31 July ~ Sunderland have made a habit of collecting international goalkeepers in recent years. We've now got Scotland's Craig Gordon and comedian Frank Carson's nephew, Northern Ireland Under-21 international, Trevor. In the past there's been Thomas Sorensen, Mart Poom, Marton Fulop and Thomas Myhre. But you have to go as far back as Jimmy Montgomery being overlooked, unfairly according to many, in the 1970s (he got as far as the preliminary 40 for the Mexico World Cup) to find a Wearside goalkeeper anywhere near the England squad. With this in mind I was a little disappointed when Bristol City, rather than Sunderland, signed David James on Friday.

30 July ~ Not only did England being rubbish at the World Cup cheer me up, it has helped me to feel distinctly positive about a new season for the first time in a while. Like many football supporters, the stratospheric hype surrounding the star players is the biggest single reason for my sense of alienation from the national team. The bombast will be cranked up again for the new season but no one can fail to be aware that it's a sham now. The feted young men being paid up to 20 grand a day are not among the best players in the world.

29 July ~ As a Northerner who recently moved to west London, I'm still fairly new to the capital's complicated network of rivalries and derbies. I was aware, naturally, that Arsenal and Tottenham don't get on. I knew that nobody much likes Millwall (as they like to sing) or Chelsea, and I understood that some of the fiercest rivalries are intercity – QPR are about as unpopular in Cardiff as Crystal Palace are in Brighton.

29 July ~ Roy Hodgson will manage Liverpool for the first time tonight as a popular Premier League manager. But it wasn't always like this. In WSC 130 (December 1997) Matt Nation remembered a fraught few months at Bristol City in 1982

On turning to the front bit of your Sunday tabloid, you often find pages five to eight plastered with a "seedy past" exposé. The host of a sofa-based chat-show, for example, is revealed to have once visited a topless bar, dropped a couple of tabs and then thrown a cloakroom attendant through a plate-glass window. The nation smirks behind its collective hand for a couple of days, then loses interest, comes over all moral and decides to let bygones be bygones.

28 July ~ Late on Tuesday afternoon, the Asociación de Fútbol Argentino (AFA) finally announced, as we all knew they were going to, that Diego Maradona's contract as national team head coach wasn't going to be renewed. When a small child falls over quite softly in the street, you can count under your breath to three or four before they start bawling. To anyone in Argentina, this was as predictable as that.

28 July ~ On Sunday Alberto Contador won his third Tour de France, adding a Spanish cycling victory to Rafael Nadal's Wimbledon title and, of course, the country's first World Cup. Spain's footballers may yet claim another international trophy in the European Under-19 Championship final against hosts France on Friday evening. While the "audacious" penalty scored by Ezequiel Calvente in their final group game continues to be a YouTube hit, Spain yesterday outplayed England, in a match marked by several outstanding goals.

Visit our Free Stuff section to win one of three new football books. There's Ossie's Dream, the "Autobiography Of A Football Legend", a Story Of The Green & Gold (of Newton Heath), or Century Bhoys, the "Official History Of Celtic's Greatest Goalscorers".

The new WSC is out now, available from all good newsagents or dispatched on the day of order from the WSC shop. A World Cup special with a match by match TV diary:

"A goal for all Africa." "Our knowledge of these teams is limited." "I didn't fancy him, still don't." "Got to change it now, the Svenster." "Ghana are as keen as a badger." "Weather you'd expect at Port Vale." "Dancing to the African beat." "Brazil score a British goal!" "Oof. Now will you go to church?" "A knee to the lower carriage." "What's Spanish for a Bafta – a Bafto?"