Smell of the chippies on Walton Road, onions from the pavement hotdog vendors outside Anfield, mmmm, stink of steaming turds from the rozzer’s horse, medallions in the street! We crush into the Kop, smell the men’s underarms, Brylcream, Vitalis, chewy, damp wool coats, bad breath and beer, “Under the arm, Leeds!” We’re two up in […]

Yuke, you learned to play chords on your dad’s ukelele strumming to George Formby uke and croon, “I’m leaning on a lamppost at the corner of the street in case a certain little lady comes by.” The toothy comic actor leered out between the first licks you played in your deaf gran’s front parlor among […]

You tell the reporter, “I used to play football in the streets of Huyton and get kicked from pillar to post by the older boys. You didn’t complain. You just picked yourself up and got on with it.” Another Derby match… yet another bad result? One more Benitez disaster? Rafa “Beneath Us” as the Toffeemen […]

You seem a stalwart chap, Sam, on that we’d be first to own, the sort of bloke we’d meet at pub and treat to a pint of brown. Sam, you’re as solid as Bolton you’ve managed to renown; your name, too, Sam Allardyce, solid, nice, it’s yours, not a loan. Ah, but Sam, lad, I […]

I see you at your Vatican window as you deliver your appeal for world peace and you release two white doves with the boy who reminds you of your Polish childhood kicking a balled cloth that substituted for a leather sphere. They refuse to fly over the crowd in the plaza but flutter into the […]