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ISSUE 3

It’s been done a thousand times before so who are we to argue with convention. Besides it’s been a slow week (until Le Sox quit, eh – Ed) and we need to fill the space. So here are our pick of the pops...



www.internettreehouse.co.uk
From 1996 to 1999 Danny Baker and Danny Kelly’s radio odyssey remains the best football website on the net and on this bold statement we’re taking no callers! Individually and together they fronted various football phone-ins and we should be forever grateful to them for keeping ‘the best of’ alive on this site. It’s a bit of a maze to get where you want but bare with us. Once in the site click on ‘Radio Host’, then ‘Football’ then you’re there.

Some of you may remember these shows, which if memory serves us dominated the ratings, GLR and Radio 5. The deliciously unfunny Trevor Steele, the wonderful Joanne, the two bogus scouts from Standard Liege, this is football. This is football! And we urge you to listen first to ‘The Wooden Bowtie’ (page 2), Dancing Girls & Crowd Trouble (page 2) and The King of Baker & Kelly (page 3). You’ll probably spend the rest of the weekend working your way through the lot. Damn the shopping.

Both Dannys sailed close to the wind; Baker was once sacked for his call to punch a referee! It was a laugh, a great big laugh but they often found themselves drifting into serious issues in a very opinionated way. Great radio but it upset the powers that be and that’s no recipe for longevity. And they didn’t have kind words to say about Lawro, Garth Crooks, or any of the other halfwits still sitting in the chair after all these years. Their point; if Arnold Schwarzeneger wasn’t paid to talk about films why should footballers be paid to talk about football? It’s a question we’re still asking ourselves seven years down the line.

www.football365.com
The Daddy. And if you’re here then you’ve been there. F365 is peerless. Footy news and great regular contributions from Phil Cornwall, Andy Gray (the best pundit on the box, bar none), John Nicholson, and many others. F365 has the best mailbox we’ve read and there’s a daily hoot at the hypocrisy of the Meeja. It’s all there.

It’s a fan’s site allright. Your mother isn’t going to warm to it and sometimes the pop-ups get on your nerves but bare in mind it’s free. They have to pay the rent too so it’s a small price to pay for the most informed and opinionated mainstream football site on the net. Oooh, and if you fancy a flutter, you might, just might find a link to a gambling den.

www.footyrocks.co.uk
John Nicholson, the bootleg tapes.

As correspondent for F365 John Nich (‘a very northern voice’) argues the case for this and that in a light-hearted but persuasive way. Not so on his own website where whoever or whatever gets the full hairdryer. The site itself looks like he designed it whilst on a bender but no matter cos John’s articles have you shouting at the screen and pissing yourself at the same time. Like the nutter in the away end who runs bare chested onto the pitch and evades the fat stewards and rozzers, to make his escape from whence he came. Do we not like that? Eh? Eh?

This isn’t to say that John doesn’t stick to the point. He does. Well, he always gets there in the end. But we’ve once seen an addition uploaded just after closing time on a Saturday night and that’s in keeping with a mad, bad and invariably incontrovertible fan who writes from the heart. The best of the blogs.

www.wsc.co.uk
When Saturday Comes, it’s more an advert for their well known and widely respected magazine than a bona-fide porn n’ gambling linked, 2 second attention span, crash bang wallop website. But if you’re old-fashioned like us…no, lets be honest, if you’re old like us and you appreciate the turn of a good sentence and the urbane wit of someone’s who’s seen and done a bit, then wsc is for you. It’s got some lovely articles on, for example, trying to find football in the summer recess, football and politics, and Roy of the Rovers. In a way, that’s the snag with the site. Once you’ve read everything, that’s it. It changes about once a year. But for the connoisseur, if you like the titbits on offer then you’ll probably subscribe.

WSC also has a very comprehensive review of the best of the websites which we’re not in – bastards. Shit site. Don’t go there.

www.squarefootball.net
This is the sight we wanted to be but we’re too childish. Hundreds of very well written articles by fans and journalists alike, bang up to date and going back to the year dot. Match previews, match reports, the hot topics of today, yesterday and yesteryear. To its credit, squarefootball doesn’t pretend to be anything it ain’t. But that’s where it falls down as well. It’s all a bit earnest and if you like your football with a bit of side, then log on to laughfc.com, the funniest…(Ed - yeah right, and you’re fired again).