Piece written for The Guardian’s Comment is Free section on the renaming of Newcastle United’s St James’ Park:

“The rebranding of St James’ Park is another slap for Newcastle fans; Supporters fear Newcastle United’s owner, Mike Ashley, is using the club as a billboard to advertise his Sports Direct chain”.

It was all going so well. Perhaps too well, with hindsight. The announcement that Newcastle United’s ground, St James’ Park, is to be renamed the Sports Direct Arena has shattered the fragile truce between the football club’s supporters and its owner, Mike Ashley…

Read the full story on the Guardian website.

You can read more Newcastle United posts here.

Football The Guardian

Fictional footballers are usually goalscoring centre forwards, but surely no position lends itself to the drama of fiction better than the heroic role of the goalkeeper. Goalkeeper Magazine presents ten of the best goalkeepers from books, comics, films and TV shows:

Ronnie Blake (Goalkeepers Are Different): Esteemed sportswriter Brian Glanville’s Goalkeepers Are Different was published in 1972 by Puffin and aimed at younger readers, but it’s a must-read for goalkeepers of all ages. The book tracks the progress of young keeper Ronnie Blake as he establishes himself between the sticks at fictional first division side Borough, competing against the best teams and players of the era. It feels like an authentic glimpse into the life of a goalkeeper in the early 70s, set in an evocative world of studs, mud and sideburns, and regarded by many as the best football book ever written…

Read the full story in issue four of Goalkeeper Magazine.

Football Goalkeeper Magazine

Tevez, Eto’o and Gyan are among the latest breed of players to be tarred with the ‘football mercenary’ brush. But they have nothing on this 1970s Scoop comic superstar.

Jon Stark arrived on the football scene in the late 1970s, a prolific striker who played for numerous clubs in England and abroad on a nomadic career path motivated entirely by money. A self-styled ‘Matchwinner for Hire’, his terms of service were set out on his business card: ‘£1,000 per match plus £250 per goal, no payment for lost games.’ Playing for different clubs every week, wherever the promise of payment took him, Stark was the ultimate football mercenary. He was, of course, entirely fictional – a comic book character created against the backdrop of a real-life transfer revolution under the strapline: ‘Meet the Footballer of the Future…’

Read the full story in issue 2 of Late Tackle magazine.

Football Late Tackle

Simply Red, U2, Elton John. When footballers have been asked to choose their musical favourites for a national institution they have often embarrassed themselves.

In 1982, with Desert Island Discs more than 40 years old, Trevor Brooking became only the third footballer to appear on the show. At first glance it appeared the West Ham man had impeccable taste. Few music aficionados could grumble at the selection of The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Jackie Wilson’s Higher and Higher, or How Sweet It Is by Junior Walker and the Allstars, and Brooking was the only football figure to choose the Beatles. But then he went and spoilt everything by picking What Kind of Fool by Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb – as his castaway’s favourite, no less…

Read the full story in the October 2011 issue of When Saturday Comes.

Football When Saturday Comes