jimmy’s just desserts

I was delighted to read that Sepp the mad hatter Blatter has done something positive for once by rewarding the squad players from 1966 and previous World Cup winning teams with their winners’ medals too. It was outrageous to think that all these guys had received, formally, before now was the £1000 per man that was awarded to all the squad by the FA (which Bobby Moore had to argue for) plus the commemorative track suit which the FA issued freely to all squad members. How big of them. I think you all know how annoyed I was that several of the WC final team were awarded knighthoods whilst people like Alan Ball got the equivalent of a Boy Scout badge. Either Bobby M got the award as captain or they all got it was my view. The non-knights have belatedly been recognised with a Cabury’s Creme Egg or something but at least the forgotten squad members have now had their medals and Blackpool’s finest have at long last been recognised. About time too.

pp

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betcha bally’s smiling

It’s really not the done thing but I happen to support 4 football teams; Man Utd, Middlesbrough, Millwall and , just to break the M sequence, Blackpool. I was born in Manchester and had moved with my M&D to near Blackpool as a child but my dad’s brother Bernard used to bring me Utd programmes and cards and the like on his visits over sent me some great items before the ’63 Cup Final and that was it, I watched the match and was hooked on the Devils. My affection for Boro’ developed when I convinced my company Cellnet to sponsor the club and its stadium during the (first) Juninho days. Millwall are the team supported by my good friend JP and I go with him to watch them now and then – they are a kind of throwback to the days when attending matches was a tribal experience. But Blackpool were the team I went to support religiously from the age of around 10 I guess to about 16. And today the team who play, incongruously, in a tangerine strip had their biggest moment of glory in decades.