Football Diary
by Patrick O'Connor
THE job of being a football referee is becoming more difficult every day and recent controversy over who should and should not be sent off for two-footed tackles is not making things any easier.
Indeed, it's almost becoming a witch hunt by television as pundits pour over, frame by frame, every contentious tackle.
Football Diary
by Patrick O'Connor
YEARS ago the only stars in football were the players, now the managers are often in the limelight as much as the young men they coach.
Sometimes they are spot on in their comments, sometimes you think “shouldn't have said that matey”.
Football Diary
by Patrick O'Connor
FOOTBALLERS love taking the mickey and it seems as if the lads at Premier League newcomers Queens Park Rangers found an easy target.
Recent signing Shaun Wright-Phillips only stands 5ft 5ins tall and so when the players gathered at a hotel the night before their game at Wolves, they got hold of a baby's high-chair and placed a 'SWP' name card on it. Pictures of the stunt were then posted on Twitter by team-mate Joey Barton.
Football Diary
by Patrick O'Connor
THE transfer window may now be closed but its after-effects are still being felt.
The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claimed it was a traumatic period. The summer saw him lose two of his best players in Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas and Wenger was then left with a rather frantic scramble in the last few days of the window to bring reinforcements in.
Football Diary
by Patrick O’Connor
OVER the next few days all attention will be on the transfer window which closes on Wednesday.
Speculation will be rife over who is going to be transferred and for how much but it has been managers who have been mainly in the news in the last week.
Football Diary
By Patrick O’Connor
I live about 20 minutes walk away from Meadow Lane, the home of League One side Notts County, who also happen to be the world’s oldest football club.
They are a modest operation, their last home game attracted a crowd of just under 5,000.