Full Time: The Secret Life Of Tony Cascarino as told to Paul Kimmage (Scribner 2000)

When I close my eyes and think of Glenn Hoddle, two images spring to mind. The first is of Hoddle the player, and that incredible goal for Spurs, when he raced with the ball to the edge of the Watford box and chipped the goalkeeper when everyone expected him to cross. The second is of Hoddle the manager, on the morning Paul Elliott arrived in our dressing room wearing an immaculate leather trenchcoat and stood there, stunned, as Hoddle the manager raced to the 'cover' of a bin in the corner and started shooting him with imaginary bullets — 'Pshhhh', 'Pshhhh' — like a five-year-old with a cowboy pistol set. What Paul didn't realize was that Glenn was trying to be funny, and when Glenn tried to be funny it was time pass around the laughing gas because he was probably the unfunniest man I have ever known, He was also completely besotted with himself.

Plugging the gap at the back

Found out about the Sheffield Utd YouTube clip via the Observer Sports Monthly, which is celebrating its 100th issue today.

Totally understandable that the magazine is in a self-congratulatory mood in its current issue but it doesn't get away from the fact that I never felt the urge to read any of its issues from cover to cover. It will always remain a magazine that I can dip in and out of, and the current issue is no exception

One of better pieces in this issue is Matt Tench looking back at the magazine's early beginnings, but the real cream is the link to a couple of old features from the OSM's vaults:

Tony Cascarino laid bare is a funny and candid excerpt from Cascarino's 2000 autobiography, 'The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino'. I think it's the most close to the bone writings I've seen from a footballer since I read Eammon Dunphy's 'Only A Game?' about ten years back. I guess it's the rawness of the book that got the book its plaudits but I its the humour that I liked:

"Bernie Slaven, another great character from my Ireland years, used to call his dog every night. I'd be sitting in the bed alongside and Bernie would be howling like Lassie into the phone 'Woof, woof, aru, aru, woof!' He'd be kissing the receiver and lavishing affection - 'Hello, lovey dovey' - on a dog! The first time it happened, I nearly wet myself and told him he was completely mad. Bernie, being Bernie, just laughed."

Despite the pigs ear that he made of his career at Celtic, I always had a soft spot for Cascarino after he described Glenn Hoddle - in the same book - as the unfunniest person he's ever met in his life.

Roy Keane and that picture piece by Sean O'Hagan deserves kudos if for no other reason that Keane disparages Teddy Sheringham without a second glance back. And, no, the Sean O'Hagan who wrote the piece is not the same Sean O'Hagan who used to be the guitarist and songwriter in Microdisney. I was labouring under that illusion for years. Don't attribute it to my ignorance, and see it more as an understandable mistake to on my part in light of the high intelligence of Microdisney. Why shouldn't its band members write articles? I wish I felt the same way about old commotioning bluebell, Lawrence Donegan, but his articles in the Sports pages of the Guardian invariably annoy the hell out of me.

PS - In the same segment, there's also an old article from Nick Hornby where he interviews and profiles Tony Adams. I would provide the link if I thought for a second that Tony Adams was in anyway an interesting character. His one redeeming feature is that he isn't John Terry.