Outside the Box – Football on TV: Bruce goes through Hull as the Championship season ends in drama

There are not many days in the course of the long football season that the glitzy farce of the Premier League is shuffled into the background like an ugly sister at a wedding. Usually, as the weekend rolls around every pundit, fan and newscaster is eagerly sharing their thoughts on Van Persie...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Hull City enjoy the rollercoaster but Peterborough lose out in musical chairs

To call it high drama doesnt even do justice to the last day of the Championship. All three major issues - promotion, play-offs and relegation went to the last minute. At the KC Stadium Hull City made sure they did it the hardest of hard ways before finding a way back to the Premier League. Going...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Gillingham and Mansfield are champions but Hull still sweat

Mansfield Town are back in the Football League. It was a nervy afternoon for nearly 7,000 packed in to Field Mill but a 1-0 win over Wrexham ensured that a tremendous challenge from Kidderminster Harriers fell just short. Now the Harriers must play Wrexham in the play-offs while Newport County ...

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The Championship: Who's going up and who's going down?

The Championship is arguably the toughest football league in the world. Anyone can beat anyone on their day and a couple of wins can take you from relegation fodder to play-off material. There are only eight more games of this madness left before the crazy world of the play-offs get under way, so le...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A lack of fanfare for the Final but Swansea make worthy champions nevertheless

There was a time in football, about six or seven years ago when it all became a bit tedious. Mourinho’s Chelsea and Fergie’s United were so far ahead of everybody else that those two goliaths monopolised the English game completely. It seemed as though every piece of silverware was theirs to ...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Shrewsbury surprise Tranmere, Cardiff win again and Burton Albion make a move

Tranmere Rovers were hoping to steal a march on their promotion rivals with their game with Shrewsbury Town staged on Friday night. Unfortunately, Ronnie Moores side had one of those nights and the Shrews went away with three vital - and unexpected - points. Rovers were down to 10 men very earl...

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Arsenal, Norwich, Liverpool, Newcastle: The top 10 FA Cup giant killings of all-time

Luton Town became the first non-league club in 24 years to beat a top flight side on Saturday as the Hatters beat Premier League Norwich City 1-0 at Carrow Road. Paul Buckles men rode their luck against the Canaries, but super sub Scott Rendell wrote his name in FA Cup folklore with a winner 10 mi...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Cardiff stay on track but Blackburn misfire again

In a programme truncated by the weather, Cardiff City made light of a heavy pitch in Blackpool to add three more points to their promotion push. It wasnt the Welsh clubs most fluent performance of the season but winning while not at their best is a good sign. Cardiffs strong start to the campaign...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Leicester savage Bristol City and Port Vale leapfrog Gillingham

Life is beginning to look very grim again for Bristol City fans. Last season Derek McInnes came in midway through the season and helped the Robins stay in the Championship. But now the Scot has paid the price for anothercampaign of struggle and a home hammering from Leicester City proved to be the...

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The View Outside The Premier League - Hatters hammer Wolves and Wimbledon climb off the bottom

There was a heavily truncated league programme as the third round of the FA Cup occupied centre stage. Pride of place from Saturdays results went to Luton Town - semi-finalists in the 80s - who dumped out Wolverhampton Wanderers. Lutons win signalled the end of Stale Solbakkens unhappy time at ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Big Sam Hammers home his credentials as the FA Cup heralds Joe’s return

“On CV, who is there to beat me?” was the question. “Sir Alex?” came the reply. “Arsene; perhaps Rafa?” Not the bullish claims of Mourinho as you might expect. Not the mad rantings of Neil Warnock either. No these were the lofty claims of Mike Bassett… erm, sorry Sam Allardyce on Saturday ev...

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Whose name is on the FA Cup? Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United?

The FA Cup Third Round gets under way this weekend and everyone is dreaming of Wembley. Even the big boys, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and Spurs will all be looking forward to a sunny day under the arch in May. But who will win the FA Cup this season? Chelsea are the current ...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Becchio bags a Boro brace and Brandy butters Saddlers

We had the usual rash of Christmas postponements but not for the traditional reasons. This time waterlogged pitches caused the problems rather than frost and snow. Very few lower division games survived but there was a near full programme in the Championship. Leeds United got off to the perfect s...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Posh shock Cardiff and McGhee runs out of Gas

No team seems able to stamp their authority on the Championship this season and on Saturday Peterborough United proved what a tough league it is by winning at Cardiff City - the Welsh side hadnt dropped a home point in 10 games. Posh went to South Wales as the bottom placed side and without a w...

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The View Outside The Premier League - Dons rock AFC Wimbledon and Bolton struggle

The Championship shared top billing with the FA Cup Second Round this weekend with just a handful of League Two games scheduled. The waterlogged pitch at Barrow that caused postponement signalled that we’ve reached that time of the season when it pays to check the radio before setting out. Bolt...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A feelgood Focus for Muamba is the highlight of the BBC’s wonky weekend of football

As ever it was a big weekend in the Barclays Premier League. This after another extraordinary week in football with those League Cup games ending in rugby scores, referees accused of all kinds of ungodly crimes, Andrey Arshavin actually being of some use, and even Ashley Cole managing to go ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Bad luck stories abound as the Scots take on Wales in a clash of the misfiring

It’s a universal truth that some people are just plain unlucky. These desperate souls, through no real fault of their own, just get a rough deal in this bad ol’ world and spend their days enduring an avalanche of ungodly misfortune and rudimentary shite. And don’t suffer the misapprehension that t...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Helguson boosts Cardiff and Stevenage go second

There are exciting strikers who score spectacular goals and there are strikers who are efficient and score goals that wont appear in compilation videos. Heidar Helguson is very much the latterkind of player, but Cardiff City were grateful for his efforts at Ipswich on Saturday evening. The Icelan...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A more civilised way to talk about football perhaps, but it all comes down to Rooney’s gash in the end

Any long time readers of this column will be acutely aware of my ill feelings towards the current football malaise we reside in: the international break. A fortnight long forced abstinence of domestic football with only a scattered group of international fixtures to keep us going. Mercifully...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Harry has a new game as Redknapp makes his Match Of The Day bow

All in all, it’s fair to say that the summer of 2012 will be looked back on with a great deal of fondness by the vast majority. Sure the weather failed to resemble anything remotely “summery”, and we may of had to put up with the usual bunch of sycophantic ne’er-do-wells in the Big Brother h...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Mackail-Smith double sinks Burnley

Craig Mackail-Smith is an unusual name for a Scotland striker but the Brighton player showed his international pedigree at Turf Moor on Saturday with two quality strikes, one of which would grace a goal of the season compilation. The striker made the difference in a 3-1 win which didnt flatter th...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Mischievous Murray makes Match Of The Day 2 anything but the Muppet Show

It already feels like the 2012-13 season has been going for months. Arsenal and Tottenham have had about three different periods of crisis already; Sir Alex claims Wayne Rooney isn’t pulling his weight, despite only having played one and half games; and Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert is al...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Wycombe washed out but its raining goals in Blackpool

Saturdays games saw the rare occurrence of amatch being abandoned due to health and safety reasons. With thunderous clouds overhead and lightning flashing, Wycombe Wanderers and Bristol Rovers were called off well into the second half of their League Two contest. Rovers were the most aggrieved by...

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Leeds, Forest, Wednesday or Blackburn: Who will win promotion from the Championship?

Ian Holloway’s Blackpool have made an unbeaten start to the new campaign. The Tangerines have scored 10 goals in three games against Millwall, Leeds and Ipswich Town, conceding just one in the process, and are looking good for a promotion place. However, trying to predict the Championship i...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Neville looking sharp as Sky’s fantasy football begins

The beginning of a football season is always a curious period. Our much-cherished teams turn up at 3pm on opening day looking ever so slightly different from the last time we saw them. New kits, new colours if you live in Cardiff, new players and sometimes even new managers. Whatever misty remnant...

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The View Outside The Premier League: Fleetwood fire blanks and Pompey players get to know each other

A new football season always throws up some unusual stories on day one but there can have been few beginnings to a campaign quite like Portsmouths. Amazingly Pompey came away with a point from their first League One encounter despite sending out a whole team of debutants. Before he joined the sou...

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The 10 worst opening day defeats in the modern game

The new football season in England kicks off on Saturday and everyone will be going into the first game full of optimism and hope for a successful season. Unfortunately, some fans may be left crying in their beer come Saturday night. You see, football can be a cruel, cruel game. It can take that op...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: An Olympic hangover means Dixon’s debut fails to inspire

It’s been a gruelling few weeks for fans of sport hasn’t it? Ever since Spain cemented their place as football’s frontrunners at Euro 2012, there has been a disorientating vacuum of sport on television and no amount of frantic bashing of the Sky remote has been able to render any nourishment for s...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Team GB and the BBC could do with heroes like Neymar and the incredible Hulk

I don’t know about you, but even though the Olympics are yet to actually begin, I’m pretty sick of them already. I’m fed up of seeing clowns from the Government on Sky News demanding that the underclass should stop complaining that they can’t afford a pint of milk and just swoon in admiration at t...

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Is this the worst football kit ever?

Players and fans are supposed to wear their shirts with pride, but sometimes the tops are so hideous they make you utterly ashamed. Arsenal fans have complained about their Dennis the Menace away kit, Manchester United supporters have hit out over their new tartan home kit and some Liverpool fans a...

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Fantasy Football 2012/13 is here

Do you think you can do a better job than the professor Arsene Wenger? Could you out-muscle Mancini at defending title winners Manchester City? Then this is your chance to prove it! Squarefootballs Fantasy Football is back for another season and we want as many participants as possible. Last season...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Carlisles united as Clarke delves deep into racism in the game

Can you feel it? We’re in that disorientating period in the football calendar when everything’s not quite right. There’s no football on the TV; other sports like cricket and bloody cycling are beginning to barge their way onto the back pages, and most distressing of all your squads on Fifa are all...

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Bergkamp, Gazza, Larsson, Fowler, Shearer or Beckham - which former star would you like back at your club?

Scottish football is in a sorry state right now as the Rangers debacle rumbles on, but today (Friday the 13th) Charles Greens newco Rangers are due to find out whether they will be gracing the first or third division of the Scottish Football League. Its been a crazy few months for the men from Ibro...

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Special report: Following football from the disabled area

On August18, 2012, Charlton Athletic visit St Andrews in the Championship. Personally speaking the fixture is a trip down memory lane. You see Birmingham City v Charlton Athletic was the first game I saw in the flesh. The date was September 15 1979 and the Blues won 1-0. Immediately I was hooke...

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Euro 2012 Fantasy Football invitation

Calling all fantasy football fans. Have we got a treat for you. If you think you are a better manager than Englands Roy Hodgson or that you could leave Germanys Joachim Low feeling really down in the dumps then why dont you prove it? Weve set up our own Euro 2012 mini-league with the Sun and youve...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Chelsea win, but there were plenty of losers in the final day of football

There are some days that it simply doesn’t pay to be a non-football fan. We have a tendency in this country to lurch en masse into things and render them inescapable to the more indifferent among us. We latch on to an event, a past time, even a television talent show and let it consume us until we...

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Ten of the biggest cup final defeats ever

Heart of Midlothian clinched their eighth Scottish Cup on Saturday with an emphatic 5-1 win over their Edinburgh rivals Hibernian. It was a terrible afternoon for the boys from Leith, but Pat Fenlons men are not alone in being humiliated on their big day. Here are the 10 of the biggest cup final de...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A final day fanfare for Sky and the Blues

It all came down to this then. It’s been a gruelling journey, epic in its fluctuating fortunes as the favourites for the crown jostled back and forth. Each weekend millions looked on, eagerly cheering their chosen heroes, willing them to put in the performance that would clinch the prize they so ...

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Squarefootball's Championship Team Of The Season

There have been a number of top class displays from players in the Championship this season, some will even be polying their trade in the Premier League next season. But who has made it into Hugh Larkins Team of the Season? Squarefootballs Hugh Larkin has kept his eye on the ball in the world outsi...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A long time ago in a Stadium far far away, ITV began their FA Cup Final coverage

The 2011-12 football season will probably be looked back upon with a real intrigue in future decades. It has been a long, incident-strewn expedition encompassing an abundance of controversy, drama and despair. It is hard to remember another campaign with more extraordinary talking points. The Luis S...

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Birmingham, Blackpool, Cardiff or West Ham: Who will win the lottery of the play-offs?

It is squeaky bum time for four Championship clubs this week. Fans of West Ham United, Cardiff City, Birmingham City and Blackpool are about to board the end of season rollercoaster. The heatis on at Upton Park where Sam Allardyceis still struggling to win over the natives. The unlikely union of ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A bad week for some as United falter and the Olympics fail to inspire

It ended with Liam Gallagher bopping along to his own record at the Etihad last night in the her-uge title showdown between the Manchester giants on Live Ford Monday Night Football. Basking in his own genius is probably a nightly ritual for Gallagher junior but what certainly hasn’t been a regular o...

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The View Outside The Premier League - Celebration in Southampton, Anxiety In Sheffield

Southampton finally sealed the deal and made a return to the Premier League a certainty. After looking the class of the field for 80% of the season they overcome some anxious wobbles to push West Ham into the play-offs. The Saints overcame their jinx when appearing on live television to overpower a...

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Penalty shoot outs: Why they are more than just a lottery

There was one slightly annoying comment which detracted from the all round fun on Wednesday night. A small blot on an otherwise wondrous couple of nights. A bit of a bollock twister or nipple pinch, which only evoked the widely anticipated rolling of the eyes.According to ITV, and many other broadc...

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The top 10 dives in football history

Manchester United’s Ashley Young and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba have caused controversy over the past fortnight by diving to win penalties and going down quicker than your average High Street hooker. Ashley Young started it all off by winning a cheap penalty against QPR’s Shaun Derry, when the tough m...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Time is running out for the Football League Show but Reading and the Saints defy the odds

Back in the hazy midsummer days of August 2011, while hoards of frenzied teenagers were marauding their way through the streets of London setting fire to police cars, looting Poundland and generally ruining Boris Johnson’s holiday; I was indulging in a regular pre-season pursuit. Like every footba...

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The View Outside The Premier League - Charlton Champions But Sheffield Pair Sweat

More and more of the big issues were decided this weekend and Charlton Atheltic finally achieved what they have been destined for ever since the season kicked off. Chris Powells squad have been front-running since September and no-one has ever looked like catching them. With the Addicks confirmed a...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Tevez, title races and titillation in a terrific week of football TV

Well, it was a helluva’ few days in the Premier League title race last week wasn’t it? The fortunes of the twin Manchester clubs are weaving increasingly erratic patterns as the burden of the top trophy begins to heap its weight on their slumping shoulders. The last seven days or so have seen a numb...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A tough week of watching tough men taking tough action; and then there was Gary Neville on Super Sunday

There are many boulevards open to footballers when the time finally comes for them to hang up their boots, delete Sir Alex’s number from their Blackberry and say goodbye to the pantomime-drudgery of the Premier League. Obviously, the twin favourites for many pros are either a cushy job coaching the ...

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Did Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley really play football together?

As football fans, in our lives rarely is there a greater spectacle than a mouth-watering Champions League semi-final between two expensively assembled sides. Rarely is there a more exciting prospect than the thought of Arsenal and Manchester City at loggerheads, with both teams in need of three ...

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