For a change, a transfer story about a player who actually *wants* to play for Barcelona… Norwich City right-back Max Aarons appears poised to become the latest highly rated English youngster to take his talents overseas as he closes in on a move to Barcelona. Reports that Aarons, an England Under-21 international, was poised to […]

6 years ago

A spokesperson for Abramovich has insisted no rules were broken A BBC Panorama investigation has revealed Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich secretly held stakes in footballers not contracted to the Stamford Bridge club. Leaked documents – known as the FinCEN Files – have been seen by the Panorama team as part of their investigation. The files […]

6 years ago

Plans to bring fans back to stadiums from October 1 have now been “paused” Michael Gove has confirmed plans for fans to return to stadiums to watch live sport events in England will not go ahead. It had been hoped that limited numbers of supporters would be allowed back into stadiums from October 1, but […]

6 years ago

“They’re not people from the football world” Since hanging up his boots, Patrice Evra has built himself a tidy following on social media. Rarely, though, have his Instagram posts been quite as downbeat as this… Posted on Monday morning, the former Manchester United left-back spoke at length (for a whole 20 minutes) about the plight […]

6 years ago

The Tuesday night fixture is expected to be postponed imminently Tottenham’s Carabao Cup game against Leyton Orient will almost definitely be postponed after the League Two side confirmed an outbreak of Covid-19 amongst members of their first-team squad. A statement released by Orient on Monday explained that after Covid-19 testing was conducted following their game […]

6 years ago

Manchester United appear to be closing in on their second signing of the window In future, Luke Shaw might want to think before he opens his mouth. Speaking after his side’s dismal opening Premier League fixture ended in 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday evening, Shaw had echoed the sentiment of many Manchester United […]

6 years ago

Back by popular demand (sort of) A new season brings with it new challenges. Be it trying to wrap your head around how anyone anywhere could have possibly thought the new handball rules were a good idea, to this – a quiz which tests your otherwise pointless knowledge of football badges. Some of the hardened […]

6 years ago

Morrison’s return to English football appears to have been short-lived Former Manchester United prodigy Ravel Morrison appears poised to join a new club following his release by Sheffield United in the summer. Morrison signed for the Blades ahead of their return to the Premier League last season after impressing on a trial. However, he was  […]

6 years ago

The award-winning documentary has been added to BBC iPlayer The Colombia team that reached the 1994 World Cup finals were viewed by many as pre-tournament favourites. A side brimming with talent, they had lost just once in the 26 games they played prior to the tournament. In their final qualifier, away to Argentina, they had […]

6 years ago

Sports commentators need sport, that’s generally how it works For most people in the world, a lack of sport is an annoyance. It means not having something to talk about to their friends all the time, or not having spurious rumours to spend too much time reading about. But for those lucky enough to work […]

6 years ago

“The underground heating at Wembley, that’s going to bake the lasagne…” For Billy McLean, it was nothing more than a spontaneous joke, shared with teammates at Old Thorntonians FC. Poking fun at the spate of coronavirus misinformation shared across Facebook and other social media platforms, he recorded a short audio clip claiming that, amidst fears […]

6 years ago

He will go down as one of Barcelona’s greats Ronaldinho was during his peak years one of the greatest footballers to ever take to a field. At Barcelona he wowed crowds week-in, week-out – in the years before they became accustomed to such treats in the form of Lionel Messi. The Brazilian maestro is famously […]

6 years ago

Evan likes football If we are fans of football, most of us will at some point have tried our hand at designing kits when we were children. We’d scribble and colour in, imagining our favourite players wearing our creations. That was generally as far as it got however, imagining, and eventually – unless we embarked […]

6 years ago

“He’s a fantastic human being. He is a professional, but people love him for the other things he has done, the people he wants to help.” In the bustling Lagos slum of Ajegunle, they are preparing for a party next Monday. Plans are still a little sketchy, but a big screen – possibly several big […]

6 years ago

Coventry City are enduring another season in exile, playing their ‘home’ games in Birmingham It’s 10am on a Saturday morning. Dhillon’s Brewery has opened early ahead of today’s game: Coventry City’s FA Cup fourth  round meeting with Birmingham City. Tucked away in a corner of a small industrial estate, five minutes’ walk from the Ricoh Arena, […]

6 years ago

“Some team-mates were crying… Trust me, it was a very difficult night.” Few would have blamed Hernan Crespo for wanting to get out of sight as quickly as he possibly could after Liverpool defeated his AC Milan side on penalties in Istanbul in 2005. That, the former Argentina international explained in 2015, had been his […]

6 years ago

“I regard myself as a Mancunian now. I love the people here, I love the place. It kind of feels like my home now.” For Mohamud Ali, the enormity of what he and his teammates had achieved only set in when he returned to the team hotel in Djibouti City. As his phone connected back […]

6 years ago

“We kick above our weight – we’re under no illusions about that. We don’t expect miracles…” The floodlights at Moss Rose haven’t worked properly in years. The pitch – through no fault of the groundsman – is heavy and worn, more suited to Sunday league than Football League. But as far as visual metaphors go, […]

6 years ago

Last April, and a dimly lit hospital room at the end of a corridor. Dad was frail, spending most of his time sleeping. The batch of chemotherapy he’d undergone at the start of the year – a last attempt at prolonging his life – had failed. The cancer cells were spreading, slowly, the oncologist had […]

6 years ago

Greenwood is currently United’s most prolific scorer On a day where Manchester United marked 4,000 successive senior games with at least one academy graduate in their match day squad, it was fitting that Mason Greenwood should provide their brightest moment. On as a second half substitute, Greenwood had dropped into a pocket of space to […]

6 years ago

Leicester made history on Sunday Never before, not even in their exhilarating run to the Premier League title in 2016, had Leicester City recorded eight consecutive top flight victories. At Villa Park on Sunday afternoon, they reached that milestone, firmly establishing themselves as the main threat – possibly the only threat – to Liverpool’s dream […]

6 years ago

It says much about modern football and the rapidly shrinking amount of space it has for sentiment that when it came, Mauricio Pochettino’s sacking hardly registered as a surprise Reaching a Champions League final on a relative shoestring budget doesn’t make any manager exempt from losing their job these days – not if their team […]

6 years ago

“The fact the tournament has been awarded to a country where migrant workers’ rights and LGBT+ fans rights are not respected is a really massive concern” Confirmation that Liverpool will participate in the 2019 Fifa Club World Cup came only last week. Taking place in Qatar in December – a notoriously hectic spell for Premier […]

6 years ago

Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s rise has been sharp, but his journey to the top has not always been smooth Not even two years have passed since Aaron Wan-Bissaka made his competitive debut for Crystal Palace. A London derby at home to high-flying Tottenham was hardly the ideal occasion to thrust a defender barely out of his teens […]

7 years ago

“I’ve seen Leicester win the Premier League because of that man. I’ve seen them play in a Champions League quarter-final.” A year on from his death, Leicester City supporters are remembering the club’s late owner and chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. Srivaddhanaprabha was one of five people to die when his helicopter crashed in a car park […]

7 years ago

Liverpool preserved their unbeaten record thanks to a late Adam Lallana equaliser at Old Trafford on Sunday Before kick-off, it had seemed a formality. Liverpool would sweep into Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon and dominate proceedings from minute one. Manchester United, irrespective of which of their injury-ravaged squad was fit enough to play this week, […]

7 years ago

After starting the season with an unwanted record, Jack Grealish continues to blossom in Aston Villa’s Premier League return For the first time since early May 2015, Aston Villa have back-to-back Premier League wins. Victory over ten-men Brighton on Saturday followed their 5-1 dismantling of Norwich before the international break, and saw Dean Smith’s side climb […]

7 years ago

The young Norwegian’s early season form at Real Sociedad has already sparked talk of a return to Madrid It was Mikel Oyarzabal who scored Real Sociedad’s opener as they hosted Alavés at the newly revamped Anoeta Stadium last month. And yet, as footage of his goal swept across the continent, that fact might easily have […]

7 years ago

Bayern Munich in the Champions League… Tottenham’s palatial new home was built for nights like this, only this was not how they were supposed to end. But for a raucous away section of Bayern fans, the stadium was emptying rapidly by the time Serge Gnabry arrowed his fourth goal of the game past Hugo Lloris […]

7 years ago

“I don’t mean this in a negative way, but wearing T-shirts with ‘Say No To Racism’ on them doesn’t seem to be working. It’s not enough on its own.” When AS Roma issued a supporter with a lifetime ban last week, history was made. Never before had an Italian football club taken such action. Before […]

7 years ago

“It echoes what this city is about, what Scousers are about” Football equality and inclusion organisation Kick It Out have praised Everton supporters for creating an anti-racism banner featuring Moise Kean. The banner, which was unfurled before Everton’s game with Manchester City on Saturday afternoon, was made after fan group the County Road Bobblers set […]

7 years ago

“It stopped me feeling like shit… It became almost like therapy. Prozac through art.” Andy McVeigh was slightly surprised Marcelo Bielsa had the time. Hours before kick-off with Derby County, the Leeds United manager, known for his intensity and meticulous planning ahead of matches, greeted him with a shake of the hand.”Congratulations on art,” he […]

7 years ago

For four years, Blackpool fans stayed away from their beloved club in a bid to starve the club’s owners of their money and force them out. Ask Tony Wilkinson to choose his happiest memory as a Blackpool supporter and he will offer two. The first: beneath the Wembley arch in 2010, where he witnessed the […]

7 years ago

“They’ve taken our team, but can’t take our memories” Bury FC Trust are to host a new Sporting Memories group, providing older supporters with an opportunity to share memories of the club and take part in physical activity. Bury were expelled from the Football League last month after an attempted takeover of the financially stricken […]

7 years ago

Look back at the last ten league games played at Anfield and a pattern emerges. Liverpool win – often comfortably – but almost always do so after scoring an early opener. Only Arsenal and Chelsea have come through the first half an hour unscathed. Even so, both have returned to London without a single point. […]

7 years ago

For Leighton Jones, it begins with a short walk from his house in Derby to the bus stop at the top of the road From there a bus goes directly to East Midlands Airport, where he boards a two-hour budget airline flight to Berlin Schönefeld. If there’s enough time before kick-off, he might make for […]

7 years ago

Bolton find themselves on the brink of extinction Such is the nature of Bolton Wanderers’ plight, much has changed since last Tuesday. Their League One meeting with Doncaster Rovers postponed the previous day, some of Bolton’s weary fanbase did at least get to see a football match that evening. Atherton Collieries, a local non-league side with […]

7 years ago

“As Mancunian City fans, nothing would give us greater pleasure than for him to have 15 years of success here…” As Phil Foden zipped up his coat and made his way to the bench, applause broke out from the supporters in the lower section of the Colin Bell Stand. Away towards the South Stand, a […]

7 years ago

Newcastle United Supporters’ Groups staged a a boycott of their season opener against Arsenal on Sunday in protest at manager Mike Ashley. More, they say, will follow Officially, 47,635 braved the incessant rain to attend Newcastle United’s season opener at home to Arsenal on Sunday afternoon. The figure published by the club didn’t factor in […]

7 years ago

“The club feels like it’s not there anymore” On Wednesday, three days before the new Football League season kicked off, there were barely any signs of life at Gigg Lane, home to Bury Football Club. The large car park outside the main stand was deserted, the ticket office was in darkness and the entrance to the […]

7 years ago

“If you can use football to help people with problems, why not do it?” Martin McKenna remembers the morning of October 13, 2018 well. Woken early by his wife, he was immediately ordered to check Twitter. When he did, he could hardly believe the flood of notifications waiting for him. Martin is Media Officer for Saint […]

7 years ago

Shortly after 10 pm comes the biggest cheer of the night. For hours the crowd has been building steadily outside the Rectory of Porto University – almost every single one of them wearing the famous blue and white shirt. They fill the square, spilling out on to the surrounding roads. All eyes are fixed on […]

7 years ago

Notts County supporters have a song about a broken wheelbarrow. Its origins are disputed, but many are in agreement that it started in the away end at Gay Meadow on a Tuesday evening in April 1990. Attempting to cement a spot in the old Division Three play-offs, the Magpies, then managed by Neil Warnock, had […]

7 years ago

Quiz time By now, you’ve probably seen one of our football badge quizzes. You may even have been one of the people who thought they were ‘too easy’. Fine. This time, however, we’ve upped the difficulty level a bit… Taking 30 badges belonging to football clubs from across the world, we’ve taken away any letters and […]

7 years ago

Bale is closer than ever to a Real Madrid exit In 2001, Jaap Stam was forced out of Manchester United. Few – if any – saw it coming. Stam had been a mainstay in central defence at Old Trafford since his arrival from PSV Eindhoven in 1998; a significant contributory factor to United sealing the Treble […]

7 years ago

The teenager played a starring role for Manchester United on Saturday While much has changed at Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure six years ago, one aspect which has remained the same is the way in which the club attempts to shield its youngsters from the glare of the media. To this day, it […]

7 years ago

49 to get Since the first Premier League season began in 1992, a total of 49 different clubs have played in England’s top flight. Here, for no reason other than to waste away a few minutes of your time, we’d like you to have a go at naming as many of them as you possibly […]

7 years ago

And so, just as some of us suspected, Paddy Power’s ‘sash’ shirt sponsorship of Huddersfield Town wasn’t quite as it seemed after all. While many expected the bookmaker to simply reduce the size of their logo on the Terriers’ shirts ahead of the new season, they’ve actually gone one stage further – removing the logo […]

7 years ago

Morrison has signed with Sheffield United ahead of the 2019/20 season Ravel Morrison is a Premier League footballer again – something few would have envisaged at the turn of the year.  Over four years on from his last appearance in England’s top flight, he was still a Lazio player in January, despite not playing for […]

7 years ago

There are 15 countries to get Croatia became the 15th club to appear in a World Cup final when they lost to France in 2018. Now, we want to see if you can remember the other 13 nations to have made it all the way to the biggest game in sport. To be clear, you […]

7 years ago