Gladstone

So my Dad casually dropped into conversation that Atletico Madrid want to sign Samaras from Celtic. I assured him he must have misheard - they're contenders for the title in Spain, no way would they be looking at Samaras. Just looked it up and it is in fact a real rumour. Surely to fuck it is just a rumour. Samaras on his absolute best form can be brilliant but it seems like a really weird target for a team like Atletico. Anthony Stokes was keeping him out of a game not all that long ago. As for the Wylde situation - it's clear something had gone on behind the scenes. Better all round for him to go and get some game time at St Mirren than warm the bench and pick up a high wage at Aberdeen. I like what I'm seeing from Aberdeen at the moment. It's been a while since the club has looked this good on the pitch, picking up good results and the management look like they know their shit. All that coupled with much better attendances - things look healthy again.

Where did you hear that?

The singer is a judge on The Voice.

Anyone digging the new DLS vs SP album? I got it a while ago but only just got round to giving it a proper listen these past couple of weeks. It's really really good. Can see me getting into it in a big way like I did with Angles but didn't quite get into Logic of Chance quite as much. Love the song 'Porter' great tune with some clever lyrics.

You are exactly right. Website of shelving and storage solutions. It's like porn to me. My delivery arrived today - the shed is going to be tidy and organised from now on. Like I said - I'm an old cunt.

Just realised that my BOYHOOD HEROES, Everton Rovers FC have signed McGeady. Not sure what to make of that. Haven't seen him much at Spartak but he was a frustrating player at Celtic. Unplayable at times but non-existent in some matches and he had that knack of trying to do one too many step overs or taking on the full back 8 times instead of skipping past him and zinging a ball into the box first time. He was very young and hopefully his time in Russia will have matured him as a player and he's stopped the fucking whinging he used to do on the pitch.

Big Dug. www.bigdug.co.uk Fucking ace-ic. (Yes I'm officially an old cunt and yes you're officially all jealous.)

I have a feeling Milner was being sarcastic (could be wrong). There's no surprise that Savage was a wind up merchant on the pitch - he was very abrasive. Took him a very very long time to ever receive a red card though. It was one of those stats you just couldn't believe. Booked about a million times for basically being a dick but never sent off (he was sent off later on in his career). EDIT: Just looked up his stats - it wasn't that late in his career - 2005/06 season. Still, he was a red card waiting to happen and it must have taken a lot of matches before he received that red card. Only one in his career according to ESPN stats.

I'm right there with you on the ugly neanderthal side of football. I'm ashamed that I used to join in with this (to an extent) both when I was playing and supporting football. It just seems to be ingrained in from a young age but there is absolutely no need for it. It took me to become a coach of kids football to really start looking at how people behave at all levels of football and it is just ridiculous. I read that Graeme Le Saux article and was really shocked by it. Not because it happened but because of how sucked into that sort of thing everyone can become. Until reading that article, the first thing that would have popped into my head at the mention of Le Saux would have been "was he gay?" Well, maybe not quite (probably him chinning David Batty and David Batty not flinching is the first thing). But I can remember, as a teenager, being convinced that Le Saux was gay and thinking it was funny when Robbie Fowler taunted him. I've obviously grown up a lot since then and can't comprehend why people can be so prejudiced because of someone's sexuality, skin colour, religion, or whatever. It must be a complete nightmare being a gay professional footballer. The standard put-down in any football changing room I've ever been in is "you fucking poof" or something similar and I've said it myself probably thousands of times in my life. Not really sure where I'm going with this, but the football culture is the thing that's made me lose a lot of interest over the past couple of years.

Calum Crighton ex-New Deer FC works here. Legend.

I kind of missed the Walcott gesturing thing. It always throws up the argument of the responsibility that highly paid professional footballers should have. I agree with that to a fairly large extent in that such public figures should be setting a good example to those that idolise them - particularly thousands of kids. But it always bothers me far more that Theo Walcott can't jokingly make a 2-0 gesture to opposing fans without inciting a riot. Football fans are fucking ridiculous. The vast majority are grown men who should be more than capable of going no further than laughing it off and calling Theo a "cheeky cunt" or something similar. But instead, there will be absolute rage from the stands with people shouting (probably) racist abuse and how they hope he dies of cancer and all that lovely stuff that football fans seem to think is fine to shout when they are within the confines of a football stadium. It reminds me of that video doing the rounds of the Rangers fans after Artur Boruc crossing himself at Ibrox. Now, I know as well as anyone that Boruc loved it and made a big thing about making sure he did it right in their faces but the blindness by the Rangers fans who were posting that video to show the "terrible crime" that Boruc was committing was remarkable. All he did was cross himself. And hundreds, if not thousands of Rangers fans basically wanted to kill him or at least stamp on him repeatedly. Fuds. The lot of them. Football would be a much better sport if Walcott was able to have a laugh and wind up the fans light-heartedly with that 2-0 gesture without inciting a riot. But in the real world, he gets all the pelters whilst the fans throwing coins (for fuck sake) at him and showering the stewards in the process barely get a mention.

Finally downloaded that Marionettes album. It's fucking ace.

I'll clear it with the boss and then let you know.

That's shit. Lengthy commutes suck balls. I have a 40 mile drive to work since my company relocated to Westhill. Dyce was a 32 mile drive or something, but it was at the "right side" of Dyce for me and I could leave my house after 8am and be at my desk by 9am. If I want to take less than an hour to get to work now I almost have to leave by about 5.30am. It's pretty shit.

Haha - what a dick I am sometimes. I was forgetting that it wasn't just a few days ago that AVB got sacked. In my defence, all I care about is Everton Rovers FC.

You'd have thunk it.

He does have a 100% record at Spurs so far.

Yeah - agree with that although, I'm surprised that the mental owner has given him a contract until the end of next season. I would have expected a guy with such high expectations to have maybe given Sherwood the job until the end of this season at the most, but more likely just on an interim basis until he gets Mourinho or Guardiola or Sir Alex Ferguson in charge because that's the level he clearly thinks Spurs are at.

Sherwood appointed Spurs boss. That seems a bit mental.

Ah - Marionettes' debut album. I missed that... I've been out of the loop on all things local for a while. I must seek this out. Is it on iTunes? EDIT: Do Deportees still exist? I have the first EP/single but haven't seen any other recorded output.

I GET THAT. Thanks for clearing it up though. You'll notice in my previous post that I had only heard of them on American TV shows until I went to Uni (when I was a mere 17) and discovered that some of my classmates had attended High Schools all over Scotland. I'm just taking the piss out of someone that went to the same school as me which was an ACADEMY now saying he went to High School (or something - I can't even remember now). Just for a laugh, ken?

He's such a Polish wannabe.

They should tie him to a lampost in the centre of Cardiff in full Cardiff City home kit. An old blue one.

I have no problem with it being called High School although it sounds weird to me because I only ever heard the term on American TV shows until I went to uni and heard people not far south of Stonehaven calling it High School. BUT, I know that ca_gere went to an Academy, so him calling it High School is wrong. He's from Cruden Bay. There are no High Schools in Cruden Bay.