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Not sure if it's already been mentioned but Messi at st James's park features on the front cover of the Fifa 2013! So thats another RTG meltdown on the cards  ;D

Newcastle fan at EA seems to be the reason. Not the first time its happened either. Look to the left of the goal.

http://www.fifaencyclopedia.com/11practicesetpiece.jpg

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Not sure if it's already been mentioned but Messi at st James's park features on the front cover of the Fifa 2013! So thats another RTG meltdown on the cards  ;D

Newcastle fan at EA seems to be the reason. Not the first time its happened either. Look to the left of the goal.

http://www.fifaencyclopedia.com/11practicesetpiece.jpg

 

;D ;D That's brilliant!

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watching the 2004/05 season review at the minute.  O'Brien and Bramble as centre halves :anguish:  we really could have gone places that season without those two clowns and a fully-fit Woodgate.

 

That's a bit of a stupid thing to say, given the fact our defence was just about the strongest part of the side that season (03-04).

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watching the 2004/05 season review at the minute.  O'Brien and Bramble as centre halves :anguish:  we really could have gone places that season without those two clowns and a fully-fit Woodgate.

 

That's a bit of a stupid thing to say, given the fact our defence was just about the strongest part of the side that season (03-04).

 

watch it back - some absolute howlers from the pair of them.  Sliced and shit clearances, poor man marking, alarming lapses in concentration.

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watching the 2004/05 season review at the minute.  O'Brien and Bramble as centre halves :anguish:  we really could have gone places that season without those two clowns and a fully-fit Woodgate.

 

That's a bit of a stupid thing to say, given the fact our defence was just about the strongest part of the side that season (03-04).

 

watch it back - some absolute howlers from the pair of them.  Sliced and shit clearances, poor man marking, alarming lapses in concentration.

 

I watched 05/06 recently. Boumsong really WAS as terrible as I remember him.

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8 minute 29 second video here: -

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18609772

 

Remembering football's Death Match

 

By Mark Pougatch BBC Sport presenter

 

The Olympic Stadium in Kiev is a fitting venue for the Euro 2012 final on Sunday night but just a mile away in this city laden with beautiful churches is a much more intimate ground.

 

The Zenit Stadium has one sagging, concrete terrace where wooden benches tip the spectators towards the pitch and a blue stand, paint peeling and cracking, straddles the halfway line.

 

The clue to this historic venue sits above the colonnades on the entrance to the ground, with the words 'START'. On this patch of ground in 1942 one of football's more unusual matches took place.

 

Most people will have seen, or at least heard of, the film 'Escape to Victory'  starring Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. It is about a team of prisoners of war who play football against their German captors, only to find themselves part of a Nazi propaganda stunt.

 

The inspiration came from a match played at the Zenit Stadium in August 1942 in occupied Kiev between a German military side, Falkelf, and a team called FC Start, made up mainly of Dynamo Kiev players.

 

It became known as the Death Match and what started out as a means of the Germans showing their sporting superiority was eventually twisted by the Soviet state to suit its own needs under communism. After Wednesday's semi-final between Portugal and Spain on BBC One, we hope to separate the myth from the reality.

 

As well as football, history has always been a passion of mine and particularly this part of the world. My paternal grandfather was born in Ukraine, the Jewish son of a cabinet maker who emigrated west.

 

I had read Andy Dougan's excellent book about what happened to this bunch of Kiev footballers during the Nazi occupation but the more we delved the more it became clear that the story the communists pedalled after the war wasn't the actual truth. Our interviewees made this abundantly clear.

 

The Great Patriotic War Museum in Kiev was built to celebrate the Soviet victory over the Nazi fascists. The imposing Motherland statue is 100 metres high, towering over a fascinating museum which houses authentic German uniforms, helmets, guns, Iron Crosses - and a genuine poster promoting the Death Match on 9 August 1942.

 

If you are ever in Kiev, it's a must to visit and Marina Shevchenko (not a relative of Andriy, I think!) is a wonderful guide.

 

Two-and-a-half thousand people, soldiers and locals watched the game on a hot afternoon and we spoke to Oleg, who was an 11 year old that day. Sharp as a button, gold teeth glinting in the sunshine, he showed us photographs and cuttings of FC Start and remembers the pride in their winning 5-3 against the occupiers who classed them as "untermenschen", which means subhuman.

 

Four of the FC Start team that day were later killed by the Nazis. One of them, Nikolai Korokykh, was a Soviet security officer before the war. Her hand trembling, his daughter Yevgenia showed us a photograph of her father, a handsome man with his hair swept back, who was tortured to death.

 

Such was the pressure to fall in with the communist tale after the war that one of the players who did survive, Mikhail Putistin, apparently became an alcoholic.

 

This story has been told a few times but, more often than not, the film makers haven't challenged the Soviet version of events. With the focus of the football world on Ukraine at the moment, here was a chance to get closer to the truth.

 

Such is the interest in the Death Match that our film has been picked up by many international broadcasters. There is a longer version of the film available on the BBC sport website.

 

Mark Pougatch's film on the Death Match can be seen on BBC One after Wednesday's Euro 2012 match between Portugal and Spain.

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Guest Loven11

TROUBLED Paul Gascoigne looks a world away from his days as an England footie hero as he is snapped with fans who staged a booze-up at a Middle East hotel.

 

The Geordie star — once among the nation’s most talented soccer idols — attended the party in Dubai.

 

Worried onlookers told how Gazza, 45, slurred his words and slumped in a chair with chalk from a pool cue smeared on his face.

 

He also lost hundreds of pounds on pool table bets before eventually being carried away by a concerned promoter and his life-long pal Jimmy Five Bellies.

 

Gazza, who has battled years of drink and drug abuse in the wake of his glittering soccer career, was in Dubai on a speaking tour.

 

Expat Kareem Ghani said: “It’s so tragic. He was really friendly but just looked like a ghost.

 

“Everyone around him was drinking. The measures here are massive so these are huge quantities of alcohol. He really needs help before it’s too late.”

 

Kareem, 29, added: “He was just out of it. He was making wild pool bets and losing because he could hardly hold the cue.

 

“He’s a football legend and he shouldn’t have ended up like this. He needs better protecting.”

 

The Sun told this week how Gazza shunned booze at an “all you can drink” Euro 2012 party in Dubai, necking energy drink Red Bull.

 

The star, who recently appeared in billboard ads for a sportswear manufacturer, was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2008 and has told of battles with cocaine, bulimia and bipolar disorder.

 

Last night a spokesman for Gazza DENIED he was drunk and that he was headed back to rehab.

 

Agent Matt Jones said: “Paul Gascoigne is currently at home in Dorset after a week in Newcastle and a trip to Dubai for the England v Ukraine Euro 2012 match.

 

“Committed to his health and wellbeing — he works out every day — he has only been drinking soft drinks and non-alcoholic cocktails.”

 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4398796/Paul-Gascoigne-worse-for-wear-in-pictures-of-Middle-East-hotel-booze-up.html

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