Derek Mountfield joins our five-a-side team

Man City v Everton 1967

Great footage well ahead of its time - Brian wil love the Z cars (not Webcars) music towards the end.

Observe the City players for next weekend.

We knew him when he was nothing

Ok he may be Managing Director of the highest profile consultancy practice in Ireland but there was a time when we were afraid to put him up in front of strangers. In dem days you'd be seriously afraid he might vomit all over the boardroom table.

This sad picture was taken in Donegal one Easter weekend when the management consultant's cousin was too busy passing around the collection box to help the drunken one into the car. Gerry and myself helped out, thereby gathering valuable brownie points to buy the Ryan family's silence one particular evening many years later. More to come.

I want you to go back, back in time .........

I won't begin to comment. Photo taken in October (?) 1976.

All I want for Christmas is the Dukla Prague away kit

As Christmas approaches my mind always drifts to festive cheer, snow-covered landscapes, laughing children and of course UK satirical and slightly anarchic band, Half Man Half Biscuit. This Tranmere Rovers loving quintet grew to prominence in the mid 80's and penned a number of little known classics detailing the minutiae of everyday life on Merseyside.

An undisputed classic is their tribute to early boyhood adolescence "All I want for Christmas is the Dukla Prague away kit" - a not unreasonable if slightly unexpected request from a kid of 13. Not only does the song define what the lad wants for Christmas but it also perfectly flags two of the abject but certain disappointments of childhood - the Scalextric set that didn't work and the headless centre-forward in Subbuteo.

I just love the concept of him wrecking the place when four down - all of them hotly disputed penalties of course.

This is a picture of the boys at Prenton Park, Birkenhead. At least they didn't support Everton or Liverpool.

Choices that shaped our lives

......... nothing to do with marriage.

All I need is Jeff Astle for the set

Do you remember the carefree days of football cards? "Getting the set" was an important challenge to us devotees and there always seemed to be a few cards that were impossible to get your hands on. It's funny how the gaping hole in the album seemed to mock you every time you opened the West Bromwich Albion page, and Jeff was missing.

Could it have been that the manufacturers were crassly commercial even in those days in that they always held back a few cards to keep the kids spending their hard earned loot on another pack at 6d? The choice between your fourth pack this week or a trip to the Ormonde to watch John Wayne knock the living shit out of the injuns in Bandolero.

Sadly I always went for the cards and recently this addiction has resurfaced as a major problem for me. Guys in their fifties reverting to their youth - tell me all about it. The attic is now out of bounds for the wife and kids in case they disturb the neat piles of Spurs programmes and Charles Buchan's annuals and hell - maybe in there somewhere is the elusive Jeff Astle card. I'm convinced I swopped Ron Harris and Ronnie Boyce for him late on in the season. I wonder.

As the title of the book says - Iano my boy, we need to talk about Kevin Keegan.