Come back Brian Moore all is forgiven

How the hell would Eoin Ryan deal with this guy?

Don't ever tempt fate

There we were forecasting the Carling Cup results and Brusselsblue castigates Gerry for knee-jerkingly suggesting that the Spurs would beat the Toffees 2-0. And what happens - Huddlestone scores the first and Robbie gets out the bow and arrow and celebrates the second -2-0 to the yids.

I repeat what I have said for months - Gerry Coll = football genius. Made the last six in the Last Man Standing.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men,
Feared by the bad, loved by the good,
Robin Hood, Robing Hood.
(to the tune of Robin Hood, Robin Hood).

The bard awoken by a beach ball

Ode to a Beach Ball

I used to see you as the epitome of ridicule
good for nothing
extractor of valuable air from my overworked lungs
uncertain flight path
and always getting lost at sea
I did not know you were biding your time
for your afternoon in the sun
when you sprang to life
on the Roker turf
You were coloured red
And may now lie deflated in the corner of notoriety
But you will live long in the hearts
Of all those who enjoy the clean blue air

Hard to decide which lounge to go to, eh?

And by the way, in case you can't decide, one of these is nearly 70 now.

Mike, get to know these players.

Now that everything is sorted for our trip in December, some homework for Mike.

We will be visiting Manchester 40 years after they won the Cup for the last time, and we need to be able to give it socks when it comes to bullshitting about their heroes. Mike, you have the greatest challenge for, despite your natural enthusiasm, you let us down as soon the locals go beyond the most famous one or two players.

So to assist you in leg one of the trip, here's the City team that won the Cup in 1969 - learn it well. Please remember Colin Bell's nickname and don't try to call him Arkle as we blag our way through lunch on the 5th of December.

And here's why he got the nickname:

For mash, get smash .......

Another crackin' bit of advertising from yesteryear.....

After the way we've just fucked up our economic systems, done irreparable damage to the global landscape and our ecological future, and allowed a bus lane down Mount Merrion Avenue, maybe these guys were right - we are a bunch of ignorant primitives. I assume they must have had a visit from our Taoiseach before they came to this inevitable conclusion.

Ok Toffeemen look away now ....

Ok Kevin, it's all very well doing it in the soft games like Everton away, but we need you to get the finger out for the tougher challenges like Montenegro and Italy at home. You're not going to be marked by Yobo and Distin every week.

And who said they wouldn't miss Lescott?

Wasn't this absolutely brilliant?

Don't blame the little Liverpool fan - blame Reina for making the wrong choice and going for the beach ball rather than the foot ball - I assume he grew up in a seaside town - and I have to say he nearly got a hand to the beachball.

Good old Darren Bent - always thought he got a poor deal at Spurs and there he is - hitting beach balls at fifteen yards. The man is a legend.

99 red ballons, flying high in a roker sky ........

Play-off chances gone for Blues

Sadly Jackman Park yesterday evening effectively saw the end of Waterford's hopes of reaching the First Division play-offs. A dismal run of form has resulted in the Blues slipping alarmingly down the table and their current position of 4th is probably as good as it will get.

Pictured below are the three goals from last night's encounter - Vinny Sullivan putting the Blues ahead (playing in white away kit), followed by two goals, one a debatable penalty, from a baldy bollix from Limerick.

Roll on the Cup semi-final in Sligo next weekend.

Fabulous song from the Sixties to lift the spirits

This hasn't lost any of its' appeal. An absolute classic from 1966 as relevant now as it was then.

Montenegro at Croke Park

Ireland 0 Montenegro 0 in the most boring game in about fifty years and the boys are still smiling. That's the benefit of a Castlerock education - take the knocks, turn the other cheek (on your face) and move on to life's next challenge.

How did Brusselsblue know that this was going to be an anticlimax? Is he a football genius?

Come In 7721, you're pushing it too far.

Well done Gerry on completing the half-marathon - quite an achievement for a man of your age. Did you give the money to the Cats & Dogs Home again? And where was our request for sponsorship?

As i say in the email, see you in 2016.

Don't want to be a bus driver in Brixton all my life

You know the way a song reminds you of a certain place or time - well Clifford took the whole thing a little bit further by letting the song tell him where to go for the rest of his life.

Thankfully he wasn't listening to the Dead Kennedy's "Holiday in Cambodia" during those crucial formative years in the mid-seventies, but rather chose this lovely little number by Typically Tropical....

The sinuses - 1982

As teenagers and in our early twenties, most of us owned up to our inebriation and indeed our honking (Champions league winner - Gerry in Annabels - top of the League then and top of the League now) but the man from Brewery Road was always different - the sinuses always got him before the booze did. It got so bloody repetitive that we actually began to believe it.

Here' a close-up picture of the sinuses strinking the great man very early one night in March 1982. He recovered a week later.

Chelsea score five at the Lane

Sadly it became a bit of a habit after this, until the last two years of course.

May we never forget what these people did to our country

A new take on Shakespeare

Took my wife out last Saturday night

To Finn Park in Ballybofey to be precise. Never let it be said that I don't know how to look after a lady.

She may not have known it but the trip was a passage of rites as I completed the "set" of LOI First Division away grounds. The complete list reads - Tolka Park, Dublin; Belfield Bowl, Dublin; Morton Stadium, Dublin; Finn Park, Ballybofey; Station Road, Kildare; Jackman Park; Limerick; Terryland Park, Galway; Gortakeegan, Monaghan; Lissywoolen, Athlone; Flancare Park, Longford and Ferrycarrig, Wexford.

Seven wins, three draws and one defeat.