Russian billionaire and have a squad worth about a squillion times more than ours. Amazing.

As if all this weren't exciting enough, the replay will be shown live on ITV next Wednesday, at 8.00pm. So, for possibly the first and last time ever - the club are due to relocate to a brand new stadium in a couple of years time - a Southend United game from Roots Hall will be screened live on network TV at primetime - against the team who were the width of a post away from becoming Champions of Europe last year. It's this sort of thing that makes the F.A. Cup so utterly bloody fantastic - even if Chelsea do, as they probably will, go on to win the replay at a canter.

Anyway, here's a song that, although actually being about a slum landlord, is curiously appropriate for today's post as it contains the line From Lands End to Southend and Chelsea (just forget the Lands End bit). Also, the titular Sheriff hails from Leigh On Sea, which is just down the road from Southend. A mere coincidence? I think not!

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Sheriff Fatman mp3

Idiot!

You know how Steve McClaren used to come across as a bit of a buffoon when he was mismanaging the England team? Well, he's taken his unique brand of doltishness to new heights now; and a new location: the Netherlands, where he's taken up the post of head coach at Eredivisie outfit FC Twente. But - listen closely, here comes the doltish bit! - he's actually started giving interviews to Dutch TV stations in English but with a comedy Dutch accent! Check it out - it is bloody hilarious! (if Allo Allo had been set in the Netherlands, this is what it would have sounded like.)



Steve Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch mp3 (for 7 days)

Aimee Mann - Stupid Thing mp3 (for 7 days)

With only 48 hours to go before the start of the new Premier League season, there's never been a better time to sign up for the Too Much Apple Pie fantasy football league. To enter, simply register (for free) here and then, once you've selected your squad of 15 players, click on "Manage leagues" and under the "Join a private league" tab enter the following code: 867222-80540 and voila! Your team will be enrolled in our "Group of Death". So simple, even Steve McClaren could manage it!

Three of a Kind #51

With August almost upon us we've reached that time of year when a young man's (or indeed woman's) thoughts start turning to the serious business of fantasy football. Anyone else up for a game? If so, please feel free to join us for the third annual Fantasy Premier League Group of Death, a competition that, with 43 entrants last year, is at least twice as difficult to win as the actual Premier League itself.

Anyway, if you fancy entering a team simply register here and then, once you've selected your squad of 15 players, click on "Manage leagues" and then under the "Join a private league" tab simply enter the following code: 120266-80540 and voila! Your team will now be enrolled in the Group of Death. Good luck!

ABBA - The Name of The Game mp3

Sound Stage Orchestra - The Big Match mp3

Heaven 17 - Play To Win mp3

(mp3s available for 7 days)

Buy music.

My money's on Hornsby

Well it was certainly a relief to see an exciting Euro 2008 game at last, with the Netherlands trouncing the world champions Italy 3-0 in the sixth game of the tournament last night - a scoreline few would have predicted beforehand. To add to the surreal atmosphere, Ruud van Nistelrooy spurned a chance to go down in the area for what would have been a clear penalty, and Dirk Kuyt played a blinder. Quite bizarre! The Dutch fans were terrific too, as ever.

Actually, the whole spectacle reminded me very much of England's even more unexpected 4-1 thrashing of the Dutch themselves at Euro '96. Highly enjoyable stuff.

Back to 2008's tournament, and up until Monday night's game the first five matches had been almost universally rubbish, so this minor classic was long overdue. Fingers crossed we get a few more over the coming weeks now.

Away from the pitch, the best thing, for me, about the '08 Championships has been The Guardian Football Daily podcasts with James Richardson & Barry Glendenning. They're a terrific listen, and far more entertaining than anything you'll hear from the pundits in the Match of the Day studios (with the honourable exceptions of messrs O'Neill, Strachan & possibly Dixon). For example, it's hard to imagine the Alans Shearer and Hansen having an argument about who'd win a fight between Bruce Hornsby & The Range and Huey Lewis & The News!

You don't even have to go to the trouble of downloading the podcasts either; they can be streamed directly from here.

Anyway, I don't know about you but it's normally about this time that I like to listen to a couple of classic Teenage Fanclub covers!

Teenage Fanclub - The Ballad of John and Yoko mp3

Teenage Fanclub - Like A Virgin mp3

(mp3s available for a week)

Buy Teenage Fanclub stuff.

This time he'll get it right (possibly)

For all Havant and Waterlooville's heroics in the FA Cup on Wednesday night (the quintessential plucky non-league minnows spectacularly earning themselves an FA Cup 4th round tie against Liverpool at Anfield, thanks to a 4-2 win against League One leaders Swansea City in their 3rd round replay), there's only really been one football story in town this week: that of little Kevin Keegan returning for a second spell as manager of Newcastle United, eleven years after walking out on the club for what most assumed was the final time.

Can the man who caused an epidemic of bubble perms amongst his footballing peers in the late 70s and early 80s really bring success to the club for a third time (he also enjoyed a successful spell as a player there in the early-80s), or will it all go horribly Pete Tong this time round? Who knows? But it'll certainly be fun finding out.

It's hard to begrudge the bloke any success that might come his way up there, anyway, as he clearly has a passion for the club, which is both unusual and touching in these money-obsessed footballing times.

As an example of just how mercenary many at the top end of the professional game have now become, just look at some of these comments emanating from the mouth of Arsenal reject Lassana Diarra (pictured below), who completed an expensive transfer to Portsmouth on Thursday, yet clearly sees his new club as nothing more than a stopgap on his inexorable rise to the top:

"The people at Portsmouth know that I will not spend my life at the club... I was able to add a clause to my contract. If I shine, if a really big club wants me, I already know that everything will go well... My choice could shock and surprise people, I am conscious of that. But I know the Portsmouth manager, I know he is going to play me..."

So basically he's just become possibly the first player in history to express his desire to leave a club on the very same day he joined them! Now, some may say he's showing a refreshing honesty with those comments, but I say: he's a bumptious tosser.

Going back to the Keegan story, this has proved a remarkably serendipitous week for Setanta Sports: up until 48 hours ago, the Irish broadcaster's choice of Newcastle vs Bolton Wanderers as their live Premiership game this Saturday (which would have been decided upon many weeks ago, as is the way with these live games), was looking about as enticing and viewer-friendly as a weekend of back-to-back repeats of Celebrity Love Island; now, thanks to the (re)arrival of the man Keegan, it's comfortably shaping up to be the game of the week. At the risk of sounding like a David Coleman tribute act here - quite remarkable.

Anyway, King Kev and the Toon Army, this one's for you:

Mark Knopfler - Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero mp3

Buy the Local Hero soundtrack here.