Footblog

How to cancel your Setanta subscription

Wait until the company collapses.

"Its 1.2 million UK customers should see their direct debit payments cancelled," reports The Times.

Should? Even when the firm goes tits-up, there's no guarantee of escaping the Setanta handcuffs.

Michael Owen brochure - wish you were there?

Poor Michael Owen. Only two or three years ago he was England's best striker and a racing certainty to surpass Bobby Charlton's 49 goal tally. Now he's not even a racing certainty to be picked ahead of Sir Bobby for the England squad.

Which is probably why his management company has circulated a 34-page brochure of the pint-sized injury crisis to eight Premiership clubs, hoping to convince them that he's worth a spot on their massage table.

The brochure - which unlike Paula Radcliffe, has disappointingly yet to leak online - apparently claims the striker is "good looking", "charismatic" and "fit and healthy", all of which are patently untrue, unless the looks of a 12-year-old pre-pubescent boy floats your boat (and if they do, I don't want to know).

Apparently, my beloved West Ham are among the clubs who found the brochure on the doormat. I hope they give it a good read as (a) I have a sneaking suspicion that Owen might still have a decent couple of seasons left in him; and (b) Dean Ashton needs some company in the sick room.

(Picture lifted from the excellent and (hopefully) entirely unlitigious When Saturday Comes)

The five funniest football videos from 2008/9

5. THE BURNLEY MIRACLE



4. JOE KINNEAR'S PRESS CONFERENCE



3. SHURELY SHOME MISHTAKE, STEVE?



2. PARDEW RAPES ESSIEN



1. FERGIE GETS A FRIGHT



AND WITH ADDED SOUND EFFECTS...

Palace docked point after Warnock fields ineligible player... there is a God

Laugh? I nearly rinsed my boxer shorts.

Football's own Mr Righteous, Sir Colin of Wanker, has seen his club fined and docked a point for fielding an ineligible player. And guess who he fielded him against? Sheffield chuffing United.

Someone fetch Alanis Morissette. Irony? They're delivering it by the chuffing lorry load down at Selhurst.

I'm not sure what's funnier: the fact that Warnock's been caught red-handed after moaning like the bitchiest of bitches about Carlos Tevez; or the fact that Palace were docked a point for fielding a dodgy player for 35 mins whereas West Ham escaped a point penalty for playing Tevez for about half the season.