Americans Know Nothing

Continuing the excellently homogenous style that STT is quickly becoming synonymous with, we stay in America today to highlight the press unveiling of one of English football’s unsung heroes. For those of you outside of East Anglia, it probably slid under the radar that ex-Norwich winger Darren Huckerby was tragically snubbed a contract extension this summer and basically forced out of the club he’s supported all his life. Rather than slowly expire in the Championship for a club he hates, Hucks decided to jump ship to the footballing behemoths that are the San Jose Earthquakes.

Appearing this weekend on local TV station, the futuristically-named KRON 4, Hucks was interviewed by ‘celebrity’ presenter Gary Radnich. You can watch the whole segment for yourself down here, but first read these prime slices of misguided quotage that show just how little the Yanks know about ‘soccer’ and how impressively poor their TV researchers apparently are…

Gary Radnich: He is an English legend just acquired by the San Jose Earthquakes. Look at this, if you go on the internet, Huckerby is his name. Darren is standing by, just has [sic] arrived in this country. He is a legend and, er, we will see how legendary he is with an interview. Darren, can you handle it?

Darren Huckerby: I'll do my best.

GR: OK my friend, he's a legend, next.

[Commercial break]

GR: We weren't joking, San Jose Earthquakes have just acquired Darren Hucker… er, Huckerby. He's one of the great stars from England. We will roll some of the tape and show you this man in action.

When you go on the internet, he is a terrific star, look at this stuff [video footage of Huckerby playing for Norwich City], he's got scoring ability, experience, talent, he comes from the Nor-folk team, for the last five years staring in North East England, scoring 34 goals at Norwich, just to be correct, thanks for whoever put that in, whoever put Nor-folk in start packing [laughs].

GR: OK, have you heard about this, I'm sure you have, let me set up for the audience, you supposedly, according to the internet and our international sources, are responsible for the greatest goal ever. You know what I'm talking about?

DH: Err… I don't know about that, I scored a couple of good goals…

GR: It was against Manchester.

DH: Yeah, it was a few years ago…

[Unbeknown to Darren, the viewers are shown his goal against Birmingham]

GR: We are looking at it here, man you are weaving through everybody.

DH: Yeah, like I say, it was quite a long time ago. David Beckham was playing in the other team. It was nice to win the game.

GR: I just watched it. It's the second greatest I have seen.

DH: No, it's probably in the top 100…

GR: Do you like Victoria Beckham?

DH: She seems OK to me, yeah.

GR: [Laughs] I'm just playing with you. Are you a married man, do you have a famous girlfriend we can do anything to promote?

DH: Not really, no, I'm married but she's not a pop singer, it's too late for her, she's too old.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GR: The big soccer story at the moment is that Ronaldinho has signed for AC Milan and is going to be paid $3.4m. Is that similar to what the Earthquakes are paying you?

DH: I think we tried to get him here first but I came instead, so what can you say?

Thanks to the Canaries’ fansite, the Pink Un, for the transcript. God I love American TV.

From East Anglia to Hollywood

Apologies in advance for any offence that might be caused, but let’s be honest, Norwich is not exactly the most glamorous place in the UK, which is why this story is all the more surprising. Former Canaries captain Jason Shackell (nick-named ‘Nutsack’ by his pals) has been injured recently so he did the sensible thing and disappeared off to LA on the club dollar to, er, recuperate. Now we all know that American chicks, like, totally dig the British accent, and being a ‘soccer player’ out there right now is, like, so the bestest thing ever, but Nutsack isn’t exactly D. Beck is he?

It is therefore pretty incomprehensible how the 6’4” central defender managed to not only get himself on US prime-time TV show The Hills, but also managed to (allegedly) speed-bang the hottest girl in it, Lauren something-or-other. Now for those of you without pubescent sisters (or girlfriends) The Hills is kind of like The O.C., but the twist is that it’s REAL; you know, like, unscripted. Apparently people are expected to believe that in the course of following around a group of pretty but vacant blondes in L.A., they really do get randomly approached to start modeling careers, and they really do have ex-boyfriends suddenly coming out of the blue, timed perfectly to upset their new relationships. To summarise then, it’s awful, but let’s not take anything away from Nutsack.

A transcript of his acting debut is featured in the new issue of Four-Four-Two magazine and it is truly hilarious, so make sure you check that out. Those crazy Americans girls eh, they are always e-mailing! Quite how conservation like that actually led to him getting inside Lauren is beyond me; LA might be the city of dreams but it clearly isn’t the city of triple-figure IQs. Anyway, enough bitterness, watch the whole show for yourself here if you have literally nothing else to do for half an hour. The undoubted highlight for Shackell must be this quote from the show; I am actually really quite jealous and hope one day a similarly hot American girl says this about me:

Lauren: (to Audrina) I just found an adorable boy from London with an accent who's leaving tomorrow. (looks at him and holds up hands) Jackpot!

Nasty Kits part Deux: Return of the Garish Shirt

Following the runaway success of our first feature on the 10 Worst Kits Ever, and subsequent copycat pieces in everything from The Times to Extreme Razzle: Reader Wives (Get Their Kit Off), we at STT have decided to once again grace you with a further selection of the garish, the bizarre and the downright offensive. As the spectrum has expanded so far, the task of actually ranking these has become near impossible so we shall leave it up to, dear reader, to actually decide on your own personal favourites from this ghastly 30…

1) Ajax Away

So 80s it hurts, this somewhat strange Rubiks Cube-style effort is what happens when you leave Dutch designers alone in Amsterdam for too long.

2) Arsenal Away 1989

This always reminds me of a roadworks sign for some reason, with the dirty yellow and ‘cutting-edge’ computerized pattern fade out of date even before the terrible lycra it was made out of.

3) Australia Home

As a piece of abstract art, this would probably be hailed as a masterpiece, but on a football pitch it simply causes dizziness and mild nausea. Stare at it for too long and you also start seeing faces in it…

4) Barcelona Third (aka ‘European Away’) 2007

Now I’m all in favour of highlighter pen shirts, but this orange number is just grotesque. The current Barcelona domestic away kit was also in contention this time around, for its clashing bright blue stripes, but the retina-burning glare of this orange number simply has to take it.

5) Burnley Away

Not dissimilar to a really cheap deckchair you might find down Brighton Pier, this abortion justifiably didn’t stick around too long. However, like some of those standard internet optical illusions, stare at it for long enough and the stripes actually start moving. It’s a good thing.

6) Cambridge Away

Presumably designed by a disavowed monk, this rather sharp number resembles a cheap stained glass window. I genuinely wouldn’t even wash my car with this for fear of people seeing me with it.

7) Cameroon Home 2005

The infamous one-piece kit that, although good for showing off your equine package (if you’re Samuel Eto’o), turned out to actually be pretty constrictive and horrifically hot during the recent African Cup of Nations. When you’re out of the earshot of the players, it’s ok to just call it a leotard.

8) Carlisle Away 2006

This just looks like a clown’s outfit to me, absolutely hilarious. The Eddie Stobart sponsor is a nice touch though, whatever happened to them?

9) Club Deportivo (Peruvian league)

OK so it’s pretty lowest-common-denominator humour, but still makes me smile!

10) Dulka Prague Away 1960

Bit of an old-school horror from the once mighty Czechoslovakia, by itself I guess the strange colour clash isn’t too bad. What grates however is the fact that you just know any toss-piece that works in Topman would sell their own mother for a slice of this ‘retro’ action.

11) Linfield Town Away 2000

This is what the inside of Kaleidoscope looks like kids!

12) Liverpool Away 1992

Many of Liverpool’s away kits from the 1990s were in contention here but I just always had a real soft spot for this one. The colour is so bad (What even is it; green, blue, turquoise?!) while the subtle triple-white-stripe branding from Adidas looks like a huge fork.

13) Manchester United Away 1992

Again, several Man United away kits from this era were considered (the sweet yellow and green halves, complete with string-tie collar, came close) but literally everything about this one is wrong. The small badge over the ‘groin’ area on the shorts is a nice touch though.

14) Manchester United Third 1995

The so-called “worst kit ever,” this was only ever worn for a first half in the 1995 FA Cup, before it was deemed so bad that it genuinely appeared to be affecting the team’s performance. No Sir Alex, that was just Nicky Butt.

15) Marseilles Away 2007

One of the unexpected highlights of this season’s Champions League campaign so far, the controversial pairing of bright orange and bright blue really shouldn’t work, yet somehow, when combined with Djibril Cisse’s immense facial hair, looks like a page out of the Armani catalogue.

16) Mexican Goalkeeper (Yes, Campos again!)

Another day and another fashion disaster by the pint-sized uber-keeper. This time he’s chosen some kind of strange chess board pattern, filled in with seemingly random colours and symbols. Kind of like the Da Vinci Code, but for shirts perhaps. Only better.

17) Mexico Home

Obviously I can see why one might think this is awful, but I dunno, it’s definitely grown on me now and I kind of like it! Pretty imtimidating, its just a shame that the face couldn’t come to life as in classic 80s cartoon The Visionaries…

18) Notts County Away

As a general rule, turquoise and purple are both horrible colours, especially on clothes, so not quite sure how they could have possibly ended up framing this mid-90s horrorshow. If prisoners were forced to wear this, I guarantee crime would drop.

19) Nottingham Forest Away 2001

Clearly going with ‘modern’ and ‘hip’ new designers, Nottingham Forest’s staff could not have been pleased with the result. The yellow’s bad enough, but coupled with the random childlike squiggles and crayon text, it’s not a good look even in a blind school.

20) Norwich Home 1992

The infamous ‘bird-poo’ kit that still haunts the memories of Canary fans around the English Riveria. There’s not much really to be said, its just awful.

21) Oldham Away

Another shirt made predominantly in a colour that I have never seen before or since, this monstrosity was mid-90s colour-clashing chic at its finest. If that wasn’t bad enough, they spelt ‘Hovis’ wrong on the front too.

22) Palermo Away 2006

A nice charming ‘salmon’ number from the Italian up-and-comers, here modeled by the only kind of player fit to wear the shirt. A woman.

23) Scunthorpe Away

Awesome computer-modelled 80s pattern here, with the sky blue and yellow really complimenting the blood red. A nice sponsorship from Pleasure Island is actually pretty cool though…apparently they have “more than five hair-raising rides” and everything!

24) Sheffield United Third 2000

Not even pikeys wore this when it came out and it hasn’t exactly matured with age either. The contrast of highlighter yellow with jet black really emphasizes the subtlty of the design.

25) Shrewsbury Away

This was genuinely created by a primary school class doing potato-printing. You wouldn’t guess though.

26) Southport Home

One of the first club shirts to truly embrace the ‘magic eye’ phase of the early 90s, Southport mesmerized their opponents by having photos of Baywatch trouser-tighteners Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra tactically planted within the pattern.

27) Stoke City Away 1993

Again purple, but this time coupled with bright yellow and white to create a style that can only be described as TV static. The fact that the purple on the shorts and socks doesn’t quite match any of the shades of purple on the shirt is not an accident.

28) Swindon Away

Presumably birthed after their original plain white shirts got horrendously grass stained and the club washing machine broke, these became somewhat of an institution around the South West. Generally pretty cheap-looking, and the controversial support of the socialist state of Burma was not met with all round applause. Useful as emergency camouflage though I guess.

29) West Brom Away

Another terrible deckchair pattern, which although brighter in colour, is still as hard to look at as the Burnley effort. Slight kudos for attempting to ape the epic ‘Roy of the Rovers’ Melchester look though.

30) West Ham Home

And finally to an effort that resembles not only a broken mirror, but also one of those puzzles that comes out of Christmas crackers where you have to slide the squares around to create a picture. The colours are also pretty murky and wouldn’t look too out of place as the interior of a coffin either. Pretty much all I’m looking for in a football shirt then.

Trevor Benjamin - Perennial (not Perineal) Journeyman

Glancing at Sky Sports News in the pub last night, I was shocked that I had let this slip under the radar for almost three months now. In his phenomenal 12 year professional career, Trevor Benjamin has now played for 16 separate English league teams, surpassing the previous record of Goalkeeper John Burridge, often regarded as the quintessential football journeyman.

In total Burridge made league appearances for 15 English league clubs and five Scottish league clubs in a 27-year career, in addition to being on the books of four English league clubs and one Scottish League club without playing games for them. Remarkably he also had spells at six non-league clubs during his epic career, giving him a grand total of 31 clubs!

Benjamin however broke the record when he signed for League Two heavyweights Hereford United in August this year, tipping his total to the magical 16, of which an incredible 15 have been since the year 2000! Perhaps most settled at Leicester City, who paid a whopping £1.5million for his services, Benjamin still struggled to just 11 goals in 81 appearances as the Foxes languished in the Premier League.

Whats funny is that, looking at his list of clubs (below) they are spread around pretty much the whole country, so either Big Trev had to move an awful lot, or he actually lives in a caravan. If you are in any doubt about whether this story deserves coverage here, bear in mind that not only is he Jamaican but he’s also mates with Rio Ferdinand. Man like Rio will merc up your manor if you don’t big up his bredrin.

Years	Club	App (Gls)
1995-2000 2000-2005 2001-2002 2002 2002 2003 2003-2004 2004 2004-2005 2005 2005 2005-2007 2005 2006 2007 2007 2007-	Cambridge United Leicester City → Crystal Palace (loan) → Norwich City (loan) → West Bromwich Albion (loan) → Gillingham (loan) → Rushden & Diamonds (loan) → Brighton & Hove Albion (loan) → Northampton Town (loan) Northampton Town Coventry City Peterborough United → Watford (loan) → Swindon Town (loan) → Boston United (loan) → Walsall (loan) Hereford United	123 (35) 81 (11) 6 (1) 6 (0) 3 (1) 4 (1) 6 (1) 10 (5) 4 (2) 1 (0) 12 (1) 47 (8) 2 (0) 8 (2) 3 (0) 8 (2) 8 (5)

Grant Out as Managers Become an Endangered Species

At STT, we like to think that we played a part in his departure, offering cries of 'boo' and 'Grant out' on Monday night. Now the rubber faced chap is back on civvy street.

Claiming that 'the balls didn't bounce the right way for him', Canaries fans would question whether he had any balls to bounce in the first place.

The list of Managers recently binned is growing, with big clubs such as Palace, Chelsea and er.... Millwall giving their gaffers the heave-ho. STT predicts that the next big manager to get the chop will be everyone's pre-season favourite - the wholly inoffensive Chris Hutchings of Wigan semi-fame. He's a nice chap with a fair amount of experience, but they face a tough run of 6 games including trips to both North London teams, while they entertain Pompey and Chelsea at home. He also inspires very little confidence in front of the cameras or on the sideline and may have lost control of his players, as they went mental over Kevin Kilbane's second yellow at Newcastle last month. The upshot of this was a £20,000 fine. Ouchies.

Norwich do QPR a Favour

As a reward for all our recent hard work, we at STT headquarters decided to treat ourselves to a little field trip last night to Loftus Road and were present for a defining moment in history. For the first time since about what, 1976, Queens Park Rangers actually won a game! The scenes of jubilation were incredible around the ground, and the dejection of the faces of the traveling Norwich support was palpable. Rangers remain rooted to the bottom of the Championship, but after Martin Rowlands slotted away a rather generous looking penalty, the Hoops are finally off and running this season. However, this match was hardly an advertisement for the Real League, with both sides genuinely looking like they had never actually played the game before.

While QPR are bottom, Norwich are the ones to be worried, languishing in 22^nd and without a league goal in six full games. They made a decidedly terrible team look good, losing every 50/50 ball and not hitting the target once in 90 minutes. There was no pressure on the ball at any point in the game, and if you give any professional footballer that much time and space, they don’t exactly have to be Kaka to create something over the course of a whole match. It comes to something when, at 38 years old and playing out of position at centre back, Dion Dublin was by far their best defender and also their most threatening attacking option.

The deciding penalty came after the home side had enjoyed an extended stay in the Norwich half, with tricky winger Rowan Vine toppled in the box with around 20 minutes left to play. From then on it could have been a rout, with Norwich keeper David Marshall keeping his side from full embarrassment with several superb saves as the clock ominously ticked down for the traveling Canaries and boss Peter Grant. The final whistle was met with a torrent of boos, coarse insults and ‘Grant Out!’ chants, while QPR celebrated their historic win.

The genuine highlight of the night was some Norwich fan being sick down the back of the terrace onto the STT editorial staff. Vomit is almost always funny when it's not happening to you, but when you are threatened with the prospect of being covered with sweetcorn and carrots from on high, you are unamused. One victim recived a gobbet of stomach acid to the face and the other was hit on his on his suit jacket. Which he wore to work today.

Mascot of the week 2

Name – Captain Canary

Affiliation – Norwich City

Animal – Canary

Colour – Yellow

Level of ridiculousness – 7

Most common missile pelted with – Delia’s “gourmet” pies

Keeping it Championship in the hunt for the country’s greatest football mascot, this week we travel down into the “English Riviera” (East Anglia) and meet Norwich’s most famous son (apart from Alan Partridge), Captain Canary!

The association between Norwich and canaries is a somewhat bizarre one, to do with the early 20^th century popularity of small bird rearing, but no matter: Captain Canary’s huge and yellow and here to stay.

Like Pottermus last week, the Captain is actually a bit of a ladies’ man, having made an honest bird out of local ‘IT girl’ Camilla. I mean, as the only two 7’ tall yellow birds in East Anglia, everyone always said they’d end up together, but the courting period was rocky, and a love-triangle developed between the two canaries and Cardiff’s Bartley the Bluebird. Bartley’s dream was to produce a super-race of huge green birds, who could be camouflaged against the green grass of a football pitch for practical joke purposes, and naturally saw Camilla as the best potential mate. The Captain refused to stand for this, and following a bloody duel at a service station on the M5, finally proclaimed his love for Camilla in 2002…the rest, as they say, is history.

Finally, if his inclusion in this column was ever in doubt just watch this incredible penalty (performed using the classic Maradona trick, the ‘rabona’ and subsequent acrobatic celebration! Captain, we at STT salute your bravado: