#philippe fenner

Here's a nice collection of all of our #MoyesArt. Here's our original, inspired by an old 'Fly on the Ball' article published here by fabulous writer Johnny Drain and illustrated by Alice Devine.

Next up is Philippe Fenner's take on the Beach Boys, with predictable results. 

A finally, James W Hunter's re-imagining of the famous movie poster for adapted novel "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". 

It seemed only appropriate at this juncture, one that witnessed the 6-3 drubbing of Arsenal at the hands of Mansour's Blue Moon Empire to induct a second member of the current Man. City squad to be inducted in to the footballing ranks of doom. Here are the reasons...

Height: 6ft 4 inches 

Weight: Probably big

Hands: Big

Feet: Big

Width of chest: Big Big Big

Presence on pitch: Enormous

Head: Relatively small in comparison but if the massive bloke in Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles that's got Krang in his stomach is anything to go by, this isn't an issue.

Review: The Football Pink E-Magazine (Issue #2)

As this year’s Booker prize goes to Eleanor Catton for her lengthy Luminaries, so we present the ‘e-Booker prize’ to aficionados The Football Pink. 

Culture-blind and useless as I am, internet goodies often tend to fly by me without my noticing. Despite spending most of my time utilising it, I tend to fall into the blogger’s trap of ignoring everyone else’s work in favour of promoting my own. I am astoundingly pleased then, that I should venture out of my cultural hibernation, to be welcomed by Issue #2 of The Football Pink’s E-Magazine. In short, this E-Magazine is a large collection of interesting and original articles, a step apart from the normal introspective (like this one) and boring mass. 

The Football Pink have been on my radar for a while now (mostly because I could never work out what their name is all about, and still don’t understand) and had been on never-ending nor decreasing ‘read’ list on my desktop for ages, so I was delighted when Brian and Mark got in touch asking me to review the magazine. After accepting the offer and downloading the mag, I was initially horrified to find out that it was 93 pages long. Scrolling down to discover that the opening article was around 6 of those pages only furthered my dismay and I began to moan to our illustrator Alice that I was an idiot for accepting it. As in most avenues of my life, my cynicism precedes me and I could only assume that I was now committed to sifting through hours of dismal criticism of Arsenal or some lark about how Sam Allardyce was the saviour of the working class. As it turns out, my dismay was entirely unnecessary and I was pleased and relieved to find (you’ll notice I happily surprised myself several times during this period) that the pages turned with ease (down button, mate), and the overall quality of the writing was high. 

Whilst not wanting to ruin your reading and/or single out favourites, I’d like to mention a few of my favourite articles from the bunch. Firstly, Giles Metcalfe’s (at giles_metcalfe) article called ‘Notorious and Outrageous Transfer Tactics’ is a remarkably pleasing take on Robbie Savage’s eleven ways to force a move. Not only was I pleased to see that Giles noted Mr Savage’s use of all eleven tactics in his long and dull career, but I was more generally pleased to see that someone had expanded on this idea. As modern punditry sours itself more and more with ex-footballers talking to each other on the television, I often wish that there was someone stood next to them all the time, waiting to say what they’ve said, but much better. Ghost writers exist for a reason; ghost pundits should be a thing. I strongly suggest that Mr Savage hires Giles Metcalfe immediately and uses him like Mauricio Pochettino uses his translator (or perhaps even more). Incidentally this is where our illustration comes from this week. Philippe Fenner (@tigfenner) illustrates Cannavaro fleeing the sinking ship of the Old Lady, as Giles describes.

Jamie Allen’s (@plymrkprss) ‘Gaps in the Pyramid: My Journey through the Decline of Amateur Football’ provides and interesting and original take on grassroots issues. The topic on many-a blogger’s lips at the moment (or for all time to be honest) is concerning the issues found in England’s national squad. Jamie’s perspective is slightly wider than most as he portrays UK football, professional, semi-professional and amateur, as one structure, each relying on the others for survival. The through line of this piece centres on the Premier League’s failure to invest enough in the lower levels of the sport. Jamie exposes that the Premier League in fact only invest around 1% of their annual takings in the Football Foundation. I found this article particularly informative and topical; it’s certainly worth a read. 

Finally, Mark Lindores (@marklindores) writes about his hate for Football as a sport. Mark takes us on a short gallivant through several periods of his life in which his distaste for the national sport becomes clear and understandable. This article sets the ground for further investigation into the reasons for disliking the sport, most notably – not being good at it as a child. Though some of you may laugh at Mark’s anguish, others may find this explanation an interesting answer to the ever-present question “how can you not like football?”

Overall, this E-Magazine provides pages of articles from excellent football writers. It’s not hugely up its own arse like many of the E-books we’ve been exposed to as football fans, and its balance of informative yet humorous content is enough to please the vast majority of people, even someone picky and elitist like myself. In our expensive and modern world, there aren’t many great things left that you can buy cheaper than 2 pints of milk. 

Pitch #2: Ray Stubbs does Fame Academy

It took me a while to work out whether this actually happened or not, so strange is the proposed spectacle of Mr. Ordinary, Mr. very, very ordinary Ray Stubbs on a television show as bawdy, lurid and crass as Celebrity Fame Academy. On the back of very rudimentary fact-finding though, combined with an increasing realisation that my brain is not capable of creating anything quite so obscure, I found out that it did happen.

I’m always a bit reluctant to mock the efforts of ‘celebrities’ who place themselves in to situations that they wouldn’t usually be in when their supposed ultimate aim is to raise cash for a worthwhile charity (Comic Relief in this instance which I know is pretty crap but it’s hardly the point). However, the decision by the BBC to approach Ray Stubbs for this show is a strange one, considering that to the majority of people in this country, that is the people who don’t entertain themselves on a Saturday afternoon with a fine blend of stress and statistics, Stubbs is a ‘whothefuck.’ Furthermore, even to those of us who do watch Final Score on a Saturday, he is hardly a dazzling display of a presence rather than the quintessential vision of every man ever.

Nevertheless, in a way that can only be described as car crash, the performances from him that I do remember were so magnificently bad that I now found myself writing an article pieced together mainly with vague half-recollections and a lot of PVA glue. Whether this was the case or not (we can make an educated guess that it is), I remember seeing a significant lack of effort from Ray on the wardrobe front. Where his fellow competitors perhaps opted for sparkly blazers, frilly things and wotnots, Stubbs went for either what appeared to be a Tesco-value grey suit if such a thing existed or his very best ‘going out’ shirt, the type that I remember vividly from my days at bad teenage clubs in Margate.

And then the performances…che bellezza! I remember two in particular. Firstly, a kind of flat, wailing version of Oasis’ Wonderwall in which Stubbs remained stoic in his commitment to the standing position whilst clutching the microphone vice-like in a fear that in his case seemed to be paralleled only by the beginning signs of a massive stroke. Fortunately though, his tutor whose name simply doesn’t matter had words before his next performance and the man from the Wirral hit back with a more lively number in the form of The Jam’s ‘Going Underground.’ This moment I recall best as the annals of my brain allow me glimpses of Ray forcing out a hackneyed version of Paul Weller’s dystopian classic whilst jolting about the stage with all the animation of a cadaver being tasered at regular intervals.

Alas, no-one at the time saw fit to record these performances and to whack them on to youtube, not even anyone from the Stubbs family so the only way to see it would presumably be a trip to the BBC archives, a trip I would not advise taking for solely this purpose. If you do though, maybe nick the recording(s) or something and send them to me so that I can fill in the gaps of my already fragmenting memories of those wonderful performances.

Born in Hackney in 1958, Terry Hurlock’s entrance in to ‘Hardest Bastards’ appears to write itself, a personal relief considering that I’ve just devoured the most part of a small joint of beef.

Commanding the central midfield role in a perhaps overly-combative way, Hurlock during his tenure at Glasgow Rangers amassed a record amount of disciplinary points in a single season. Having said this, it can’t have been easy for Hurlock and his hair as he charged around looking like the anti-Leo Sayer whilst shrilly screaming in the faces of the opposition players ‘YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE FIGHTING!’ (a reference to his hair-sake) Ok, that last bit didn’t happen but Hurlock did have a knack of picking up some impressive nick-names over the years including ‘Gypo’ (weren’t people charming in the 1980s?), Animal (beard and hair reference again) and most potently at Millwall, ‘Warlock’ which quite frankly says it all doesn’t it?

To be quite honest with you, there are few things that I could add from here on in that would be any better than the testaments provided by his fellow competitors so in true Cabaret style, take it away boys…

* Jeff Kenna: "Terry Hurlock was a fierce competitor - even in five-a-side on a Friday. He didn't hold back and age didn't come into it."

* Reggie Spooner: "An incredible bulk of a man, and it is truly a joy to see opponents try to circumnavigate him without the aid of Sherpa guides, whilst trying to maintain a full set of limbs."

* David Beckham: "It was a month I look back on with good memories. I once scored from a corner and played against Terry Hurlock, which was quite interesting. I stayed away from him as much as possible"!

* Tony Cascarino: "Some of us [Millwall players] were playfully goading Terry about what he was going to do to Vinnie Jones in the upcoming fixture with Wimbledon. Without saying a word, he got up from the table and walked to the entrance of the pub and ripped the door off its hinges."