By Rod de Lisle Yesterday’s hero, today’s villain. Nothing is predictable in the mad world of English football. Winning the Premiership wasn’t enough to secure Claudio Raneiri a stay of execution after a run of terrible results this season. So he’s on his bike, only a week or two after […]
“i do watch all the overseas leagues i never watch the A league which is a pity, but im not going to watch crap” The above comment (as you can probably tell by the grammar) was made on the ITBOTN Facebook page, following my rant about the poor turnout for […]
Dear the FA, I recently stumbled across your document, Considerations for Increasing Participation in Women and Girls Football whilst scrolling through my Twitter feed. At a glance, I thought it was a joke. It certainly reads like a joke, so I stand by my first impression. Unfortunately, upon closer investigation […]
I recently read an article by the BBC that raised an interesting point. It’s an issue that I had noticed and thought about briefly but had never taken the time to consider my own opinion on. Once I read the article, however, the debate intrigued me more and more, especially as […]
Watching my first major tournament from a mind-bending eleven hours ahead of UK time has been fraught with problems. Stay awake until 1am or sleep early. Get up at 4am, or just catch the 7am game. Beer for breakfast or coffee at midnight. Watching the highlights reels online the next […]
By Rod de Lisle So Euro stuff is all over the news. Yes, the footie, but also this Brexit thingie. Here in New Zealand we are rather removed from the whole side show but it seems that roughly 53% of the good people of the UK -feat. England- are deciding […]
We qualified! WE QUALIFIED! We got past the group stages and we don’t have to play Italy or Germany next. Already things are better than 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014! If Hungary beat Portugal, then things will be better than 2004 and 2006 because we won’t have to play them […]
It’s been four years since Roy Hodgson announced his first England squad as manager. In football terms, that’s an eternity. When you consider that 58 of the 92 English football league clubs changed manager in the 2015 – 16 season, four years is infinity for a manager. I checked back […]
By Rod de Lisle In motor racing terms the Leicester Premiership win would be like a Ford Mondeo winning the Monaco Grand Prix. Of course company reps car wouldn’t make the starting line, but if they did, there might be the odd 5000/1 punt made, based only on the likelihood […]
By Rod de Lisle Picture a grey rainy day in a Waikato farm barn after a cross country race with the Tokoroa Track club as we stood watching a tiny grainy telly. I was 11ish and a bit fat. I hadn’t yet started playing soccer (football was rugger). We were […]
