Tag Archives: football

Jul 20 2026
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A complete shit-show

In the end, you have to say that FIFA got the World Cup final they deserved. After pooling their collective wisdom, they somehow managed to concoct an event that was a complete shit-show in both the figurative and literal sense of the word.

This isn’t bitterness talking, much, but Argentina should never have been allowed to make that final. Their awful brand of sportsmanship was enabled by officials throughout the tournament to facilitate the progress of a few ageing stars that really needed no help anyway, and what the billions of football fans around the world got served as a result of this was a big stinking pile of garbage.

And that that was just the half time entertainment! (Have I Got News For You can have that one for free.)

It was hard to fathom — a bit like the dream I had just a few nights ago, in which I was told the actor who plays Ian Beale in EastEnders speaks with a Northern Irish accent in real life. So he does. He doesn’t, of course, which came as a disappointment when I double-checked his Wikipedia page the next morning, just to make sure.

Honestly, I was so angry at Argentina’s anti-football approach that I actually found myself willing them to score a late equaliser to take the match to penalties, just so they’d be able to return some of the entertainment they’d stolen from us.

Can you imagine a world in which that happened, and Argentina won the shoot-out? It would’ve justified their whole approach even further and sent ripples around Trump’s ever expanding waste line. As a warmongering convicted felon with no morals whatsoever, I’m sure he’d have loved their dirty underhand and manipulative tactics while claiming ownership of an overseas territory in a post-match victory banner.

In the end, though, Spain won and Trump got served a load of rubbish for the one match he actually managed to attend, which felt very apt.

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Jul 17 2026
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Argy-bargy!

Oh, England! Thomas’s team tanked once he’d brought off James and Gordon and we simply ran out of steam. If they make a documentary about this match to stir the emotions of England fans ahead of the next major football tournament, they should get Ringo Starr to narrate it.

I was so happy with my Thomas the Tank Engine gag there that I decided to use it in my fortnightly Cod Almighty diary too. I don’t let anything go to waste.

If the first half was scrappy then the second half was messy. (You won’t believe how much time I wasted thinking about whether I should’ve written that as ‘messy’ or ‘Messi’. I think the gag was obvious enough, but it’s one those that works better said than written. You say tomato, I say tomato. See? Rubbish.)

I said from the outset that Argentina would win the World Cup. I didn’t quite know how much assistance they’d be getting from FIFA when I said it, but now that we’ve all witnessed the events of the past six weeks with our own eyes it’s hard to bet against them in the final — despite the way Spain made France look incredibly ordinary in the other semi-final.

There were tears at full time after our poor lad had got very excited about the prospect of England winning a World Cup. In his relatively short existence on this planet he’d never known England fail. We’d topped our group, we’d beaten Doctor Congo, we’d defeated Mexico, we’d stopped Haaland, and we were supposed to have knocked out Argentina and shrugged off the Spanish in the final to lift the golden trophy.

And for so long it looked like everything was going to plan. We’d got our noses in front, and with just five minutes (and injury time) to go, we had one foot in the final.

So to lose the match and not even take it into extra time was a shock to the system. Maybe it wasn’t a shock to my system, because I could see the way we were playing, but for an eight-year-old with unchecked exuberance it was cruel to basically be given something and then have it snatched away with no chance of getting it back.

The consolation to all of this is that we have season tickets at Grimsby Town. Onwards and upwards!

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Jul 14 2026
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You must be choking!

When I began this blog a couple of months ago I didn’t intend for so much of it to be about football, but since England have gone deep into the World Cup it’s been impossible to ignore.

Our quarter final match against Norway had a much friendlier kick-off time. Pre-child, I used to spend non-work nights drinking Tesco own brand energy drinks watching films and playing on Football Manager into the small hours, so yes, staying up late on a Saturday night was (and still is) child’s play for me!

Sadly, swallowing pills isn’t. I’ve always struggled on that score. At full time, I decided to use the pause in play before extra time began to take a couple of vitamin supplements. The first one went down fine (as it usually does) but it’s the second one that always gives me grief, and this one nearly ended me.

Well, it didn’t. But my god, did it wedge itself! I retched a few times as it tried to decide whether it wanted to go up or down. My wife, being as sharp as she is, immediately knew what to do and offered me advice — in this case, it was to eat some bread. So, while the England match (and my life) hung in the balance, I chewed down a slice of white bread, even though I wasn’t hungry for it. Now that’s the sort of length I’ll go to, to make sure I stay alive!

It was hard to concentrate on the football when I was focusing on my breathing and swallowing. The pill must have slid past the sticking point, or dissolved, eventually, but it left its mark (a sensation that made it feel like it was basically still there). When it comes to high-pressure sporting occasions, I’ve always taken the term ‘chokers’ to be figurative, but in my case it was very literal. But hey, I survived! And so you get to read this, you lucky thing.

I thought Norway played well and I don’t mind admitting we probably benefitted from some strokes of fortune (that said, I thought our penalty should’ve stood), so that must have been a bitter pill for Norway to swallow, or choke on.

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Jul 06 2026
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The late, late, late, late, late show in Mexico

I’m beginning to believe that I am half human, half owl. As the great Martin Clunes once said: Sleep is for sleepy people. Let’s get a kebab and go to a disco!

I’d like to demand that all England matches kick off in the middle of the night if that Mexico game was anything to go by, but FIFA and its bald-headed Bond villain leader only take direction from deranged incontinent old men in nappies these days. I just don’t have that sort of weight (literally) or a Micky Mouse peace prize to throw behind my demands.

What a cracker of a match it was! I needed the loo midway through the first half and it was Harry Kane’s squeaky post-match interview almost two hours later that made me realise I hadn’t gone in all that time. So, not only was it a victory for the England team, it was also a victory for my bladder (which is another thing me and Trump don’t have in common). What an outstanding performance all round!

For any young kids reading this, it was a masterclass in how to pace an evening with no sleep. Sure, you all think you can make it through the night, but there’s usually a moment when tiredness smacks you in the face like you’re Chris Rock at an awards ceremony. I wasn’t going to let that happen because I had a can of Monster (and Will Smith wasn’t invited).

I need no invitation to stay up late. On any other night I probably would’ve gone to bed as soon as I’d finished watching Haaland beat Brazil 2-1, but on this occasion the night was still young. I was ready for England’s match at 1am (although I watched a couple of episodes of Mid Morning Matters on iPlayer when I realised I had an extra hour to kill).

Never before had I stayed up to watch an England match in the middle of the night. I remember getting up early to watch England draw 0-0 against Nigeria at 6am in the 2002 World Cup. That didn’t feel rewarding, but this did.

There was magic in the air — and I’m not talking about the ghost of Paul Daniels, which I’m convinced has been stalking me since I shared the stage with his son briefly in a Christmas panto back in 2023. The game delivered drama, and then some. You couldn’t catch your breath. There were no lulls in the action to allow for any co-commentators to talk about the time their cat jumped into the back of a postal van, went feral, and had to see out its days living with relatives in Preston.

England might get knocked out in the quarter final because there’s Norway Haaland won’t score against us (lovely gag there), and if they don’t get us then Argentina will in the semis. The smart money’s on Argentina, because that’s where FIFA’s money is.

But whatever happens next, I can always look back on the Mexico match with fondness, and remember the night I never went to bed. I shouldn’t feel this sprightly on just a two-hour nap this morning!

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Jul 01 2026
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Omens

Doctor Congo certainly drank their Um Bongo tonight! I wonder if it ever was drunk in the Congo, like the 1980’s ad claimed. A quick search online tells me it was originally created in Cumbria, which isn’t quite as exotic.

It was a good game to watch alongside my son because I don’t think it would’ve held his interest had we run away as comfortable 3-0 winners. The fact that we made a meal of it worked to our advantage, so I’d like to thank Thomas the Tank Tuchel for that. England fans like nothing more than to have something to moan about, even in victory, so he and the team delivered the perfect performance.

One of my work colleagues is Mexican, but she’s so nice it’s hard to create even a slither of faux rivalry. I’d say the omens don’t look good for her, though, based on the fact that three close co-workers of mine are Man United fans, and my line manager at the time was a Sheffield Wednesday fan, and both were beaten by my beloved Grimsby Town earlier in the season. I’m on a roll.

As is Reuben. We forgot to ask him to predict the outcome of the Ghana and Panama matches, but we remembered for this one and, naturally, he chose England. He’s a cat that knows things. Two wins out of two for him! And one win out of one for me on the betting. I’m tempted not to bet ever again, so I can dine out on my 12/1 victory (which, ironically, were the odds of Grimsby knocking Man United out of the League Cup back in August). I hope we never play Man United again. We’re four unbeaten against them — an undefeated run that stretches back 80 years.

Go back 40 years and that’s when England got knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina in the very stadium we’ll be taking on Mexico on Sunday night. Suddenly the omens don’t look so good for us. I think the England players will need to have their Weetabix for this one.

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Jun 29 2026
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Panamanian clairvoyance

We forgot to ask Reuben to make his pre-match England prediction, but it looks as if I’ve done him out of a job! I’ll break the bad news to him later, when he wakes up from his eight-hour nap.

He shouldn’t worry too much anyway because my £13.16 winnings will only go towards the cost of his insurance cover for the next year anyway, which will amount to something like nine days. He’s a 16-year-old cat with thyroid cancer on his medical history, along with the vets’ note (and I quote): “This cat is a complete stress head.” I know this for a fact because I saw it on the screen when the vet left the room to get some medication, so he’s on the expensive end of the affordability spectrum these days.

I had a very clear idea of how England’s final group match against Panama would go: we’d be slow and lethargic in the first half, so that enough reactionary fans would have a meltdown at half time when it would still be goalless. Then England would probably grab a couple of goals in the second half to win the game — enough for everyone to be happy yet still have some suppressed angst against Tuchel and some of the players in the bank to be withdrawn at a later date.

It’s not often one of my visions plays out as accurately as this, so it spooked me more than delighted me. Don’t get me wrong, there was some delight in there (I’m not an emotionless moron, don’t listen to Reuben), but I found myself encouraging England players to fluff their shots from 67 minutes onwards, which of course isn’t in the spirit of someone who currently has two England flags fluttering from his upstairs windows.

Could this be our year? The other lucid vision I had for this World Cup was that Argentina would win it, so instinctively I don’t think so. Sixty-four years of hurt is the likely lyric for when we compete in Spain, Portugal and Morocco in 2030 — although, as my wife pointed out, the original lyric of ‘Thirty years of hurt’ isn’t particularly accurate, because what exactly was hurting between 1966 and 1970? The first four of those thirty years Baddiel and Skinner sang about would’ve been quite joyous, I’d have imagined.

Anyway, if I’d lumped on England to beat Panama 2-0 with more than a free £1 bet I’d perhaps know how it feels to be rich. Instead, this is how it feels to be Rich.

Ba-dum-tssh! I only went and involved the title in the article, didn’t I?! What an effort. See, I can write when I really want to!

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Jun 23 2026
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Melting

This sea turtle knew what was coming in the England v Ghana match tonight. My son has a way with facial expressions when it comes to art, and his art has a way of speaking about cultural events that are yet to occur, like a prophecy, or a Mystic Meg for the Among Us generation.

We forgot to force Reuben to predict the outcome of the match before kick-off. He’d say it’s unfair of us to ask him to do anything, ever, but it felt particularly unfair to ask him to walk from the living room the kitchen in this heat just to eat a few Dreamies off a pair of flash cards.

He later melted into the carpet once the trajectory of the match had become clear. My son once described Reuben as Ooblek, a non-Newtonian fluid suspension (Googled that) where he’s neither solid or liquid… but also both at the same time.

My parents left for Crete last week, yet it’s actually hotter right here in Leeds. Looks like the temperatures are going to hold out at 30°C for three consecutive days, which no one wants, really. I was on a Zoom call earlier where we decided 24°C was the optimum temperature for summer. If someone could grant us 24°C every day between June and September I think we’d all be very happy, and the country’s infrastructure wouldn’t have to buckle and everyone could get a comfortable night’s sleep.

We could start a campaign: ‘Adore 24’. It could become a movement, we could go down in history! Not sure who we’re campaigning to (or against), and it has ‘man shouts at cloud’ vibes about it. Might need to think this through.

My son waltzed home yesterday from school, grabbed a blanket, jumped on the couch, fired up Animal Crossing on his Switch, and turned the tower fan off. He feels neither the heat nor the cold. Then he made his character roam the island while saying ‘seize the means of production’ to his fellow islanders. I was well underprepared to have a conversation about Marxism last night. I just wanted to watch the England match.

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Jun 20 2026
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Flags, inflatables and fifteen goals

Get your flags out for the lads! After my wife put them up, I foolishly opened the windows to let some air in (to be fair, it has been very warm recently) and one of the flags fluttered away. Like Reuben last night, who escaped out of the living room window, it didn’t get very far. Both flag and house cat are now back where they belong.

Reuben had had enough of our crap and stealthily sneaked out of the living room window we’d left ajar given the sultry conditions. He’s lucky I bothered to even look for him in the first place; I just happened to notice that he wasn’t in his regular spot when I came down from doing story time. I opened the front door, peered round the corner and there he was, sat looking into the long grass with an expression of incredulity having possibly seen the hedgehog that visits us each night walking round the place like he owns it (which he does).

It was absolute carnage this morning as our under-8s found themselves 6-0 down before they mounted a spirited comeback. Unfortunately, the damage was done early on, and so it’s possibly the only time I’ll use the word ‘respectable’ to describe a 9-6 defeat.

At one point I thought it was going to be telephone numbers, but after such a disastrous start our lads settled into it and kept chipping away at the deficit. I’d love to say it had something to do with my inspired team talks, but at each quarter break I was panicking trying to work out the logistics of giving each of our nine players an equal amount of game time, so I actually said very little to them.

I had flashbacks of our under-7 season when we got roundly trounced just about every week (once we lost 22-0). It did feel like it was going that way to begin with, but I like to look at this positively and say that, from the 13th minute onwards, we won today’s match 6-3. Let’s say the game was only the final 27 minutes, cos that’s the real quiz.

No one saw that result coming, not even Reuben (because I didn’t get him to predict it. Maybe I should’ve).

After taking our son play football in very humid conditions this morning, we then headed to Harewood House to take part in the annual inflatable 5k race. He fell asleep very quickly tonight!

Mercifully there was a breeze on a very warm day. Five kilometres is a remarkably long way when you haven’t properly exercised for years. Some of the inflatables that are dotted around the course are pretty easy to navigate, while others really sap the energy out of you. I’ve been carrying an injury to my left leg for the past three or four years and it hampered me more than it did when I previously ran the course.

Still, I got my medal! Another achievement to add to my CV.

Sweaty and achy, we fully deserved our evening meal at Miller & Carter, which my wife had thoughtfully booked in the week. It was a rare evening out for the three of us — which ended in the McDonald’s drive thru as we could get a McFlurry each for the same price as one dessert at the restaurant.

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Jun 17 2026
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Reuben for England!

He’s had his critics, but Reuben showed a lot of character tonight and stepped up to the plate (or the flash cards with Dreamies on them) and put in an excellent display of football predicting.

He came flying out of the traps early doors — so much so that he actually missed the treats altogether and walked right over them. But once he got his head in the game he was gobbling up the England treats first.

Well done, cat. As the last remaining knight of the templar said in that Indiana Jones movie, you chose… wisely. I’ve found that I say this quite a lot in my day-to-day life, where appropriate (obviously). I say it almost as much as Bob Peck’s ‘clever girl’ line in Jurassic Park, for when Daisy uses the litter tray instead of the area of floor just in front of it.

True, the consequence of Reuben getting not getting his prediction right wasn’t to age rapidly, turn into a nasty skeleton and then get kicked into the corner by Harrison Ford where he’d turn to dust and get blown away by a mysterious breeze, until only a Nazi pin badge remained. But still. You can’t take it away from him (whatever ‘it’ is).

Live TV is a dead duck. And who watches a dead duck? Not even its mother. It just flies off, depressed (there’s always room for a Partridge quote). One of the very few things I’ll watch live on TV is England matches. I can’t pause it and watch it on any sort of delay because Baxter’s dad — the guy who lives in the house opposite — is loud as hell. I always know when Leeds have scored, or missed a sitter, because of that sweary foghorn. Even watching the England game live tonight, he was somehow a second or two ahead of us, so he served as a slightly annoying early warning system until I thought to close the back door.

We don’t know actually know his name, by the way. All we know is that the dog is called Baxter, so he’s Baxter’s dad. I’d say that’s genetically improbable, but people like Coldplay and vote for Farage. You can’t trust people, Jeremy (Partridge and Peep Show? Only the best for my one reader!).

As for the England performance, it was very good. You could almost say it was exciting (which is ridiculous, really!). Scored four, could’ve had more. A little wobbly and uncertain in defence, but you can’t have everything. Reuben knows this. That’s why his cries for more Dreamies were in vain.

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Jun 08 2026
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Sleep reading

Saturday was gala day for Garforth Rangers. When an invited team dropped out late, we took the opportunity to split our team into two (the Vipers and the Raptors) so all the kids got loads of game time.

We wanted to better last year’s grand total of zero points, and I’m delighted to say we did just that. The Vipers and Raptors may have finished fifth and sixth respectively in a group of six, but both teams gave a good account of themselves — particularly against a team from the top division that didn’t enter the spirit of the day. It was like Man City sending their first team to a non-league cup competition.

Some friends popped back to ours afterwards and the kids played more football in the garden before the water pistols came out (it really wasn’t warm enough for such tomfoolery). They traded up gradually until they were carrying whole buckets out into the garden and were basically waterboarding each other.

With the grass suitably greased, more football took place and the conditions induced some appalling challenges from the kids.

Two years ago we got some guys to install a drainage system underneath the turf because it used to get waterlogged almost every time it rained. After Saturday’s artificial watering of the surface I’m now happy to write them a five-star review.

I was absolutely knackered by the end of the day. Basically, I fell asleep on the couch after our takeaway tea, and I think I fell asleep while my wife was saying a specific sentence because I remember hearing the start of it but not the end of it.

It was so weird. I fell asleep once while actually talking (which still gets a mention every now and again) and I’m pretty certain I fell asleep while reading aloud to my son a few days ago. I remember my eyes feeling very heavy as I struggled to see the words on the page, and then I said ‘Cheltenham’, which absolutely wasn’t in the book, and it woke me up.

I looked at my boy, he looked back at me, and neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then he asked me if that was what was written in the book.

I looked down and didn’t recognise the page I was on. I skipped back at least one whole page (a few hundred words) until I recognised something I knew I’d read. Was it possible I’d read a page while being asleep? How long was I reading while sleeping? Was ‘Cheltenham’ just the tip of the iceberg, or had I been mumbling some incoherent nonsense before it? It was a strange sensation.

No idea why I said ‘Cheltenham’, either.

I wouldn’t want Jill Murphy, the author of the book I fell asleep while reading, to read anything into this — not that she can, in a material sense anyway, as she died in 2021. She may choose to haunt me in my dreams (possibly the dreams I have when I fall asleep reading one of her books. That would be poetic).

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