Latest Articles
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Joey Barton…Are You Ok, Hun?
Joey Barton will scream his mysoginistic and racist bile to anyone who will listen. Sadly, many do – but how much of that is down to the dangerously powerful coercion of social media?
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Forge FC: Forging A Dynasty
For a completely new competition, the Canadian Premier League has already thrown up some original character – none more so than Forge FC from Hamilton.
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Shirt sponsor sellouts – a financial road to nowhere
Heart on your sleeve, sponsor on your chest – where’s left for common sense? From iconic branding to senseless money-grabbing, we dive into the logic behind shirt sponsors.
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What’s The Goal Difference: Why a level goal difference is baffling
Annibale Frossi famously said the perfect match would end 0-0, but is every middling side chasing – or attaining – perfection? Jack Wills is not convinced.
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CAF Africa Cup of Nations Cote D’Ivoire 2023: Elephants stampede to their kind of glory
The pressure is on Côte d’Ivoire to deliver as hosts of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations 2023 – what kind of success will they achieve?
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AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023 Preview
We take a deep dive into all 24 countries taking part in the 2023 AFC Asian Cup kicks off in Qatar on Friday to bring you right up to speed with the world’s second-oldest continental competition.
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Split Loyalties: Can you truly support more than one club?
Football is nothing without the allegiances and emotions it creates, but can you hold more than one club in your heart? Andrew Flint dives deep into the question.
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A.I vs. Football Journalism: Can Chat GPT help or hinder this saturated industry
As the end of the year looms nearer and nearer, I can’t help but get a tad wistful and nostalgic. I think of the year that has concluded, and I think of Christmases past. There’s a bit of a running joke in my family that I don’t like change, which is fair. When my brother…
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Who the hell is Jérôme Capron?
Jérôme Capron became one of the deadliest strikers in AC Milan history on Championship Manager. The question is – did he actually exist? Andrew Flint dipped back into the mists of time to find out.
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VAR – Can the boring curse be cured
VAR is here whether we like it or not, but is there any hope for improving the experience? Jack Wills rants on football’s marmite.
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FA Cup Third Qualifying Round: Five To Follow
The qualification rounds of the Emirates FA Cup are quickly drawing to a conclusion and with only two rounds to go until the competition ‘proper’, many teams will be looking to secure their place in Monday’s fourth qualifying round draw as the promised land of the First Round Proper is within touching distance. These qualifying rounds bring in some…
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Blackburn Rovers & The 5000 Club.
English football history is littered with milestones. The creation of the Premier League; Treble winning seasons of both Manchester Clubs; England winning the World Cup; the creation of the football league itself. In 1888, Scotsman William McGregor founded the football league and 12 clubs began playing each other home and away. These clubs were Accrington,…
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Chelsea’s #9 Curse: The highs and lows of the 21st century
The number 9 shirt at Chelsea FC, in the 21st century anyway, seems to have carried an unusual curse… A succession of predominantly high-profile players have donned the now infamous jersey and faced challenges and struggles. From high-profile signings to promising talents, each wearer encountered difficulties that resulted in their usual goal-scoring prowess waning, in…
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Celebrations, Commiserations and Embarrassing Ignorance.
Colombia beat Germany There is just something about seeing Germany get beat. Being English, it is something of a rarity to see the Three Lions triumph over their historic rivals but it does occasionally happen and when it does it just feels good. Germany are obviously a heavyweight among footballing nations, regardless of gender. Although…
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The Greatest Penalty Shootout Ever?
Is there anything that epitomises tournament football more than withstanding 120 minutes of attack after attack from arguably the best team in the world and knocking them out on penalties in the most dramatic fashion? That is what Sweden have just delivered against USA. We’ve all seen some absolutely belting penalty shootouts over the years.…
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Women’s World Cup: The Story So Far
As the Women’s World Cup kicks off, here are five stories that have piqued our interest in the run-up to the tournament itself.
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Summer transfers 2023, Saudi spending, hypocrisy, and optimism
Lionel Messi rejected a sensational return to the Camp Nou to join MLS side Inter Miami. Karim Benzema leaves the Champions League powerhouse Real Madrid to join Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad, and Jordan Henderson at the ripe old age of 33 is on the verge of cashing in his morals for one final payday. For…
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Football Writers: Join us on our search for the Heart of Football
We are a writing community at heart, and would love for you to join us – we don’t demand a whopping great CV, but we do expect a desire to find good stories.
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The Island Games
You may or may not be familiar with the Island Games; I wasn’t. I stumbled across them while researching another competition of the same name – the second season of the Canadian Premier League which was held in the isolated location of Prince Edward Island under the strict shackles of Covid restrictions. Once I had…
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Football everything everywhere all at once – Give us fans a break!
Football football football football football…
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What’s Happening In Canada?
Domestic & International Football & Atiba Hutchinson
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When Is A League Not A League?
There is a world outside of football. There are footballs outside of football. It was while watching the final of a different kind of football that a thought crept inside your weary narrator’s mind. When is a league not a league and can football learn a few things from other sports? While glued to the…
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Football & Betting – Who Would Have Thought
It’s like rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you’ve already paid. It is of course the weird and ironic relationship football has with the world of betting. A relationship that is not only ironic but extremely unfortunate. Who would have thought … As the dust settles on the revelation that Brentford and…
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The Humble Caretaker
The caretaker manager deserves more respect, that much is clear. We as football fans should never underestimate their sacrifice to the sport we love and the clubs we hold dear, as Simon Toye argues.
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Welcome to Wrexham – The gang buys a club, and inherits a community
Welcome to Wrexham: Be honest, when two Hollywood icons took over non-league Wrexham, you didn’t expect to actually fall in love with the story did you? As Jack Wills explains, expect the unexpected.
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Should You Ever Go Back To The Future?
Show me a tribe of supporters calling for the manager’s head and I’ll show you the same tribe wishing they could turn the clock back and reappoint the coach they hounded out. Although, they’ll swear blind that they never slagged them off in the first place and it was all the other so-called fans. But…
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A Tale of Two Illegal Streamers
We live in a time where all the information about everything that has ever happened is available at a second’s notice from your pocket…there are two types of people who stream sports illegally.
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A tribute to John ‘Motty’ Motson
John ‘Motty’ Motson has a lifetime of memories that shouldn’t ever be forgotten.
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Champion’s League pregame show – Thank you for the music!
Music and football, the two are so intrinsically linked…Life is short, let’s make it a bit more fun!
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Transfer Deadline Day: Bottlenecked excitement, or a sickening indictment of football’s greed?
After the record-breaking madness of Transfer Deadline Day, what role does the carnival of carnage serve in football’s spiralling financial landscape? As Andrew Flint argues, perhaps it is merely the innocent messenger of football’s more sinister message.
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Wales. Golf. Retirement: An ode to Gareth Bale
Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney, Scholes, Beckham, Terry, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole… For a period in the mid 2000s it felt like the English media were incapable of seeing a good English player without anointing them as the greatest player in the world, with all of this culminating in the now gag-inducing phrase “Golden Generation”. This was all…
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The King of Kings
“Behold the king, The King of Kings…there is only one.” That man was Edson Arantes do Nascimento…PELE!!
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Qatar 2022 – the best worst World Cup
I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. I have spent the last few months, years, even, complaining about the Qatar World Cup. About the winter World Cup. About all of it. You know what? This World Cup has been absolutely fucking brilliant! Should Qatar have hosted the 2022 World Cup? No, of course not.…
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Qatar World Cup: England vs USA preview interview
Given the deep historical and sporting rivalry between England and the USA, their clash at the Qatar World Cup is huge. We spoke to Roberto Rojas for an American perspective.
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Interview with Danny Lewis, author of When Asia Welcomed The World: The 2002 World Cup Revisited
When Asia Welcomed the World: The 2002 World Cup Revisited. We spoke to Danny Lewis about his nostalgic look back at the ground-breaking tournament in Japan & South Korea
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Qatar 2022 World Cup Diary
Hated, adored, never ignored… The Qatar World Cup was never going to disappear quietly into the night, for better or worse. Here are the stories along the way that have caught our eye.
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Saudi Arabia Dreamland: How the Falcons ruined Messi’s swansong
Saudi Arabia’s stunning win over Argentina will go down as one of the greatest shocks in World Cup history, but how did they pull it off? We spoke to Asian football expert Martin Lowe to find out.
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Boycotts, apathy, and jubilation… Qatar 2022 is finally here!
Whether people like it or not, the Qatar World Cup is finally here, with a mixed anticipation for the football itself. We spoke to Welsh, Norwegian and English experts to gauge a broad perspective.
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Unwelcome Hosts: How Qatar prepared for their golden moment
Qatar is breaking the mould with the most unpopular and controversial World Cup to date, but how did the team get there? Andrew Flint looks into a squad developed like no other – and the noise swirling around them.
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The Hand of the Devil – The Ghana Uruguay grudge match
Uruguay will face Ghana in Qatar at the 2022 World Cup in only the second-ever meeting in their history – but it is already becoming a modern classic rivalry. Jack Wills looks back 12 years to find out why.
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Eid-wood Park: The Pride of Lancashire
Virtually every club in the region claims to be “The Pride of Lancashire”…for me, Blackburn Rovers are the pride of Lancashire.
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Round Table: 2022/23 Season Predictions – Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League
As the English Premier League kicks into gear, it’s time for our writers to either look like clairvoyant geniuses… or look rather silly. Do you agree with our season predictions?
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Alessia Russo: Who is the Lionesses’ Backheeling Supersub?
There’s a whole lot more to England’s electric supersub Alessia Russo than flashy backheels, as women’s football expert, analysts and author Abdullah Abdullah explains
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Ross Graham – From loan hell to Dundee United’s rising star
While he may not be a Beckenbauer or Maldini, Dundee United’s Ross Graham has taken an unconventional route to becoming a superb young talent – we spoke to the people following him most closely to find out how.
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Striking the Angle: U-turns, photoshop signings and the 85 million – 20 minute flop
Bryan is back, and he is once again exasperated at the warped world of modern football with clickbait, photoshop madness and flop-shaming in the firing line.
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10k a Day Russia to the UK: Episode 1 – Paul Hook Interview
Episode 1 – Interview with Paul Hook. In the first instalment we spoke to one of the key inspirations behind this entire challenge to gain an insight into fitness and motivation
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10k a Day – Russia to the UK
Editor in Chief Andrew Flint is hoping to raise £10,000 for Football Beyond Borders by running 10k every day for nearly two years – here’s why…
Heart of Football 