Search: ' Frank Worthington'

Jon Spurling looks at how footballers' holidaying habits have changed radically since the days of the maximum wage

For England’s multimillionaire footballers, there is one major consolation to having flopped so dismally on the grand stage earlier this summer. With cash to burn, they have the choice of jetting off to any destination in the short gap between the World Cup and the new season. Frank Lampard, with girlfriend Christine Bleakley in tow, holidayed in Italy with the Redknapps while the newly single Ashley Cole took a break in Los Angeles. According to the tabloids, Cole quickly got over the trauma of his split from Cheryl by partying until the early hours in “the city’s top nightspots”.

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A German’s view of our beautiful game
by Raphael Honigstein
Yellow Jersey, £11.99
Reviewed by Mike Ticher
From WSC 274 December 2009 

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Psychoanalysing national character is “a murky business”, says Raphael Honigstein, a German journalist who has lived in England since 1993. It certainly is, especially when your picture of the nation is a caricature. An unflattering view from an outsider is often unsettling. It can also be refreshing and challenging, but only if the insights are original. Honigstein has absorbed a lot about English football through direct experience and its literature (he leans heavily on David Winner and David Downing), but most of his conclusions seem to me exaggerated, too broad or half-truths, at best.

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Despite three play-off semi-final defeats on the trot, the early 1990s were heady times for Merseyside's third team. Karl Sturgeon recalls

“Tranmere,” Johnny King once said, “will never be able to compete with Liverpool and Everton. They’re big liners like the Queen Mary, but I see Tranmere like a deadly submarine.”

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Some are wild cards, some club stalwarts. Jon Spurling looks at the life of the acting manager

Newcastle and Sunderland rarely admit to having anything in common, yet the clubs’ recent moves to formalise the positions of Joe Kinnear and Ricky Sbragia represents a rare moment of triumph for caretaker managers. The fact that both clubs hankered after bigger names suggests that neither man’s position is secure, but at least they are likely to emerge with their self respect intact, unlike many hapless interim appointments.

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When Danny Brady found out his sister's boyfriend was an ex-pro he feared the worst. This is what happened when they met…

When I first discovered that my big sister had started going out with a retired footballer, two thoughts bubbled up into my mind: “Ooh, I hope he’s minted and still gets tickets”; and “Please God, don’t let it be Frank Worthington”. Because in the mind of the general public, it’s either/or when it comes to retired footballers. They either spend their time sitting on a throne made out of bricks of £50 notes, or they’re scowling at the world behind a paper-shop counter or run-down bar, gazing wistfully at faded cuttings from The Pink ’Un on the wall.

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