Idrissa Gueye - now gone

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

I used to like it when some rugby teams used to use letters rather than numbers.

Back in the day, my lad - he played for Market Bosworth - and I had season tickets at Leicester Tigers - £80 for me, £50 for him (we went whenever The Villa were away) and we were big fans of the ABC club: Graham Rowntree, Darren Garforth and Richard Cockerill - the Tigers' front row - and my fave - H - Neil Back.

I loved the letters thing.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

On thread.
When he, and others arrive, someone will have 19 won't they?


Or will we always keep it for Stan?


(not 5 - Okore's 5...proper centre half number)

[Pat McMahon]

Oh I love the unusual numbers thing. Also I far prefer the Brazilian style naming on the back of shirts.

I used to like it when Celtic didn't have shirt numbats, just numbers on their shorts IIRC

[ciggiesnbeer]

Oh I love the unusual numbers thing. Also I far prefer the Brazilian style naming on the back of shirts.

I used to like it when Celtic didn't have shirt numbats, just numbers on their shorts IIRC

Oh that is a nice idea. Must have looked class.

[Hillbilly]

Wasn't there some player (Uruguayan I think) at Inter who got in a strop when they wouldn't take no.10 off the incumbent and give it to him? I recall they compromised by giving him 19 and taping in a + between the 1 and 9.

[J]

The Chilean Zamorano at Inter. 1+8 I think it was as he wanted the number 9.

[mike]

Wasn't there some player (Uruguayan I think) at Inter who got in a strop when they wouldn't take no.10 off the incumbent and give it to him? I recall they compromised by giving him 19 and taping in a + between the 1 and 9.

Footballers can be absolute narcissistic wankers. Pink boots, silly hair and special numbers. You're paid millions of pounds to play football, you can shag pretty much anyone you want but it's not enough is it.

[Damo70]

Wonder will he get the 5 shirt .
I quite like a midfielder wearing 5. Throw back.

To what?

Brazil I recall always liked a nr 5 in midfield.

Liverpool when they were good. Ray Kennedy.

Then Ronnie Whelan. It just never seemed right to me though. Against the law of England and all that.

[Gerrin]

Wonder will he get the 5 shirt .
I quite like a midfielder wearing 5. Throw back.

To what?

Brazil I recall always liked a nr 5 in midfield.

Liverpool when they were good. Ray Kennedy.

Then Ronnie Whelan. It just never seemed right to me though. Against the law of England and all that.

Was that not just because Hansen always wore 6.

[joe_c]

Wonder will he get the 5 shirt .
I quite like a midfielder wearing 5. Throw back.

To what?

Michael Essien

[joe_c]

On thread.
When he, and others arrive, someone will have 19 won't they?


Or will we always keep it for Stan?


(not 5 - Okore's 5...proper centre half number)

Darren Bent was 19 last season. I dislike the notion of retiring numbers in football, particularly 1-11 which I think should be sacrosanct.

[pauliewalnuts]

Wasn't there some player (Uruguayan I think) at Inter who got in a strop when they wouldn't take no.10 off the incumbent and give it to him? I recall they compromised by giving him 19 and taping in a + between the 1 and 9.

Footballers can be absolute narcissistic wankers. Pink boots, silly hair and special numbers. You're paid millions of pounds to play football, you can shag pretty much anyone you want but it's not enough is it.

If I ever rise to the peak of English (or European or World, why not think big?) football by means of a violent coup, I'll be bringing in new laws regarding stupidly coloured boots.

However, the first thing I'll be cracking down on is the use of anything other than the player's surname on the back of the shirt.

The only case in which this is ok is for Brazilians, where that is the single word name they are always referred to (Zico, Pele) etc, AND said Brazilian is of an extremely high quality (ie not Fred or Jo).

Ideally dispensation to have a nickname rather than a surname on your shirt would be decided by an oversight panel which would accept and decide on applications. The only member of the panel would be me, thinking about it.

I am thinking of the likes of Chica-fucking-rito here. That's not your name. Get it off your shirt, and get your actual name on.

[Edvard Remberg]

Most (all?) Brazilians have 2 surnames to identify who they are, so you would have 2 last names on every shirt, if not the nickname. And some of them pretty long.

E.g. Ronaldo would be: Nazário de Lima

Jo would be Assis Silva, which is better

[Villa in Denmark]

Or even better f##k the whole squad numbers and names thing off.

Match day squad.
1 - 11 on the pitch.
12 - 18 subs.

And preferably take the number of subs on the bench back down to 5 or even 3.

[Damo70]

I always take the piss out of my son for the fact he has loads of pairs of football boots but no proper ones, ie old school black with some white on. That however is a minor irritation compared to nicknames on the back of professional footballers shirts. My lad knows it is one of two things guaranteed to set me off on a rant whilst watching a game. The other being players taking their shirts off to celebrate a goal when they know it will cost them a booking. I would send them off. Two yellows, one for removing the shirt and the other for wearing the coloured boots they are 99.9% certain to be wearing.

Wearing gaudy coloured boots and taking off a shirt that has a nickname on should be a life time ban.