44 years of hurt. And counting...
William Blake wrote, "I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
till we have built Jerusalem, in England's green & pleasant land”. Rupert Brooke went for, “If I should die, think only this of me, that there's some corner of a foreign field, that is for ever England.” And Fat Les? “Me and me mum and me dad and me gran, we're off to Waterloo. Me and me mum and me dad and me gran, with a bucket of vindaloo.” Quite...
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New Zealand at the World Cup. Present.
It's less than 100 days to the World Cup begins in earnest. So that means we have clearly not stuck to our initial promise of one World Cup guide per week until the competition starts. So expect at least one guide per week from now on.* This week, we take a look at New Zealand and its fine footballing heritage. It is also a country that now has more Lord Of The Rings geeks - creaming their pants when they see the exact spot where Elijah Wood looked like a complete gimp - than sheep.
*or expect the last 15 guides to appear the day before the World Cup [More]
International football fetishist Stephen Roberts meets Uruguay...
Uruguay, a country immortalised by Homer Simpson, the home of everyone's favourite sweet-sounding South American capital city, Montevideo, and one of this year's World Cup also-rans... [More]
Stephen Roberts dons some luminous green hair beads and analyses the country ranked 15th in the World...
So then, Nigeria. Er... home of the river Niger, Nollywood and... I'm not gonna lie to you Gwen, I don't knows much about Nigeria. Tidy.
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Stephen Roberts lights a doobie, does the windmill and goes Dutch...
Amsterdam cafés, Van Gogh, cheese cocooned in non-edible red wax and the Zuider Zee project (the only bit of GCSE Geography that I remember, barring Ox-bow lakes). The Dutch are just, well, a bit daft. Their national side however, are a force to be reckoned with. This current crop of young pretenders are in with a serious shout at dethroning past masters such as Cruyff, Neeskens, Gullit and Koeman to name but a few. Let’s do this shit... [More]
Naturally, we thought it’d be a good idea for a Welshman, Jack Rivers, to give you the lowdown on Cameroon...
Ever since a then 42-year-old Roger Milla became the oldest player to score in a World Cup back in 1994, Cameroon have always had a special place in my heart. And, if truth be told, I couldn’t be arsed to write about any of the other African teams - Nigeria, Algeria and Ivory Coast - that were left to do in this guide. Anyway, here’s Cameroon in a ToePoke-sized nutshell... [More]
Stephen Roberts slicks back his mane of hair, lights a tab, and slaps women's backsides as he analyses Italia's chances this summer...
Italy, the birthplace of the pizza (thought we’d get that one out of the way early on), home to a populace of beautiful women, beautiful men and sumptuous cuisine. A land where ‘respect’ is of the upmost importance, a country built on the foundations of great men; Caesar, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Danté. And a place where a twennydeck of Marlboro Lights costs €4.50, tops.
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Stephen Roberts checks out the hosts...
Stab vests, the world's highest murder rate, a team not even good enough to qualify for the African Nations Cup, featuring such powerhouses as Gabon, Malawi and Mozambique. The subject of South Africa hosting the World Cup is a relatively easy one for cynical bastards like us. So here's what we came up with... [More]
