PLANET SOCCER:DID anyone watch ITV's live coverage last week of Leeds' FA Cup defeat by Histon? No? Well, it went fine, apart from Leeds fans getting hold of a pitch-side microphone during the game and singing "ITV are ****ing s**t" in to it.
And then, as the Daily Mailput it, "ITV bosses were left red-faced after a midday football match turned the airwaves blue and resulted in full-frontal nudity being broadcast to the nation". Yes, live shots from the dressingroom picked out a celebrating and very stark naked Histon player.
Leeds chairman Ken Bates (pictured) paid tribute to ITV's efforts. "The coverage was absolutely dreadful and amateurish. On the technical side, nobody had the wit to wipe the lenses clean of the rain, it was like watching through a fish pond. I think the people who run Strictly Come Dancingprobably did it rather than anybody to do with football."
A success, then.
Etherington didn't bet on this
WEST Ham United winger Matthew Etherington has, it seems, being making good progress since revealing last year that he had a serious gambling problem, one that resulted in him needing counselling at Tony Adams' Sporting Chance Clinic.
The club stood by the player, advancing him €350,000 in wages to help pay off a reported debt of €930,000, which, it was claimed, led to Etherington receiving death threats.
In, eh, unrelated news West Ham have announced that they have found a shirt sponsor to replace the collapsed travel firm XL: online sports bookmakers SBOBET. Their logo will appear on first team shirts, including the one, we're assuming, worn by Etherington.
Underachieving Cassano says it like it is
HAVING read extracts from Antonio Cassano's autobiography we're beginning to see him as the Bart "underachiever and proud of it" Simpson of world football.
"The problem is that we live in a culture obsessed with success," he writes. "We fool ourselves into thinking we have to do our best and make sacrifices to succeed. But why? Trophies come and go. Once you've retired, it will all be gone, they'll just be numbers in an almanac, nobody will remember you or what you've won.
"At best, I gave 50 per cent. Maybe a tiny bit more in the good years. But so what? Thanks to my talent, I live like a king, I play football and I have a great time. If I had wanted to give 100 per cent, I would have stayed at Real Madrid, sacrificed lots of things, done my very best and I probably would have succeeded. Instead, I'm here at Sampdoria and I love it."
True, an appalling role model, but hard not to love.
Anderson has too much to say
"I am thinking about playing in Italy. My dream is to be coached by Mourinho. Italian football is the best in the world and the most intelligent. Every player wants to play in Serie A, because Italians are the masters of football. I really like Inter."
- Manchester United's Anderson, unaware, perhaps, that interviews with Italian newspapers can make their way back to the manager's office at Old Trafford.
Quotes of the week
"If people said I was going to marry Elle MacPherson would it mean it was going to happen? Of course not, but there is more chance of that happening than of Phil (Brown) becoming Sunderland manager."
- Hull City chairman Paul Duffen dismissing his chances of marrying a supermodel or of his manager taking over at Sunderland.
"We were having lunch together on Thursday when someone phoned me to claim Phil was in Sunderland. I told them that was strange because I was looking at him."
- Duffen again.
"Without being derogatory, West Ham are a second-rate club . . . once I have proved myself in a team such as this, I can hope to make the step up to another club."
- If West Ham United defender Herita Ilunga, on loan from French Ligue 1 side Toulouse, kisses his badge any day soon he may well need a police escort from the ground.
"In every stadium people shout things at me like 'you gypsy, go and become a builder'. However, I don't take any offence.
- Romanian Cristian Chivu (Inter Milan), evidently a forgiving and chilled out chap.
"It was like playing against Ronaldinho on the Playstation - he did the exact same run-up, it was very strange."
- Palermo goalkeeper Marco Amelia explaining how he managed to save the Brazilian's first-half penalty last week.
"I accept people's criticism, but I don't share their opinions. Even the strongest men in the world - including legends such as Hercules - fall over at times. And I am part of this group."
- Go on, guess: Lee Carsley or Cristiano Ronaldo?
"Our defence was a wall of real men facing Valencia's homosexuals."
- Rosenborg's Alejandro Lago's considered analysis of their recent Champions League game against the Spaniards.
"I made a speech before a game at Middlesbrough in the dressingroom, and after I had finished John Terry said: 'Now you are a man.' If people like John Terry and Frank Lampard say I am now a man, I am a man."
- Chelsea's John Obi Mikel - he's the man.
