The musings of West Ham's r[o|a]ving right-sided maestro Julien Faubert:

"Le dernier titre du club, c'était une Cup en 1980. Entre temps, West Ham a connu une descente avec pourtant une grosse équipe composée de joueurs comme Emile Heskey."

Emile Heskey?? I must have missed that season. And if only we had been relegated just once since 1980...

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From the New York Times:

Correction: May 10, 2010

Because of an editing error, the On Soccer column on Thursday, about England’s mixed view of the game in the United States, referred incorrectly in some copies to John Harkes, one of the first Americans to play professional soccer in England, and to one of the teams for which he played. He ( Read more... )

After the best part of three years in power, which saw his initial honeymoon period dissolve into a rather incoherent mess, culminating in leading his team to the brink of a disastrous wipeout, he's finally got the push. The final straw was the emergence of two new leaders whose eccentric negotiation style and none-too-subtle undermining made his ( Read more... )

I think last night's game against Wolves may well have been the worst West Ham performance (in the context) I've ever seen, in all my time supporting. Wolves are really not a very good team, but we made them look like a league above us. Which they may well be before too long -- I would have to say that we don't deserve to stay up. We were shaky and ( Read more... )

( Caution: contains football, although not to do with John Terry )

So, I guess mooism and ninthcouncil win that one, as the only ones who foresaw that Capello might not be so keen to hang on to his captain. In my own defence, when I said "unless there's something more that we don't know about", I didn't realize how much more would come out even before he'd met with Capello ( Read more... )

My guess is that Fabio Capello will retain Terry as captain, unless there's something more that we don't know about. He seems a pretty pragmatic sort of guy, who will not be bothered about the moral issues -- only the practical question of whether it will affect the players' desire to follow Terry's leadership. And, unless it turns out his extra- ( Read more... )

(Also known as, closing some tabs.)

• Democracy Club -- an organization formed to help make the next UK general election more open and accountable, by crowdsourcing info. Affiliated with mySociety and other such. I've signed up -- recommend you do so too, if you are concerned about our political system and want to do more than just whinge.
• Emails from ( Read more... )

... is not taking place tonight, when England play Croatia in a World Cup qualifier, but tomorrow, when England play Germany in the European Championships final. And it's on BBC2 at 5pm. In case you're wondering why you hadn't heard of such a thing, that's because this is the women's team. Who have, by getting to the final, already achieved ( Read more... )

( ... for football )