El Diego by Diego Armando Maradona (Yellow Jersey Press 2005)

Brazil have sold the world this idea that they’re the only ones capable of the jogo bonito, of playing beautifully ... bollocks! We can also do the jogo bonito, we just don’t know how to sell it. Brazilians always think everything is tudo hem, tudo legal and they’re all mellow, whereas for us when it’s not tudo bem it’s not cool and fuck the lot of them. We stop people short and knock them out one by one. That’s how we are and I don’t have a problem with that. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Brazilian way of life, I like them, but in football, I want to beat them to the death. They’re My Rivals, with capital letters.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 03

A song that reminds you of summertime.

 If it's one particular summertime, it has to be New Order's 'World in Motion'. Not the greatest summertime song - hi Jazzy Jeff and the other one, that's on you - but if you were a young bloke into football and music in England in the summer of 1990, this was THE song for the obvious reasons. And if you were Scottish in England in the summer of 1990, it was a real love/hate song:

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.

One Night In Turin (2010)

Separated at birth?

". . . Otherwise we would be like the SPGB standing on the sidelines for a 100+ years saying 'abolish money' and wondering why folk walk on by slightly bemused . . . "

Thus spake a Millie cadre over at Urban 75 only the other day.

He was half right. According to next month's Socialist Standard front cover, what we actually do from the sidelines is scream and shout 'IT'S ALIVE! We have to kill money.'

Is it just me or does Godzilla's next nemesis on a street near you look like a distant relative of 'Ciao', the 1990 World Cup mascot?

Click on both pics to get the full flavour of what I'm wittering on about.

The Van by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1991)

"Jimmy Sr looked carefully to make sure that he'd seen it right. The net was shaking, and O'Leary was covered in Irishmen. He wanted to see it again though. Maybe they were all beating the shite out of O'Leary for missing. No, though; he'd scored. Ireland were through to the quarter-finals and Jimmy Sr started crying."