Ladies and gentlemen, Christmas is finally upon us so we're going to take the opportunity to have a break and rest our little grey cells ready to come back refreshed for the second half of the domestic football season.

That being so, all that remains to be done is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, as well as to say thank you for all your interest and participation in our little blog site thus far.

We hope to continue keeping you entertained and informed well into 2007, but for now, have fun this festive season and don't eat too much turkey!

See you again soon... :)

So here we are in Week 8 of You Bet, and I'm happy to report we've already tripled our money with three weeks yet to play. Well done everyone!

Last week's winning bet took our total to £30.65, so let's see if we can win even more this week. Here's your three bets from which you must choose the one most likely:

Bet A
Arsenal v Blackburn: Adebayor to score first
Potential winnings: £4.00

Bet B
Wigan v Chelsea: Lampard to score first
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Middlesbrough v Charlton: Half Time - Middlesbrough leading, Full Time - draw
Potential winnings: £15.00

If you don't know what to do now, where the hell have you been since November 2nd? Oh alright then, here goes.

Simply vote for A, B or C above according to the one you think's most likely to happen this weekend and whichever gets the most votes before midday on Saturday 23rd December 2006 has a £1 bet put on it courtesy of Some People Are On The Pitch. If that bet pays out, all winnings go back into the kitty and at the end of the 10-week run, any money we've accrued goes off to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

PLEASE NOTE:
The poll for this week seems to be having a technical fault insofar as it's only showing one vote as having been registered. If your vote fails to show up on the graph after you log it, please drop us a line at write4us[at]spaotp[dot]com with your name and the bet you've voted for and we'll keep a track of things ready for the big 'off' this weekend. Apologies for any inconvenience...

So here, then, are those ever-important voting buttons:

Voting on this event has now closed.

Good luck!

Just the other day I thought I'd sit down and write an article all about club badges and how they vary in style and design from city to city.

But then I thought "Where's the fun in that?!!? Let's turn it into a quiz... and as it's Christmas, let's make it..."

THE GREAT BIG 'SOME PEOPLE ARE ON THE PITCH' CHRISTMAS QUIZ!

And so I did. Here's how to play: below you'll see the badges for 10 football clubs, all of which currently reside in the lower reaches of the Coca-Cola league. All you've got to do is name the clubs they belong to. Simple... or not, as the case may be.

There's no prize on offer, but you'll potentially gain loads of kudos with your mates down the pub if you submit your answers and score 10 out of 10, so get cracking and see how well you know your lesser-known teams...



... Oh, and one more thing - have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Have you ever watched Champions League matches and wondered how well those teams were doing in their own domestic competitions? Well wonder no more. Here's a round up of what's going on in the major leagues around Europe.

Italy: Serie A
Without a doubt the top team in Italy at the moment are Inter who are still unbeaten after sixteen games, thirteen of them being wins. They continued their fine form on Sunday by beating Empoli 2-0, while second-placed Roma, who trail by seven points, were beating third-placed Palermo 4-0.

Elsewhere, Catania - Serie C specialists in recent times - find themselves in fourth place after a 1-0 weekend win over Udinese. Completing the top 5 are Lazio whose 15 goals in the last five games see them making a strong push for a UEFA Cup place next year.

At the other end of the table, Sampdoria and Milan have recently hauled themselves out of danger but Parma and Fiorentina are still languishing dangerously amongst the minnows. Fiorentina started the season with points deducted after this summer's betting scandal, but their form of late suggests that they, too, should soon be well clear of the relegation dogfight.

View Serie A Table


Germany: Bundesliga
There’s a definite air of revenge about the German title race at the moment with all of the Bundesliga runners-up from the past four seasons occupying the top four spots. Last season’s runners-up and 2004 champions, Werder Bremen, are currently ahead only on goal difference from Schalke, who just missed out on the title in 2005.

Last season’s champions, Bayern Munich, have moved up to third while 2003 runners-up Stuttgart swap places with them to occupy fourth, a further point behind.

At the foot of the Bundesliga, SV Hamburg and Borussia Moenchengladbach are the surprise strugglers – the former still looking for their first home win of the season and the latter still looking for one away from home. At the very bottom, though, it’s Mainz who look like they’ll be sitting on the trapdoor at the season’s end having picked up only 11 points so far from a possible fifty-one.

View Bundesliga Table


Spain: Primera Liga
The title race in Spain’s hotting up nicely with just two points covering the top three. Barcelona’s early lead has now been ended by UEFA Cup champions Seville who top the league with only one defeat in fifteen matches and seven wins out of seven at home.

Ironically, second-placed Barcelona are the only team to have beaten Seville in the league this season, but the World Club runners-up dropped points to lowly Levante at the beginning of December and now need to win their game in hand if they’re to return to the top spot.

Real Madrid are still susceptible to the occasional defeat but are nevertheless closing the gap on the top two.

At the bottom, somewhat predictably, are Gimnastic who were last season’s Segunda Division runners-up, and above them are three under-achievers from the last campaign - Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao and Real Betis - of which Betis and Sociedad are still yet to win a match away from home in the league this season.

View Primera Liga Table


France: Ligue 1
Lyon are the runaway leaders in France at the moment with a seventeen point lead ahead of Lens. Lyon have won 16 out of 18 so far, practically ending the title race before it ever began. Leading the charge for second with Lens, however, are Saint Etienne, Lille, Sochaux and Nancy.

Saint Etienne are still searching for a return to their halcyon days of the early 1980's when they boasted Michel Platini among their ranks, while the others have all enjoyed limited success in European competition in recent seasons.

The shock near the bottom of the table is Nantes, who are 19th out of twenty thanks to a measely two wins all season. The 2001 league champions last picked up three points back in October and will be hoping to follow the example of Monaco who were also languishing up until a few weeks ago but have since fought their way to safety.

View Ligue 1 Table

My my, how time flies. It's Week 7 of 'You Bet' already!

Let's see if we can add a bit more than the 65p we won last week (grateful though we are for it) by assessing this week's parade of punts:

Bet A
Aston Villa v Bolton Wanderers: Draw
Potential winnings: £3.00

Bet B
Everton v Chelsea: Everton to win
Potential winnings: £5.50

Bet C
Charlton v Liverpool: Liverpool to win 3-0
Potential winnings: £12.00

Whichever of these three gets the most votes is the one we'll be putting our weekly Pound on. Any winnings we get go back into the kitty and at the end of the 10-week run, all the money accrued goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Time to cast your votes, then...

Voting on this event has now closed.

It’s always an interesting point in a club’s history when it changes its manager. The end of one era (more often than not a less than successful one), and the beginning of another fuelled with hope and optimism that the new man will bring glory to his team.

West Ham United now find themselves going through just such a period. Today, Alan Pardew was relieved of his duties by the man who became his new chairman just three weeks ago, and the debate has already begun as to whether Eggert Magnusson was right to dismiss him and who Pardew’s replacement will be.

To be blunt, the modern game with all its financial motives does not allow any manager to stay in charge of a club when it’s lost 11 games out of 17 and conceded four times more goals than it’s scored. Add to that the unceremonial ejection it received from the Carling Cup by Chesterfield (to say nothing of the rather more justifiable loss to Palermo in the UEFA Cup) and you have a team that’s staring relegation to the Championship squarely in the eyes, and that simply will not do.

For a team not to be a part of the Premiership these days is like a jailed criminal not being in possession of a reinforced chastity belt. Without it, you’re screwed.

It happened to West Ham in 2003. They slipped into the Championship forcing their last change of managerial personnel – Pardew replacing Glenn Roeder – and had to endure two near-suicidal seasons before they somehow scraped into the Play-Off Final and won a place back in the top-flight in 2005.

As if that wasn’t achievement enough for Alan Pardew, he last year surpassed himself by instilling a confidence in his side that allowed them to play entertaining, attacking football resulting in a ninth-place finish in the Premiership and a runners-up spot in the FA Cup.

Oh, and as a result of that, they also qualified for this season’s UEFA Cup.

Some people think that’s exactly the sort of reason why Alan Pardew should have been treated better by not being dismissed today, but by doing so they miss a valuable point.

To be considered a success these days, a manager must prove that his team can perform at the highest level on a continual basis, not just at some point in the past. If after a spell like the one West Ham have gone through there is no reason to feel that things will improve soon, the Board are left with only one option. He who hesitates is lost, as the old saying goes.

And you can say what you like about the Argentinean signings: what’s caused West Ham’s downfall in this first four months of the season is Pardew’s inability to drive his team on with imagination, inspiration and tactical diversity. That, too, is a signal for someone new to take over.

So who should that new person be? Sven-Goran Eriksson has already ruled himself out, which is a pity. With his track record at club level, it could have been an exciting prospect for West Ham. Alan Curbishley has been installed as the favourite, but as someone who managed to achieve only promotion to the Premiership for Charlton (after he’d got them relegated in the first place) and precisely nothing else, he’s perhaps not the man they’re looking for either. As for George Graham, Glenn Hoddle and Terry Venables, they’ve practically made a career out of appearing on lists like this whenever there’s a high-profile managerial casualty, so let’s not waste any more time considering them.

With lots of money waiting to be spent thanks to the recent investment made by the new Icelandic chairman, West Ham should be capable of attracting the attentions of a much better class of manager than any of those mentioned above, especially one that’s available on the continent. It seems too good an opportunity to miss with the club’s potential for success never being higher, so maybe Europe could provide the answer.

All that lies ahead for West Ham, but they will be looking for someone who can motivate the players, get them organised into a well-drilled unit and play a decent standard of football. If the new man can achieve that as Alan Pardew no longer could, West Ham will remain in the Premiership, thus achieving their immediate priority. Going one step further and achieving genuine glory seems a far-off dream at the moment, but with the right man put in place during the next few weeks, it might – just might – happen.

Yes, Sepp Blatter’s opened his mouth again. The big Swiss cheese with a mind full of holes who’s renknowned for his eye-opening comments has now suggested that Europe’s domestic football leagues should run from February to November. He claims that such a system would allow players to recover from injuries and rest over the winter break.

Great idea. Fabulous. No more playing through the cold, snowy, wet and windy months. The whole of Europe synchronised as one. How marvellous.

Marvellous, that is, except for the fact that there can’t be very many players in the UK (or maybe even Europe) that would want to miss out on a summer holiday, so when would they get to rest? The answer, in a word, is ‘winter.’

Providing you, as a player, have managed to make it through to November unscathed, you’d be free to jump on a plane and head off to warmer climes. Fabulous… but don’t get on that plane just yet. Herr Blatter has said that the winter break would be an ideal time for national teams to play their qualification matches. Oh well, maybe you wouldn’t have liked that two-week break in Barbados anyway.

But let’s not consign Sepp Blatter to the looney bin just yet, because he’s also come up with an idea that’s actually got something going for it.

He’s suggested that where the European qualification system for the World Cup is concerned, there should be more groups containing fewer teams, meaning players are involved in fewer games and are in turn less likely to pick up injuries.

This is in direct contrast to recent years where the number of qualifying groups has stayed the same but have swelled to accommodate as many as eight teams. Eight teams means fourteen qualifying games and fourteen reasons for Mourinho, Wenger, Ferguson and co. to bemoan the absence of their players. Any opportunity to reduce that must surely be welcomed, and this might just be the plan to help achieve it.

In the recent past, talk has centered on the smaller nations that now take part in the qualifying competitions for the World Cup and European Championships like San Marino and Andorra. Many claim they should be subjected to a pre-qualifying round to reduce their numbers, which is all well and good, but it wouldn’t necessarily reduce the overall number of fixtures for each team while treating all those competing fairly. This way would make for a shorter, sharper, more exciting competition with equality as its watchword.

So at last there’s a feint home that Mr. Blatter and his boffins in Zurich may have finally conjured up an idea that could benefit the game and be easy to implement. And when are we likely to see it implemented for the first time? 2009 at the earliest, by my reckoning. Let’s just hope it’ll be worth the wait...

Onto the sixth week of 'You Bet' and the running total for the kitty currently stands at £20. Will we get our second winning bet this week? Vote now and help us make it happen!

Here's the three to chew over for this weekend:

Bet A
Chelsea v Arsenal: Draw
Potential winnings: £3.30

Bet B
Liverpool v Fulham: Liverpool to win 3-0
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Manchester United v Manchester City: Joey Barton to score first
Potential winnings: £15.00

You should know the score by now - we'll put £1 on the bet that gets the most votes and any winnings we get go straight back into the kitty which in turn goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital at the end of the run. All your votes must be in by midday on Saturday 9th December so click one of the buttons below and tell us which bet's best:

Voting on this event has now closed.

Best of luck!

Written by Kedge

From Varadi to Ogrizovic, two footballers with foreign sounding names, both born in England.

Imre Varadi
Despite his name, he was born in Paddington and started his footballing life playing non-league at Letchworth. Spotted by Sheffield United just before his 19th birthday, he began a career that would see him change clubs more often than Ronaldo falls over in a match. After only ten appearances, he moved to Everton where he played 26 times and score 10 goals.

The arrival of Howard Kendall saw Varadi move to Newcastle for probably his longest stay where he played alongside Chris Waddle and Kevin Keagan. After two seasons and 81 games, he moved on and played for the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, West Brom, Man City, Wednesday again, Leeds, Wednesday again (you’d think someone would have learnt by now), before dropping down to end his playing days with Rotherham, Mansfield, and finally Scunthorpe who famously had on their books at one time a certain

Ian Botham
who actually played more times than Imre Varadi. Botham had been taken on by Scunthorpe in order to regain his fitness following a cricketing injury. Beefy is one of a select band of men who played both cricket and football at a professional level. Having turned down the chance to join Crystal Palace, he started his cricketing career at Somerset where he was under the management of

Brian Close
who at one time early in his career made a couple of appearances for Leeds United and also played at under-15 level for England. Deciding that Football was not to be his sport, Brian turned to his other love, Cricket, where he had a successful career with Yorkshire and England.

Following a dispute, he moved to Somerset where he became captain of a side that included Botham. In 1976 at the age of 45, he played his last Test match for England against the West Indies in the third test (of five) at Old Trafford. He was replaced in the 4th test by

Chris Balderstone
who not only played cricket for Leicestershire and England but also football for Carlisle, Huddersfield and Doncaster Rovers. Probably the most talked about sporting moment from Balderstone's life was on the 15th September 1975. He ended the day 51 'not out' against Derbyshire, got changed in the dressing room, and was rushed full speed to the Belle Vue Ground, Doncaster, where he played against Brentford that very same night. He returned to complete his century the next day and also took three wickets. No-one had ever played First Class cricket and League football on the same day before, and no-one ever will again.

One statistic that he would like to forget was in his second Test appearance in the 5th Test of the 1976 West Indies tour at the Oval when he dropped a catch. The lucky recipient of this rare mistake, on 151 at the time, was none other that the great

Viv Richards
who has the distinction of representing the West Indies and his home island of Antigua at cricket and football, where he was part of their World Cup squad during the qualifying stages for the 1974 tournament. In contrast to his cricketing role as a prolific batsman and part of the formidable 'Windies' team that dominated the sport during the 1970’s and the 1980’s, he preferred to play in defence on the football pitch.

One of only a handful of people to play for his country at both football and cricket, he shares that rare distinction with Denis Compton of Arsenal and England, and of course

Andy Goram
The Scottish goalkeeper who was also a useful bowler for the Scottish national cricket team, playing in matches against Ireland and also in the NatWest Trophy. He was prevented from playing in the 1991 Cricket World Cup in England, as he had earlier signed for Rangers who put a no-cricket clause in his contract.

The football World Cup has also had its disappointments for Goram as he famously stormed out of the Scottish squad for the 1998 tournament following a bust-up over bonus payments. While at Rangers, it was reported in the press that he suffered from a mild form of schizophrenia, something that led to the Rangers fans singing “Two Andy Gorams, there’s only Two Andy Gorams...”

Among his many clubs were Oldham, Hibernian, Rangers, Motherwell, Notts County, Sheffield United, Manchester Untied and finally Coventry City, who had another famous goalkeeper named

Steve Ogrizovic.
Oggy, was born in Mansfield and played for Coventry from 1984 to 2000. He is one of the very few players to have scored direct from a goal kick, which he achieved in a 2-2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday on October 12th 1986.

He was also a very useful cricketer for the Minor Counties side, taking the wickets of a few Test batsmen - Chris Broad, Martyn Moxom and Alvin Kallicharan.

In 2003 Oggy was the subject of a hoax when it was reported that he had been kidnapped while in Kazakhstan. An online petition was started to obtain his release, but the hoax was discovered when a local paper interviewed him at Coventry’s training ground.

And there you have it. Imre Varadi to Steve Ogrizovic via the world of cricket. Possibly a fitting tribute to our lads down under? Possibly not!

Spurs won last night, with Middlesborough on the wrong end of a 2-1 thumping...

"And lets look at the league tables..." the sports presenter said.
"Do we have to?" I said to the plastic box (thats my TV, not the presenter).

With Spurs recent patchy form, I wasnt looking forward to it. It wouldn't be pretty viewing. But it wasn't as bad as I thought.

My club had moved upto 10th, and, as you do, my eyes scrolled upwards to see how many points we are from a European qualification spot.

Three points.

Infact, we are three points from being third.

A look at the bottom half of the table also revealed that Spurs are not much more than three points off a relegation battle.

We are sixteen games into the season, almost half-way (19 games), and nine points cover the teams from 3rd to 16th.

Fourteen teams, nine points.

My only conclusion was to say 'It shows how much rubbish there is in the premiership'

The complete table...

1 Man Utd 41
2 Chelsea 35
3 Arsenal 25
4 Portsmouth 25
5 Liverpool 25
6 Reading 25
7 Everton 24
8 Aston Villa 24
9 Bolton 24
10 Tottenham 22
11 Man City 20
12 Fulham 20
13 Wigan 18
14 Blackburn 16
15 Middlesbrough 16
16 Sheff Utd 16
17 West Ham 14
18 Newcastle 13
19 Charlton 12
20 Watford 10

PS - West Ham face Wigan tonight, and if they win, that will be 15 teams covered by nine points.

So anyway, there I was thinking about my rather odd and at times worrying interest in football kits past and present when it occurred to me that there must be dozens of kits from days gone by that I’d never even seen before.

“How would I ever get the chance to wallow in all that nostalgia” I wondered, with not a little time on my hands. It was then that I struck on a rather spiffing idea. Come back with me, if you will, to the early 1980’s…

Back when I was about nine years old, I grew into the habit of purchasing ‘Shoot’ magazine on a frequent basis. Inexpensive and utterly harmless to the young football fan, I regularly marvelled at its unique blend of written features and pictures of the stars that strode purposefully over the pitches of the day.

To be specific, it was those pictures I was drawn to more than anything else in each issue. At one point, I can specifically remember detaching the colour team pictures from the staples of each copy and sticking them up on my bedroom wall. I had it that bad.

And so it was that this enduring image gave me an idea. In this modern age where the Internet is king, why shouldn’t I have a looky-see if anyone out there’s selling old copies of ‘Shoot’ magazine that I could buy? It seemed rational enough – after all, you can buy just about anything on the Web these days. Predictably enough, my first port of call was eBay and wouldn’t you know it, there they were – copious editions of the magazine I used to buy as a kid, ranging from the late 60’s to the early 90’s. The feeling of joy within me was growing perceptibly.

I decided I’d take the plunge and put in a bid for an issue of ‘Shoot’ dated 13th April 1974. No particular reason why I should go for that one more than any other, but it did have Trevor Francis and Emlyn Hughes battling it out on the front cover so it can't have been all bad. And so it was that I entered my opening bid of £2.99 to match the asking price, fully expecting to have to put in a higher bid shortly after. Little did I know that a couple of days later, I'd be informed that I’d won the auction with a winning bid of £2.99 on account of the fact that no-one else wanted it or had put a bid on it. It was all too easy, this ‘buying Shoot magazines on eBay’ business…

So within a week, I became the proud owner of my very own issue. It contained some gloriously cheesy articles and pictures of people like Joe Jordan, grimacing as he was from behind his pristine white Leeds United kit.

It was great - all the old features were there, like 'You Are The Ref' and those fabulous 'Focus On' profiles where star players were asked inane questions. Ask a player from the 1970's who they'd most like to meet, and the chances are you'd get the answer 'Raquel Welch', likewise if you asked them what their favourite meal was, you'd be very surprised if it turned out not to be 'Steak and Chips'.

I was hooked. A few weeks went by and I started to wonder if there was room for one or two more issues in my life. I had no plans to spend a fortune, but with an eye for a bargain, I felt sure there'd be something to suit my budget. I was in luck.

On my next visit to eBay, I discovered someone selling a whole batch of about 30 'Shoot's' from the late 70's and early 80's. I figured I was prepared to pay about £12 at most for them, so in went my bid, fully expecting someone to pitch theirs in above mine and take the lot. Again I was wrong. At the point where the bidding reached £11, everyone else forgot that the auction was about to end, and I came out on top.

I had won yet again, but this was to be my last flirtation with eBay. I now had more than enough material to keep me going for months and was consequently as happy as Larry. I kept the magazines in my ofice at work, and whenever the stresses of web design got too much for me and my colleague, we'd stop, down tools, and have a 'Shoot' break. This, I was led to believe, was what was known in the trade as a (fairly) cheap thrill.

It was while perusing one of these delights from yesteryear that I realised just how unbelievably resourceful the Internet is. In one issue from 1982, there was an advert for a game called 'Logacta' which could be played by 1 to 4 players and was a way of playing every kind of football competition from the comfort of your own home. It apparently involved dice, lots of charts and the occasional basic logarithm to determine who would win the European Cup, FA Cup or any other Cup for that matter.

I was fascinated by the sheer lo-techness of it. This was an era before Fantasy Leagues and Pro Evolution Soccers. The most technical this game got was when you decided whether to use a biro or a pencil. It was of course only a matter of time before I asked myself "Is there anybody on the web that you can still buy this game from?" Well, you can buy just about anything on the Web these days...

Amazingly, a quick check on eBay showed that there WAS someone out there who had a copy of 'Logacta' to buy, so I put my hand in my pocket and immediately forked out the princely some of £3 to take it off their hands. It was a miracle - real proof that nothing ever dies - it just ends up on eBay.

You don't need to know what the game was like: that's a mere formality. The thing is, for someone of my age it's now entirely possible to be reunited with some facet of your childhood, and it's all down to the sheer comprehensiveness of the World Wide Web. How lucky am I to feel so young at heart with the memories and feelings of my youth still so readily at hand.

So I now have my dusty old 'Shoot' magazines and my 'Logacta' game. I dare say if I wanted to I could start collecting Subbuteo teams again or bubble gum collector cards, but I won't just yet. This will keep me happy for a while, but I know that if I need it, the Web will always be there to satiate my appetite for the good old days when men were men and footballers ate proper food like steak and chips.

The draw for the Third Round of the FA Cup was made yesterday and as ever there was one tie in particular that caught everyone’s attention: Liverpool v Arsenal.

The holders face a stern test if they’re to retain the trophy this season with Arsenal always capable of putting together a good run in the FA Cup.

Elsewhere, there were two other all-Premiership ties. Manchester United will have it all to do at home to a tricky Aston Villa side led by Martin O’Neill while 1995 winners Everton host Blackburn Rovers.

Paul Ince takes his Macclesfield Town side, currently bottom of the entire Football League, to the team second from the top of the Premiership – Chelsea. Macclesfield have seen a change in fortunes for the better since the former Manchester United star took over, but they’ll surely have their work cut out if they’re to even get a sniff of Round 4.

As for those teams outside the Football League that are hoping for a chance of glory, Salisbury stand the greatest chance of achieving it. They drew 1-1 with Nottingham Forest in the second round, so a win in the replay will ensure them a third round tie at home to Charlton.

Salisbury City are managed by Nick Holmes, one-time Southampton player and member of the team that won the 1976 FA Cup Final. To have come so far as to end up playing Nottingham Forest, European champions not so long ago, is achievement in itself but a place in the next round will no doubt eclipse even that.

Here’s the Third Round draw in full...

Ties will be played on the 6th and 7th of January 2007.