Search: 'Jeff Astle'

Footballers are increasingly viewed by extremes in the press. James Calder worries that we have become too quick to judge

I haven’t heard much about Titus Bramble lately. I can’t say I’ve followed his career assiduously but I’m definitely hearing less about him than I used to. Time was when he seemed to be everywhere – pranging cars, giving away soft goals and attracting cheap gags from anyone with an opinion on the game. Once the epitome of “comedy defending”, the term of choice for caustically humorous bloggers and writers everywhere, Bramble seems to have slipped out of the public eye. Well, out of my eye anyway.

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Cameron Carter on Sky's relentless plugging of "Survival Sunday" and Gabby Logan's knees

Victor Lewis-Smith’s assertion that “alliteration is the leper’s bell of the idiot” came to mind in the last week of May as the newspapers and television collaborated to promote “Survival Sunday” (to go with “Super Sunday”, “Straightforward Saturday” and “Misplaced Monday”). Sky were so keen they had a countdown on Sky Sports News the day before: “Survival Sunday… 1 day, 3 hours, 25 minutes…”, just to remind you what an important day it was and also to be sure to refer to it as “Survival Sunday” when with your friends.

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Brian Gibbs looks back to when Jimmy Hill guided Coventry City to promotion and Notts County had their worst ever season

The long-term significance
Jimmy Hill had been a reasonably successful player with Fulham, for whom he was top scorer in their Second Division promotion season of 1957-58. He was also noted for being the only bearded footballer of the era, which led to his being nicknamed “the rabbi” and “the beatnik” by team-mates. Hill became a national public figure through his leadership of the players’ union, the PFA, during its campaign against the maximum wage, which was finally abandoned in 1961.

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Simon Tyers on Jeff Stelling, Paul Gascoigne and the future of punditry

Jeff Stelling has a new book about Soccer Saturday, called Jelleyman’s Thrown A Wobbly. I’d have gone with What’s Been Happening, Charlie? as a more knowing title, but that may be why he’s on the television and I’m not. In his book, Jeff reminds the reader that in its first season after dropping the Sports Saturday title and starting to cover football at any great length, the pundits would leave the studio at ten to three and throughout the next two hours only be heard as disembodied voices over a still caption. We were supposed to think they were at the game they were covering even though they were clearly just in the VT suite, before coming back at ten past five as if nothing was untoward.

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While their footballing principles may stop West Brom repeating 2005’s great escape from relegation, their fans remain steadfastly positive. The visit of the unpopular yet enduringly effective Bolton provides another opportunity to showcase their faith and fragility, and David Stubbs was there

As the West Brom fans enter by the Jeff Astle gate into The Hawthorns, many of them, young and old, male and female, pay tribute to painted images, fastened to the railings, of the hero of 1968’s FA Cup victory that look like they were commissioned by the same artist who does those mirror likenesses of Elvis Presley you get at fairgrounds. One by one, they come up and pat Astle, as if rubbing a rabbit’s paw for good luck. It’s a genuinely moving collective gesture of footballing faith – I’m reminded of the stream of newlyweds who come and pay tribute to the eternal flame dedicated to the Second World War fallen in Moscow’s Red Square.

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