Category: England

Police officer has a kick around with young Aston Villa fans before FA Cup semifinal

It appears that even the police can’t resist The Magic of The FA Cup as one officer took part in a kick around with a few kids outside Wembley before the semifinal between Liverpool and Aston Villa on Sunday.

Onlookers gave her a cheer and sang “sign her up, sign her up!”

Hopefully distracting people with a demonstration of footy skills catches on as a means of keeping the peace. The guy who filmed this should have been arrested for not doing so in landscape mode, though.

Non-league player sacked after getting caught having sex with fan in the dugout

(Mossleyweb.com/Steve Burgess)
(Mossleyweb.com/Steve Burgess)

Jay Hart, a striker for Evo-Stik Division 1 North (the eighth tier of English football) club Clitheroe, has been dismissed from the club after he was caught and filmed having sex with a fan in the dugout after a 4-1 loss at Mossley AFC. It happened to be Mossley’s annual ladies day at Seel Park, but he definitely took that concept a bit further than was intended.

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Tim Sherwood might be ridiculous like a fox

Tim Sherwood is a silly man. Between the touchline celebrations and outerwear throwing, the self-aggrandizing talk of win ratios, keeping Harry Kane at Spurs and trying to sign Raheem Sterling at 14, the guy mockingly referred to as “Tactics Tim” seems to revel in making people notice him — even if it’s as the butt of a joke. But a curious thing is happening while everyone is making fun him: he’s getting results.

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Arsenal reach FA Cup final on pitiful goalkeeping error

Arsenal required extra time to beat Reading 2-1 in the FA Cup semifinals. Alexis Sanchez scored both of Arsenal’s goals, but the second was a gift that will haunt Reading keeper Adam Federici until he jams a pencil into his ear in a desperate attempt to forget the pain.

Having already made several fine stops on the day to force Arsenal into extra time, Federici let a routine save squirt through his legs. To make it even more excruciating, he tried to make the full-reach, last ditch attempt to pull it off the goal line, but he just couldn’t do it (3:48 into the video below).

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This is a 93-year-old Reading fan making fun of Arsene Wenger

Reading will face Arsenal in the FA Cup semifinals on Saturday and 93-year-old Royals fan Ciss Platten will be in attendance at Wembley. Platten was alive when Reading last reached the FA Cup semifinals in 1927, when they lost 3-0 to Cardiff City. So this match could bring (very) long awaited satisfaction for her — satisfaction made all the sweeter since she doesn’t care much for Arsenal or their manager.

From the Guardian:

For her, that the opponents are Arsenal has added extra spice to the tie. She is not the greatest admirer of the north London team nor of their manager, Arsène Wenger, a notoriously poor loser. “We call him ‘Arsène Whinger’,” Platten says. “Funny thing, it was in the paper the other day – ‘Whinger’. He’s always whinging, he’s always having a moan.” Platten laughs mischievously. As she does a lot.

Yet her distaste for all things Arsenal runs a bit deeper, right back to the late 1920s. Blame her father, Arthur. “I didn’t really know about football then but dad used to stand by the window on a Sunday morning checking his Pools coupon,” Platten says. “And he’d say: ‘Bloody hell, Arsenal have let me down again.’

“He was always grumbling about them. ‘That blasted team’ he called them. I think that’s maybe why I’ve always disliked Arsenal.”

Yes, Arsene — you just got burned by a great-great grandmother. That’s a mind game even Jose Mourinho can’t match.

Conspiracy Theory: Liverpool are trying to damage Raheem Sterling’s reputation

Though just 20 years old, Raheem Sterling is proving himself to be one of Liverpool’s best players. As a result, he wants more money and perhaps a move to a club with a better chance of winning trophies. Though a natural part of the business, this puts Liverpool in a difficult position. As long as Sterling performs as well as he is, he holds all the cards. So the only way the club can gain an advantage in this situation is to try and cut down his market value in other ways.

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Sky Sports’ Iain Dowie doesn’t know how many three is

Former QPR and Hull manager Iain Dowie now serves as a commentator for Sky Sports News and was tasked with reporting from Chesterfield’s League One match against Colchester United on Tuesday. When he announced that Chesterfield had made it 3-0, he revealed his personal struggle with holding up the proper number of fingers by showing four of them.

Suddenly, Dowie’s modest record as a football manager is all the more impressive.