Dispatches From A Football Sofa | Tag Archive

Tag Archives | Gazza

Our Friends In The North: The Rise And Rise Of Newcastle United

April 1, 2012 · Comments ( 6 )

Note: This Dispatch trades in lazy stereotypes. Newcastle fans, read to the end.

On a trip up to Edinburgh on the East Coast Main Line last August, one of the stops en route was Newcastle. As the train approached the city, the Tyne Bridge emerged with industrial majesty from the sunny haze of the train’s window and I inexplicably felt a slight shiver of awe. Almost immediately, as we waited to pull away from the station, we were greeted with the sight of a man in a Newcastle home shirt banging on one of the station platform’s vending machines uttering barely decipherable curses, having lost his money whilst trying to stay steady on his feet.

Anyone For Tennis? by Nancy Alsop

November 30, 2011 · Comments ( 3 )

Believe it or not, but there are some people out there who don’t actually like football. I repeat, there are people who don’t like football. Nancy Alsop is here to make the case for the non-believer. Tut.

Boys Do Cry by Felicity Cousins

November 16, 2011 · Comments ( 2 )

“Whatever happened to Gary Cooper, the strong silent type?” lamented Tony Soprano. Well, ever since Gazza cried, the floodgates opened for one and all. Felicity Cousins ponders why emotions run high when twenty-two “little boys” take to the field.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Harry Redknapp…

October 30, 2011 · Comments ( 5 )

…and other tales of footballing niceness.

If I were to ask you what your favourite biscuit was, you’d probably tell me it was a chocolate digestive or a Jammy Dodger. Maybe even a custard cream. For the record, I’m particularly partial to a bourbon myself. I’d hazard a guess that a ‘Nice’ biscuit would rarely feature. That’s a shame. When I’m walking down the supermarket aisle deciding upon which particular tea-break treat I fancy, I tend to overlook the sugar-coated coconut biscuit but when on occasion I do partake, I often find that a ‘Nice’ biscuit is, well, nice.

The 2010/11 Dispatches

June 1, 2011 · Comments ( 0 )

August:

September:

October:

Home Is Where The Hart Is

February 13, 2011 · Comments ( 6 )

The most enduring stories are those that centre upon the quest of their protagonists to find their way home. From Homer’s Odyssey to Homer’s precarious drive in the opening credits of The Simpsons, we are continually entranced and beguiled by the adventures of characters who crave nothing other than safe passage and security from the raging winds of the world beyond. Tony Soprano wheels across the surrounding New Jersey environs after another day of murder, betrayal and therapy and wants for nothing other than one of Carmela’s leftover gabagool and a reclining seat in front of the History Channel whilst Dorothy intones repeatedly that “there’s no place like home” when the transparent nature of the realities of Oz become apparent.

Read more on Home Is Where The Hart Is…

The Certainty Of Chance

January 2, 2011 · Comments ( 2 )

For many of us, a new year brings with it the promise of new beginnings. Fresh challenges are there to be overcome. Old habits are consigned to the receding memory of the year that has gone as we try to re-mould and re-shape our personalities and foibles in the hope that the coming year will make us better people in some capacity. It just so happens that this particular year ends in a ‘one’. Fans of Tottenham Hotspur are particularly well-versed in the significance of that number and over the coming months, commentators and pundits will take every available opportunity to remind us all that whenever the year ends in a one, ‘it’s lucky for Spurs’. Watch out everybody, I can already hear the conversation taking place as Chas gives Dave a ring and says “Let’s get the band back together, for old time’s sake”.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Joey?

November 14, 2010 · Comments ( 1 )

Much of my working week is spent thinking about and working out the narrative for Sunday’s Dispatch. This obviously has a detrimental effect on my career path and bores my closest ones intensely as I probe for and mull over ideas ad nauseum but such is the proverbial albatross for a football obsessive.

Schoolboy’s Own Stuff

October 17, 2010 · Comments ( 6 )

My heart stops every time I hear the phrase on the news: “Ex-England star, Paul Gascoigne…”. It happened again last Monday with the reports that Gazza had been arrested once again for driving over the limit. It was an almost throwaway remark by the newsreader, coming as it did after the ongoing farce that Liverpool’s protracted sale has become and the increasingly frosty atmosphere that has been descending upon Old Trafford as Sir Alex and the wayward Wayne Rooney ratchet up their levels of public relations brinkmanship. Gazza being drunk. Again. It’s become such a regular occurrence that whenever it happens, the public raises its collective eyebrows and dismisses it as yet another self-destructive incident in the life of a ‘national treasure’ who has been sadly spiralling into a vortex of self-destruction for nigh-on two decades now. He’s newsworthy but only in the sense that we feel that he deserves an honorary mention simply because we feel we owe it to him for all the years past.

League of Faith

August 29, 2010 · Comments ( 0 )

The doom merchants were quick off the mark after Tottenham’s inability to put Wigan to the sword at White Hart Lane yesterday. “How can a team that has qualified for the Champions League hope to compete on four fronts if they cannot win ugly on a regular basis?” was the tone of many pundits and commentators. However, having invested the best part of a quarter of a century into supporting this team, I like many other Spurs fans I’m sure, probably knew that such a slip-up was inevitable. Spurs have never been a club that do it the easy way and a return of one win, one draw and one defeat in our opening three league matches suggests that they will continue to enthrall and infuriate loyalists in much the same manner that they have done by and large since the club’s heyday in the early 1960s.