Away from home You have, we're sure, heard by now that Keith O'Neill, currently recovering from a broken left leg and a fractured right foot, broke his hand while attempting to "test his strength" by hitting a punchball at a charity event.
Considering his injury record we reckoned this tale fell snuggly in to the "you couldn't make it up" category, a view evidently shared by a Coventry City supporter on one of the club's Internet messageboards. On being told of the punchball incident, "Harpo" replied: "Ha, ha - good one. Seriously, when is he due back?"
It was left to Mark66 to explain that he hadn't, in fact, made it up. Harpo's head is still buried in his hands, we suspect.
A big welcome back to Stephen Reid who played his first game of the season for Millwall on Saturday, coming on a sub - and scoring - in the draw against Leicester, and hearty congratulations to Shay Given and Andy O'Brien for playing their part in Newcastle's improbable progress to the second phase of the Champions League.
Well done, too, to Manchester City's Richard Dunne for staying on the straight and narrow after his recent disciplinary hic-cup. "What do I do with myself at nights now? I play Blockbusters," he told us last week. Wild thing.
Aldo gets lost in the Alps
Conor Doyle was one of several emailers to contact us last week (a big hello too to, em, Skippy and Big Mac) about John Aldridge's analysis of Liverpool's Champions' League game against Basle on TV3, during which he hinted that he might just be geographically challenged. Yes, they have big mountains in Switzerland, but: "at 3-0 down I can't see Liverpool coming back, they've given themselves a mountain to climb, in fact they have to climb Everest, which is just around the corner from here".
Quotes of the week
"David Seaman has taken a lot of stick but it's all gone over his head."
- Said with a straight face by a Sky Sports reporter.
"I've got the greatest respect for you, but I wish you had retired at the end of last season. This season you have come out wearing Rock of Gibraltar's blinkers. You need to go back to the stable, have a clear-out and start with the biggest carthorse of them all - Juan Sebastian Veron."
- A Manchester United supporter addressing Alex Ferguson at the club's a.g.m. last week.
"I'm not even responding to that. He's an idiot."
- Ferguson replies, despite his best intentions.
"Feyenoord have got a lot of pace up front - they're capable of exposing themselves."
- Barry Venison, at it again (Dangerhere.com).
Reporter: "Is Steven Gerrard a 'listener'?"
Gerard Houllier: "Put it this way, he must be a good reader."
- We'll take that as a no, then.
A bit sleepy?
The good folk at Dangerhere.com have been regular suppliers of footballing yarns and quotes of a gem-like nature since they took up residence on the Internet but, we ask them, surely this snippet from TV3's Ireland AM, that they featured last week, can't be true. Can it? Alan Hughes: "An English footballer has tested positive for drugs." Aidan Cooney: "Nandrolone." Hughes: "Oh, have they named him?"
What's in a name?
The surname of all 11 members of the Sikh Hunter New Boys, the current leaders of Division Eight of the Birmingham Amateur Football Alliance? Singh. "It makes writing the team sheet easy, you just put down one name and then ditto the rest," the manager told the London Independent last week. His name? Nick Singh. His assistant? Shangara Singh. Those websites that headlined this story "you only Singh when you're winning" should be closed down.
More quotes of the week
"Not all footballers are ignorant, there are also many that are intelligent, like me."
- Paolo Di "Bashful" Canio.
"Its a good thing we're watching this game in widescreen."
- Eamon Dunphy, on spotting Celtic's John Hartson fill the screen on Thursday night (thank you Warren Phelan).
"I was sent off for pushing him (Alan Shearer) - but if you're going to get sent off, you might as well punch him properly. It's the same punishment. You might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb."
- Roy? Enough.
Sky News presenter: "So, let's have a look at the Champions League odds. Where are Liverpool? They don't seem to be there."
Another Sky News presenter: "No, they were knocked out last night."
Sky News presenter: "Oh." With apologies to our Liverpool- supporting friends (Football 365).
"It's all over, it's 0-0, which means both teams have ended up with a point."
- Sky's Alan Parry at the end of yesterday's Liverpool v Sunderland game. Thanks for that, Alan.
Tongue in cheek ban
For those who oft remark that there isn't enough love in football, only ill will, this news from Holland will only inflict further distress. An amateur player was sent off during a game in Hengelo last month and has just been punished by the Dutch soccer association for "inappropriate behaviour" - to the tune of an eight-match ban. His crime? When the ref gave him his second yellow card of the game "he took him by the head and kissed him on the mouth", as spokesman Joris Gieske put it. Cripes, if he'd headbutted him he'd probably have got three games less.
After all, it's only a game
Hats off to Portsmouth's Rory Allen for getting his priorities right and deciding that a tan, a few beers and a bit of craic are worth considerably more than a £3,000-a-week contract. The 25-year-old handed in a letter of resignation, with eight months of his contract to run, to the club last week and is on his way to Australia to join up with England's Barmy Army to see The Ashes.
"He just said he didn't want to play football any more, it's quite extraordinary - I've never heard of anything like it during my time in football," said Portsmouth's chief executive Peter Storrie. "We will be watching the television to see if he's out in Australia. To say the conduct is bewildering is an understatement." Good man Rory, party on.
There's a catch
For the benefit of those Leeds United supporters who missed Mihir Bose's exclusive in the Daily Telegraph last week, let's just repeat the details of the Rio Ferdinand transfer again: the fee for the defender was, in fact, "only" £26 million - for it to reach the £30 million mark Manchester United must win the treble (Champions League, Premiership and FA Cup) twice in the next five years. Forecast: when Leeds sell Alan Smith to United in January the fee will be a year's supply of tea-bags, with another £25 million due if Juan Sebastian Veron strings two good passes together, if Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane are appointed joint managers of Celtic and if a pig is spotted fluttering past the window of the Leeds United employee who comes up with these contract clauses.
