Football is based on desperation. All clubs are desperate in one form or another - desperate to succeed, desperate to survive, desperate to stay where they are, desperate that things get no worse, desperate to arrest the slide.
Simon BarnesEverybody loves birdsong. It's a human need... the sound of birds gives a deep, if sometimes almost unnoticed, pleasure
Simon BarnesThere was an advert I rather liked. Devastated woman: "I've just seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!" Husband: "Never mind, love, it's not the end of the world."
Simon BarnesThe combination of an out-of-control tabloid press and a readership that thrills to the destruction of the England head coach is something no other country can offer. Scolari was driven out; Steve McClaren's personal life made the front pages. Neither of them even held the job. Then there was the fake-sheikhing of Sven-Gรถran Eriksson. That a newspaper should so brilliantly and deliberately destabilise the national head coach in a World Cup year is something no other sporting nation would consider.
Simon Barnes