Taylor Made: a cynical look at the A to Z of footballers’ origins

Jake and Bill

Bill Taylor remembers someone says football becoming like watching their Italians play your Italians. If he is right about the authorship of the quote – he thinks Len Shackleton may have said it – and a quick internet search did not help – imagine what Shack would have made of today’s Premier League. Bill wonders whether it’s time to acknowledge that when we shout for our team, we’re really shouting for ourselves …

Too much is never enough – songwriter Jim Steinman

Whore (verb): to compromise oneself for money

Perhaps we’ve been doing this all wrong…

A popular question for visiting writers of Who Are You is, “Club or country?” [It was a stock question but you remind me I have not asked anyone in ages – Ed]

I don’t remember anyone ever putting country first. This might, I’m beginning to think, be a mistake.

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Mid-term reports (1): SAFC should be top by now

Imagine: top of the Premier without needing to fret about Manchester United’s game in hand. Even writing the headline could make you feel dizzy. It is such a priceless thought that Salut! Sunderland will leave to others to conduct their own mental arithmetic and conclude whether Bill Taylor, in the first of our mid-term reviews as we approach the end of the year, has his sums right …

Here we are, getting closer to the halfway point of the season and the Cats are, give or take a place, two-thirds of the way up the Premier League table and only 10 points behind Manchester Untied.

Not so dusty, eh?

Well, yes and no.

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