Not the liveliest of weekends for those Irish football folk who ply their trade in foreign parts, but having tipped Sean Thornton for greatness of a quite enormous magnitude at the start of the season we were, at least, quite relieved to see him finally being given his Sunderland debut against Bolton in the FA Cup, swiftly followed by his first Premiership appearance against Everton on Saturday.
Away from home
True, the emergence of his Drogheda-born peroxide hair on the English football front took about five months longer than we anticipated, after his move from Tranmere, but remember: you're dealing with the red-hot-tipsters who thought that Exeter City's Sean Devine (circa 1998) would be the new Marco Van Basten and that David Connolly (1996-ish) had a touch of the Gerd Mullers about him. Less of your chortling.
Michael Reddy is another of the startlingly large Sunderland contingent whose careers we effectively banjaxed by our swooning at his early form, but we were well pleased to see him score for York City (where he's on loan) on Saturday, even if we thought he'd be banging them in for Barcelona at this stage.
We live and learn, though. Not least because another player we jinxed, John McGrath (Richie Foran numbers amongst his former Belvedere team-mates), did his bit to help Dagenham and Redbridge advance in the FA Cup last week when they beat Plymouth.
McGrath, who calls Monagea Strand, Limerick, home, is on loan at the non-league club from Aston Villa - where Oyvind Leonhardsen is currently getting a game. We have only two words: ah lads.
Linesman slips up
It's a rare thing for a linesman to elicit any sympathy from us, but we did feel for Wagih Ahmed who had an unfortunate time of it during Zamalek's 3-1 win at Egyptian champions Ismailia last week. According to the Daily Record, the match was held up for a few minutes while officials tried to retrieve Ahmed from the open sewer he fell into after tripping over a loose man-hole cover. "The red-faced official, with only his pride hurt, needed help to be pulled out," said the paper, adding that upon noting Ahmed's location "the supporters stampeded to use the loos". Jeez.
Quotes of the week
Question: "Is there Life on Mars?"
Answer: "I am not sure about it, there might be, there might not be. I am not saying there definitely isn't, but I am not saying there definitely is. There could be, I'm not sure."
- Barnet's Danny "let me get back to you on that one" Naisbitt (London Evening Standard).
"I believe God has plans for me. If he brought me to Coventry on loan it was for a good reason. God has given me this challenge and must think it's best for me. I have to accept that and do my best for me - and for God."
- Dundee's Juan Sara on his loan move to Coventry, brought about by divine intervention
"There is a fine line between winning and losing. Imagine that we had taken just six more points - then we would be second. If we had got 15 points then we would be first."
- Gerard Houllier. Ifs, Nicky Butts and maybes.
"I'm sick of people telling me to relax, they can stick my heart up their arses."
- Atletico Madrid owner Jesus Gil (complete with recently installed pacemaker).
"As one door closes, another one shuts."
- Two words: "Howard" and "Wilkinson".
Sligo on the attack
Last week we rashly and recklessly alleged that Sunderland youngster Mark Rossiter hailed from Galway, when, in fact, he has Made in Sligo printed on his soul. Patsy, another Sligo man, put us to rights, in rather splendid fashion. "How could you do this to us? We know that there is a lot of sorrow in Galway at the fact that 90 trees are to be removed from Eyre Square and, only today, speculation is growing that Padraig O Conaire is to be taken out of his natural habitat - but does that give you an excuse to transport Sligo's own Mark Rossiter south and call him a Galwegian? No, we say.
"And we say further: we will fight them on the beaches. The fight may be long, there may be many casualties but we shall prevail. We shall overcome and our victory will be such that members of the Connacht RFU will flock to our door seeking knowledge as to how the forces of darkness were repelled. So, surrender now whilst our sword remain in our sheaths.
"P.S. Mark's brother Ian plays at full back for The Real Rovers. They both played for Galway before their rescue and this may be where the confusion arose." Class.
What's a year or two?
In a week when an Austrian newspaper stunned Lothar Matthaus by revealing that his "20-year-old" girlfriend was, in fact, 17 ("she seemed so much more mature", said a shell-shocked Lothar), Brazilian midfielder Kleberson told Leeds that he wouldn't join them until his 15-year-old girlfriend, Dayane Wilians Da Silva, agreed to marry him and move to Yorkshire. Dayane and Kleberson have been an item for, well, a year, getting it together while he was engaged to another woman. "Everything in my life happens very fast," the footballer said of their relationship. His previous fiancee might beg to differ - they'd been engaged for four years. More quotes of the week
"We will not take Gascoigne as a star now . . . first of all, he is 35 years old, we know nothing about his form. Secondly, he has long been described as a bad-tempered drinker. If so, it will be a big problem for us to manage him."
- Ma Lin, coach of Chinese club Liaoning Bodao, eagerly anticipating working with Gazza.
"Nicolas Anelka just babbled the ball over the bar."
- Sky Sports' Chris Kamara. Need you be told?
The Weakest Link question: "Which famous Brazilian footballer wrote a book called "My Life and the Beautiful Game".
Contestant: "Rio Ferdinand?"
"The first word begins with 'f', the second with 'o'."
- Everton manager David Moyes when asked how he responded to a request for Wayne Rooney to be released for the England under-20's trip to the United Arab Emirates. Flip over?
"It was a bit of a surprise and yet I shouldn't have been surprised because I was a bit surprised he was going to go in the first place."
- Terry Venables, em, explains Robbie Fowler's on/off surprising non-move to Manchester City.
Not funny
Colin? Hang your head. As a build-up to his contribution to this week's Planet Football our shameless emailer reminded us that Manchester United winger Luke Chadwick consistently wins "ugliest footballer" polls. So . . . An angry Alex Ferguson walks into the United dressing-room after a defeat and says, "Right lads, when the transfer window opens in January, we'll be seeing some new faces round here." Chadwick turns around and says "can I have one please?". Hmm.
It's you, Bobby
The London Evening Standard had a sneak preview of next month's edition of football magazine FourFourTwo and unearthed yet another Bobby Robson gem: "Asked by the magazine if it was true that he learnt of his sacking as Fulham manager in 1968 from the London Evening Standard, our Bobby said: "I did, yes. I was driving over Putney Bridge and there was an Evening Standard billboard on the pavement declaring: 'Robson sacked'. I drove on thinking, what Robson is that then?" Yep, indeed, twas our Bobby. Bless.
Whatever happened to ..
Anders Limpar? The winger with wanderlust (well, he did play for IF Brommapojkarna, Orgryte IS, Young Boys, Cremonese, Arsenal, Everton, Birmingham City, AIK Solna, Colorado Rapids, Djurgardens and Brommapojkarna) is now retired from football and running a trendy drinking establishment in Stockholm ("Restaurangen forsoker att halla ett varierat utbud och en intressant matsedel dar alla ska kunna känna igen sig," as the website said - our thoughts exactly). The name of the establishment? The Limp Bar. Geddit? Can we anticipate the opening in Kilnamanagh in 10 years of The Graham Bar Rett? Just a thought.
