The Fire Brigade were called out to a fire at Robin Van Persie's house last night. 

Police suspect Arsene.



(Rocky)

Fantasy Football

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North v South Master Premier

All are welcome

Rocky

So, the Euros end, Wimbledon gets rained off and the Olympics approach. Footy wise we do not hold out too much hope for the Team GB. Stuart Pearce is a football man we have much respect for and we know that he will give 100% but we will be up against teams that far outshone us in the Euros with a side that will not be much strengthened . What price Spain to fill a nap hand, World, Euro and Olympic Gold.

It must be said that our own tip was Germany but they were deservedly beaten by Italy who in turn were likewise beaten by Spain, in our book worthy champions coming of age after years of under achieving – so hope for us yet England!

Watch this space for Olympic football round ups and the best of the comedy in the game that we can find.

Welcome comments etc.

Jumpers4

So the dream has ended and Roy does not come home the to be knighted hero, well just what went wrong? Well here at jumpers we don’t know but we have a horrible feeling that even in the after life we are going to be doomed to an eternity of England losing on penalties. To be fair though from what I recall we were outplayed for the majority of the match and were lucky to reach a penalty shoot out. Oh hum better luck next time – hope does spring eternal.

As the new season beckons, yes I am mentioning this even before Wimbledon – another contest we love and in which the English flatter to deceive, and the inevitable manager – go – round and transfer records broken etc. We an look forward to what promises to be a good, if not as good as it used to be grump grump, season and the prospect of an exciting Champion League – though not as good as the European Cup, Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Cup – Europa League my ****.

Then of course there is always the added bonus of players ludicrous hair cuts, bizarre antics and bad behaviour to lighten up the back pages of the tabloids (oh Balitelli, great and yet not. One thing, never boring).

Then of course, in between, we have the Olympics………..Aggh!  They have not even started yet and this old whinge bag has already had enough and that’s even without daily commute into London….

Well tonight, in a few short hours, we find out who England get in the semis (providing of course that we beat Italy not the easiest of things to do) and the question is this...who do we want.

Greece would, on paper, be the easier option but they have pulled off shocks in this competition before.Eight years ago. It would take another shock to beat Germany who have certainly looked the best side by far.

Or Germany and the chance of revenge. As stated they are a very good side and I quite frankly feel we should have done after the last world cup what they had done before - now look at them.

Roy has done very well and we applaud the fact that the players and coaching staff have finally learnt how to sing the National Anthem, again this works well for all Nations as it helps build team spirit and pride. We wish him well and if our route to the final is past Italy and Germany then we are worthy of our place.

Jumpers just ask for the one saving factor. If it goes to penalties please may it not be us against Germany.

Well it has been a typical start inthe Euros for Engaland (as a traditionalist we should applaud this but we do not for we want England to win) failing to win their first group game and then struggling to win their second. It must be said though that both Carroll (obviously out to silence his critics) and Walcott (similarily proving some wrong) scoring great goals. Jumpers must admit that we wondered where the goals would come from with no on form prolific striker well those two came strait out of the top drawer.

As always the Germans look efficient and I must admit that after the opening games they are our favourites to win though we hope against all odds for England to beat Greece in the final.  Why Greece? Business is business and we have them in the sweepstake.

Well done to some and good luck to Roy

As we hope you are all aware here at Jumpers we revel in the lighter side of the game – the fun and sporting contest as opposed to it all being about taking things too seriously and the size of the cheque. So, for us the past few weeks have thrown up some interesting developments:

Chelsea overcoming Barcelona in style. Now Barca are without question one of the great teams with some amazing players so we must say congratulations to Chelsea though we feel that a suspended player should not be allowed to lift the trophy. We will say nothing about if balls were over the line in FA Cup games as we are tired of it already.

Wigan’s scalps, most recent was the 4-0 thrashing of an inform Newcastle but add to that the other results against the top placed teams and we have to thanks them for providing us with the upsets.

Reading’s Championship – it seemed as if they came from out of nowhere to regain premiership status. We now hope that West Ham win the play-offs. Jumpers being a bit of a Jurasic Park does not believe in play – offs. It’s a league not a cup. Finish 3^rd and automatically promoted. Simple.

Lastly Roy as England manager. Maybe not the media choice but we think a good one, a man who cares about the game. So well done Roy and the best of English.

England v Holland

Well most of you probably know that here at Jumpers we are far from being fans of meaningless friendlies, yet ocasionally, as rare as an outstanding football administrator (OK nothings that rare) we find ourselves thinking good idea.

That good idea is tonights clash between England and Holland - why this one we hear you ask.

a) Holland are a class European side whom we might well have to meet in the Euro Nations, this is a good warm up game.

b) With Capello walking and one of our footballoing heroes getting the caretaking job we feel that he needs a game under his belt to prove if he is worthy of taking the Three Lions to the Nations this Summer.

c) Not much else on telly......


Back to "Psycho" well not only was he one of England's all time gteat players this man is a real Lion Heart - as aplayer he was scarred of nothing that walked on two legs yet did then and still does wear the England short with an almost humbling pride. I feel it is time for the big change out with the old etc. Remember how well Germany did in the last World Cup bringing in the Under 21 manager and team to take over why should we not do the same.


GOOD LUCK TO STUART AND THE TEAM

FA Cup 4th round and our own failings.

As  we look our fantasy league ratings and our increasing stack of losing football coupons, picked three teams to win on Saturday and they all lost!!!, we must reflect on our own abilities in the modern game.

Still we are pleased to see that the FA Cup 4^th Round provided a couple of shocks and that is what we love about the competition, Champions League may be the top competition but you just don’t get Crawley beating Hull – the FA Cup still holds the romance of the game and a hint of jumpers for goalposts.

Potential shocks in the 5^th round – Stevenage v Spurs a potential embarrassment and who would write off either Crawley or Brighton.

Crawley's winning goal

Football Quotes:

Most football teams are temperamental. That’s 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental.

Doug Plank

He had an eternity to play that ball but he took too long over it.

Martin Tyler

Liam Brady’s been playing inside Platini’s shorts all night.

Jimmy Magee

12

With 12 minutes remaining, Henry scores his 12th goal against Leeds in 12 appearances wearing the number 12 shirt in 2012.

You couldn't make it up could you.

Rocky

Legends Past

Jumpers would like to pay a small tribute t the football greats who left us in 2011:

Mike Doyle

Most famous as part of the great Mercer – Allison Man City side of the 60’s / 70’s. Mike was an England international defender who late played for Stoke. In a distinguished career, he won League, FA Cup, Cup Winners Cup and England honours.

Socrates

The Brazilian legend, who may have never won the World Cup (he captained the Brazil side of 1982, some say the greatest team never to have won it). He spent a large part of his career playing in Italy.

Gary Speed

The Leeds and Newcastle legend and Welsh international became one of the Premiership most consistent players in his day rarely missing a game. He later, up to his premature death, managed the Welsh national team.

Jimmy Adamson

In a career in which he was never capped, Jimmy achieved almost all the possible football goals. He captained Burnley to league championship and FA Cup final and was in 1962 (the year of his runners up medal) also Footballer of the year.

Neil Young

Another of the Mercer – Allison City team, Neil was possibly most famous for scoring the winning goal in the 1969 FA Cup final (against a very young Peter Shilton)

Nat Lofthouse

Another FA Cup winning goal scorer (1958) Nat spent his whole career at Bolton and is possibly their greatest legend. At developed into a great international centre forward and footballer of the year.

TOP TEN FOOTBALL MISSES

Sorry to dissapoint but we have gone for the funny element and not the glamour. Good old fashioned football misses, what we have linked in is an old, remember Mark Hately anyone? Top Ten.

Should fellow bloggers wish to send us their Top Ten of the Misses sense we might well include. While talking fashion would also welcome Top Ten Players (best eye candy etc).



And keeping with the funnier side our comment from the past:

For Years I thought the club's name was Partick Thistle Nil.

Billy Connolly

OUR FRIEND IN THE NORTH  (ROCKY)

 Speaking of havin a larf, the FA idea of keeping hold of Capello until after the Euro doesn't rub.  We should bin him now and replace him with someone with big enough balls to let go of our aging rock star footballers and get some youngsters to cut their teeth on the European Championships prior to the World Cup.  We don't really care about winning the European Championships for two reasons: 1) We aren't good enough.  2) It's not the World Cup.  Any footballer who will be too old for the World Cup, shouldn't get a place in the European comp.  That's my opinion.  Thank you for listening.  And don't get me started on Sepp Blatter. 

Jumpers has recently been taking quite a liking to Mario Balotelli, when not scoring goals and wearing the best celebration t-shirt to date he scores goals with nonchalance and just looks as though it was nothing and now we have the saga of his  new Maserati.

The Sun reports that the Manchester City star picked up his new 187mph, £100,000 Italian supercar on Monday, but was pulled over by police on Tuesday on suspicion of speeding.

And in the season of goodwill it is with some surprise that we hear that Anelka is off to China, firstly we did not realise that they had professional football and secondly this must rank with Lineker to Japan and Beckham to USA for the more unusual transfers.

While not our favourite player as the following shows he knows how to put the ball in the back of the net.

And the Ref Gets

After a weekend of good results for England and Wales to mention two we must congratulate person, unknown, who placed a large sum on both winning their games. It was a good weekend for us too as we finally got four predictions right and won a few quid ourselves (thanks Leyton Orient and Notts County).

Well now for our own favourite topic the fun side of the game. Who can remember one of our own favourite moments when Paul Gasgoine, at the time playing for Rangers, showed the ref the yellow card. Well here it is:

Mario Balotelli putting the fun back into the game

What a weekend of football, after a reasonable midweek in Europe, Super Sunday lived up to it’s name with a 1-6 thriller at Manchester and QPR turning over Chelsea. Add Arsenal and Spurs both winning their games and Premiership fans were left with plenty to savour, talk and groan about – the perfect Sunday.

As we hope you know here at Jumpers we like tom look at football the way we believe it should be a sport which is fun and entertaining, with the occasional pop at officialdom – well we have our moment of the week and who else but Mario Balotelli.  What can we say, in our opinion (apart from thanks Hull for letting my bet down but well done) he scores a good goal and with the sort of humour this game needs reveals a shirt with the most in-offensive slogan “Why always me.” – a bit of fun and officialdom’s answer a yellow card.

For those that missed it:

SHOULD ROONEY GO 2012

Well the question that seems to be on every ones lips is should Rooney be taken to Euro 2012 despite the fact he will miss all the qualifying games…….According to Graham Taylor (did not exactly cover himself in international glory as England Manager) he should. Well here at Jumpers we take a different point of view.

Although we agree that Rooney is a good player he is also, as proven, a liability and is now (along with Beckham) the only player to have been sent of twice while playing for England as the following stats show:

Most yellow cards 

David Beckham, 17 ^[92]

Most red cards 

David Beckham, 2

Wayne Rooney, 2

List of all England players sent off

·      Alan Mullery, 5 June 1968, 0-1 vs. Yugoslavia in Florence, 1968 European Championship ^[93]

·      Alan Ball, 6 June 1973, 0-2 vs. Poland in Chorzow, 1974 World Cup qualifier

·      Trevor Cherry, 12 June 1977, 1-1 vs. Argentina in Buenos Aires, friendly ^[94]

·      Ray Wilkins, 6 June 1986, 0-0 vs Morocco in Monterrey, 1986 World Cup ^[95]

·      David Beckham, 30 June 1998, 2-2 vs. Argentina in Saint-Etienne, 1998 World Cup

·      Paul Ince, 5 September 1998, 1-2 vs. Sweden in Stockholm, 2000 European Championship qualifier ^[96]

·      Paul Scholes, 5 June 1999, 0-0 vs. Sweden in London, 2000 European Championship qualifier ^[97]

·      David Batty, 8 September 1999, 0-0 vs. Poland in Warsaw, 2000 European Championship qualifier ^[98]

·      Alan Smith, 16 October 2002, 2-2 vs. Macedonia in Southampton, 2004 European Championship qualifier

·      David Beckham, 8 October 2005, 1-0 vs. Austria in Manchester, 2006 World Cup qualifier ^[99]

·      Wayne Rooney, 1 July 2006, 0-0 vs. Portugal in Gelsenkirchen, 2006 World Cup

·      Robert Green, 10 October 2009, 0-1 vs. Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk, 2010 World Cup qualifier ^[100]

·      Wayne Rooney, 7 October 2011, 2-2 vs. Montenegro in Podgorica, 2012 European Championship qualifier

(SOURCE WIKIPEDIA)

Another point is we have other players who are also capable of scoring goals and we need to get past the qualifying stage to start with.  We would welcome your views.

As Carlos Tevez faces not only the wrath of Man City but also his golf club and as our QPR friend waxes lyrical about the wealth of West London’s newest addition to the premiership once again we wonder is money ruining the game? Yester Year Sir Stanley Matthews was roasting the worlds finest for £20 a week and even the likes of Pele and Best never commanded a fraction of what some of the modern day mediocre stars do, the game is expensive to watch and has lost it’s characters – please officialdom don’t destroy our heritage anymore.

Well that’s the rant over, as we get ready to watch Shamrock Rovers, a team of part timers who have become the first Irish team to reach this stage of a European Tournament (that’s more like what we want at Jumpers)

Oh well now for the nostalgia:

Stanley played top level football until he was fifty - he never knowingly brought the game into disripute and was always an example to school children everywhere.

GoalKeepers Should Always Be Aware

What can happen if you spend too much time celebrating

Atfer an extended break....

As the new Season has started here at Jumpers, after an extended summer break, we have the usual questions. Is a collective term of Football Officials called Incompetence? Further, more is a collection of football administrators a corruption. In addition, as importantly can we finally get some football tips right.

Our plea to the authorities is that the game should be entertaining and have character not a load of over coached dummies and people to afraid of being brought to book by the FA. Oh how we miss Clough, Docherty and Allison. The Bests and Bowles of this world – the game needs them. During the season we will often hype back to those days as we finish bottom of the fantasy league!

Enough for now just to leave with a few blasts from the past:

“There was no point in him coming to team talks. All I used to say was, “Whenever possible pass the ball to George.””

Sir Matt Busby on who else the Late Great George Best

“Anyone who uses the word quintessentially in a half-time team talk is talking crap.”

Mick McCarthy gets to the point.

“I used to play football in my youth but then my eyes went bad so I became a referee.”

Luton’s most famous fan Eric Morecambe

And from our overseas Correspondant - wit and wisdom

·                                 So Chelski go for the Porto coach, bet Icerink is really happy this morning, walks out on Turkey into .....One thing you can be sure of with Abram the bitch, he will shit on anyone . True personal integrity.

I I see Adebayor could be off to colder climes , Surely Harry wasn't seriously thinking of taking him but then he must be getting desperate as all his players worth anything are talking about moving on, notice how quiet Gormless has been!! And Man Shitty haven't signed anybody new yet, do you think people are starting to realise they are really a sham, always were and always will be also rans like Villa. Now there's a laugh, just stolen a wannabe Fergie manager who noboby else wants and refferees aren't scared of and players ignore, ho hum happy day.

 

It is rumoured that a certain missing lord and newspaper magnate could well make a surprise attendance at next FIFA meeting , if they can get a certain horse saddled, and that has as much credibility as Sepp Blatter or that other french (spit) paragon of virtue monsewer Platipus.
I understand Comrade Abramovich has a penchant for managers like  he has for suchi, he sits there and they go past him until he sees one he might like then he picks it , tastes it , if it's not to his liking he puts it back and tries another, seems though he 's already tried one but can't make up his mind ,so he is going to have another go. Turkey are happy they were trying to work out how to tell the Dutchman to piss off without having to pay him. And what about Allerdyce, jeez, the season hasn't even started and the Hammers board have given him a vote of confidence, I wouldn't even bother to unpack me lunch if I were him.

Kosher Kid