PAS Poll 2011 – 22 man squad
1st XI
“Dear Jim, could you fix it for my club…”
A deserving winner even if he is a mercenary…
- Top – David Silva
- “hate to say it but he’s the signing that will make the difference in that team…”
- Runner up – Ronaldo
- “goals per game ratio is second to non along with Messi – put him on the plane, bring him home from Spain…”
- Honourable mentions
- RVP – “He is class and this year, currently injury free, he’s showing just how brilliant he is…”
- Mario Balotelli – “He’s hilarious as well as a great player”
- Mario Balotelli – “Balotelli purely for his entertainment value – let the haters hate”
- Xavi / Iniesta / Aguero – “for my beloved Spurs please as we’re missing a load of sitters. Does Jim still fix things from heaven then?”
“Why Always Me?”
Why did I think this would be any different?! The anti-Messi…
- Top – John Terry
- “No contest”
- “Coz he’s John Terry”
- “Cos he’s a…”
- “If the word c*nt was in the dictionary, his name would be the definitive meaning”
- “It’s always John Terry just when you think that he has sunk to a new low for him with a charge for racism whilst England Captain, he or his “people” get some photos of him with a black baby in the press… classy stuff (his colleague Fat Frank’s inability to accept that Chelsea play better without him or fellow racist Luis “Uruguayan Cultural differences” Suarez cant compete with such consistent utter c**tery….)”
- “The C-word. End of.”
- “His stop-motion defending this season has been an unexpected delight”
- Runner up – Luis Suarez
- “Without a shadow of a doubt the most repugnant individual alive let alone playing football”
- Honourable mentions
- Joey Barton – “Please shut the f*ck up!!!”
- Ashley Cole
- Lee Cattermole
- Carlos Tevez – “Quality but a w*nker all the same”
- Matt Derbyshire – “stop diving you cheating little f*ck…”
“Solid gone!”
Every dog has its day…
- Top – The MCR derby
- “Salford United 1-6 Manchester City”
- Runner up – Arsenal v Barca
- “Arshaviiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!“
- Honourable mentions
- Champions League Final – “in an Irish pub in Charlottenburg for the CL Final, surrounded by a veritable UN Security Council of plazzy Mancs, all braying loudly about how Rooney would be too much for the tiki-taki, etc. It was so quiet at full-time, you could almost hear Masch dedicating the win to LFC”
- Mario Balotelli – “struggling to put on a vest during training ahead of City’s Europa League match against Dynamo Kiev. Then during the game, Kung Fu’ing Popov to be sent off. The guy is ace and the list could go on!!”
- Norwich City – “Very, very easy – Monday May 2nd, two days after my wedding to the lovely Samantha. Flying back from Edinburgh – at the airport enjoying a pint with fellow PAS-er Jamie Sellers, we witness Cardiff going 3-0 down at home to Middlesbrough. This means Norwich need a win at Portsmouth to get promoted to the Prem, and as we collect our baggage at Gatwick, Simeon Jackson heads in a dream cross from David Fox. Then in the taxi home the ref blows the final whistle, and the weekend is complete – the same day that Osama Bin Laden is assassinated! Mad or what?!”
- Crystal Palace – “Beating the scum 3-1 !!!!!! Their first defeat at the new plastic ground which will be forever in the history”
- Arsenal – “slapping 5 past Chelsea!”
- Man Utd – “Slapping the Arse 8-2 (sorry Pab)”
- Portsmouth – “1st June 2011. We finally, finally get a good, solid owner who goes about things sensibly, quietly and calmly with no over-excited proclamations about winning the Premier League/being in the Champion’s League/moving into a brand new 35,000 seater stadium in 5 years time. Yes, welcome to Portsmouth, CSI!”
“You know that Ian Curtis…”
RIP
- Top – Gary Speed
- Runner up – Big Cup Final
- “Watching Barcelona destroying United in the European cup final without breaking sweat…”
- Honourable mentions
- Spurs – “Peter Crouch deciding the 15th minute of a quarter final clash against Real Madrid would be the perfect moment to make his first ever tackle, getting himself sent off in the process and thus ending the game almost as soon as it started made me want to do bad things”
- Man Utd – “23/10/11 and no not for the 1-6 battering, getting beat badly at home is the price of being a football fan, however the people who after Sheik Mansour have contributed so much that result, the F***N Glazer clan closed a huge car park at Old Trafford to park their helicopters so that they could p*ss off to Wembley to watch their other “franchise” in action that evening, meaning that me and 1000s of others who normally walk across that car park were forced to walk round it whilst being patronized by the brain dead morons that pass for stewards… the same stewards who are so notably absent during cup games against Liverpool and Schalke where all sorts of detritus was thrown down on the oppressed season ticket holders of K stand… If anything pushes me to take the sensible step of not renewing it will be the sight of those f****n helicopters…..”
- Bolton – “travelled all the way down to Wembley to walk out 20 mins in to Stoke battering Bolton (closely followed by the day Citeh getting 500 hundred trillion pounds to spend on anybody who scores past them)”
- Newcastle Utd – “Steve Bruce sacked by Sunderland – gutted…”
- Portsmouth – “29th November 2011. CSI placed into administration and an international arrest warrant for fraud issued for 80% owner, Mr Antonov…”
Where will England finish in Euro 2012?
Get your money on people!
- Top – Quarter Finals (60%)
- Runner up – Semi Finals
- Honourable mentions
- Group – “I haven’t seen England so much as kick a ball since they got knocked out of the World Cup. F*ck ’em – a waste of everyone’s time and energy…”
- “Who cares. I’m following the Italian’s!”
- Beaten finalist – “yes, I have started the Christmas sherry!”
“It’s nice to know you’re here!”
Amazingly, we had a winner!
- Top – “vs Man City”
- “where were you when you were shit” too ironic for words!
- “Not the best chant, but for sheer ridiculousness which made me actually snort out loud, Newcastle fans singing “where were you when you were shite” was just laced with such delicious irony – what a bunch of muppets”
- Honourable mentions
- Norwich v Ipswich – “With apologies to Ipswich fans… “9-2, we beat the sc*m 9-2!” – reference to our aggregate score over them in 2010/11”
- Nottm Forest – “Joel Lynch, Joel Lynch, Joel Lyyyynch!” – every Forest game Harris / Waldram duet to the tune of Jolene by Dolly P”
- Pompey v Southampton – “Not so much a chant, but I have never seen away fans in the Milton End celebrate a goal as wildly as when the Scummers went 0-1 up… they went absolutely nuts for ages. You’d have thought that they had just won the Champions League after having come back from 4-0 down.”
- Spurs v Inter – “Taxi for Maicon!” was pretty good after Bale left him on his backside more than once”
- Man Utd – “It’s a sad fact of life that away teams appear to be traveling to Old Trafford in smaller numbers of late. Norwich deserve a mention for “ We’re Norwich City we are here for our scarves”
- Arsenal fans who are so often a pathetic bunch of “new football fans” were excellent during that second half as well (sorry Pab)
- Fulham and Spurs’ excellent “John Terry we know what you are”
- “Oh Channel 5 is wonderful, it’s fully of t*ts, f*nny and United” – gallows humour
- Villa v Arsenal – “He swerves to the Left, He serves to the Riggggghhhht, Barry Bannan, His Driving is Shiite”
- Man Utd vs Arsenal – “45 minute rendition of “We love you Arsenal we do” at the Game-We-Do-Not-Speak-Of!”
- Non League – “Not sure if it’s recent but someone told me this in 2011 so it counts right? Unibond Play Off Final, can’t remember the name of the winning team but they beat Buxton 2-0… cue chant… “You’re just a poor man’s Evian, you’re just a poor man’s Evian”
- Stuttgart – “had one that made me laugh because it used such an unlikely tune. Sadly I can’t remember what it was now, so I’m defaulting to anything directed at the more-to-be-pitied-than-scorned Fernando Torres”
- Newcastle – “Oh Coloccini you are the love of my life, oh Coloccini I’d let you sh*g my wife, oh Coloccini I want curly hair too…”
“The Mistress”
You unfaithful sl*gs!
- Top – Crystal Palace
- Runner up – Portsmouth
- Honourable mentions
- Leeds – “Must be something to do with the soft poetic tones of my wife..”
- (Plucky Little) Wigan – “attempting to play football against the odds and in a town of 80,000, half of whom prefer the rugby plus Martinez is class compared to most of the managers… their crowds are better than they are given credit for given they were non league 35 years ago, plus for fans of other clubs an allocation of 4000 is a good away day”
- FC United (non-league ) & AFC Wimbledon – “Owned by the fans, for the fans”
- Dulwich Hamlet – “proud season ticket holder”
- Man Citeeeeeeeeeee – “I did watch them in the old 3rd division you know!”
- Liverpool – “they’ll always be in my heart, liked them as a kid until some1 I thought was a friend took me watching the w*nky Wanderers..”
- Hertha Berlin – “I don’t do “2nd teams” as a rule, but I’ve rationalised adopting my new local side Hertha BSC due to Markus Babbel being ex-LFC. Problem is, Hertha play like Liverpool when Babbel was there, which is probably why he’s got the bullet.”
- East Stirling / Chelmsford City / The mighty Northwich Victoria FC / Tranmere Rovers / Benfica / Notts County / Stalybridge Celtic / Welling United
“Is it live or is it Memorex?”
Get off your @rses!
- Top – TV (60%)
- “The older I’ve got the more arm chair I’ve become; I was however at York away!”
- “Sadly on telly. I’d opt for live if I could afford it though!”
- Runner up – Live (40%)
- “You’ve gotta be there, who still watches games on Sky?”
- “To the game! That’s why I picked a London club and not a local to my Island of origin (which isn’t France Pab!)”
- “Live, although it’s getting harder to go as the TV strangles the game and fans are priced out in favour of tourists on a ‘leisure experience’ in their half and half”
“The Pound Shop rocks!”
Talk of the Toon…
- Top – Demba Ba (Newcastle Utd)
- “Demba Ba going to Newcastle for nowt looks like an astute piece of business – or did Newcastle just luck out on signing a crock that no-one else would risk. Either way, a great signing.”
- Runner up – Scott Parker
- “Parker, for £6mil was a snip and has been a revelation for us..”
- Honourable mentions
- Phil Jones – “Pains me to say it but he looks a snip!”
- Kieron Dyer – “….I am joking!”
- Craig Bellamy
- Armand Traore – “Don’t laugh, he is going to make a fine wide midfielder one day..”
- Eh? – “football is bust, no bargains these days. ‘no value’ as SAF would say. Might be Rory Donnelly to Swansea/Everton/Liverpool/Barcelona from Cliftonville”
- “Bargain? What’s a bargain when it’s at home? (stares forlornly at receipt for Andy Carroll)”
“Smashed It…”
The most shocking turnaround since Orpheus…
- Top – Gary Neville
- “(rat tash) makes Jamie Redknapp look clueless”
- “I didn’t expect to be saying this that the “chip on his shoulder crap tache’d one” is brilliant. Frequently interesting, shearer and Redknapp ( “ a top top top big ask there “ ) however are the polar opposite. Still in the year where we were freed from the curse of Keys and Gray there is hope..”
- Runner up – Chris Kamara
- “It’s unbelievable Jeff!”
- Honourable mentions
- Jamie Redknapp
- Alan Hansen
- Paul Merson – “Still Merse for comedy value”- “he’s probably not the best but he doesn’t half make me laugh!”
- Jeff Stelling – “pure class!!”
- Jimmy Armfield – “What a voice”
“Help!”
Jesus! You lot have got a lot of ideas! From the sublime to the ridiculous…
- Top – Goal Rush
- “predict both teams to score – 5 selections odds about 8-1”
- “Why not try a site like Sporting Life? They have a weekly acca on ’both teams to score’ – it comes in more often than not”
- Honourable mentions
- “3 or more goals? Which games will achieve it? Choose 2 or 3?”
- “How about a wager on the Racing Post’s two ‘Pricewise’ tips of a Saturday? They come in pretty often…”
- I’d start it simple and get more adventurous when the money is in the bank, i.e. one result.”
- “Hedge fund. Just think if you’d put a bit away all that time ago when PAS first started; what a little nest egg you’d have now!”
- “Pick a team at the start of each season and put the money on them to win each week by a certain scoreline. Gunna be a Top from time to time”
- “Stop Doing It!”
- “Give up, it’s a mugs game (and I should know)”
- “Number of goals in the Premier league (weekly or per team)”
- “You can’t beat Paddy Power’s Money Back Specials – how about a twist on that?”
- “Adopt a weakest link like “bank” strategy where the winner simply has to pick a double and can go for anything he likes, with a prize pot of say £20 at the start of the season, If he chooses to bank it he gets £2 and the spot price fund gets £4, with £14 still to bet. If he places the bet and wins he gets £4, the spot gets £8 and the balance rolls over to next week. If it gets to £40, then the prizes increase as well I’m sure you can work out what I mean, anyone who depletes the price fund to zero can top it up from their prize, most people are going to go for a City & Celtic double I know but you could make it interesting by making it 2 draws which usually pays decent odds. The other decent market to look at is games with over 2.5 goals…”
- “x2 Lottery Tickets – set numbers”
- “Don’t bet on football, bet on golf”
- “I have a 100% record of winning on BotW so it’s fine as far as I’m concerned! Haha”
- “I can’t complain with BOTW as it’s brought me some cash back this year…”
- “Home or Away put the money on the top 4 league leaders going into the weekend to Win”
- “the top 4 from previous week predict their Banker for the weekend then you can ridicule anyone who “f*cks” up???”
- “Lump it all on one correct score?”
- “Pick 6 matches and perm 3/4/5 and 6 for draws”
- “bet has to be in one specific league, maybe Scottish? Bit easier to predict?”
- “Let me and Jay Morris pick each week , I am the judge he is the very slow (in a lot of ways) learning apprentice”
- “Simple one match score-cast on the winner’s personal team, result and first/last scorer”
- “An average median analysis of all the submitted results each week to show where there is a collective consensus on correct scores and results. Place small accumulator bets on the most popular results”
2nd String
“Top Single/Track”
France just pips Torquay & MCR…
- Top
- M83 – “Midnight City”
- Runner up
- Metronomy – “The Look”
- Noel Gallagher – “AKA What A Life”
- Lana Del Ray – “Videos Games”
- The Horrors – “Still Life”
- Naked and Famous – “Young Blood”
- Friends – “I’m His Girl”
- Real Estate – “It’s Real”
- Keren Ann – “My Name Is Trouble”
- PJ Harvey – “The Words That Maketh Murder”
- Honourable mentions
- “Don’t know cos my Ipod is broke. I went for a run in the rain and it got water damage. Apple didn’t think of that one did they!!”
- Azari & III – “Hungry For The Power”
- King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – “Bubble”
- Bibio – “K is for Kelson”
- NERO – “Crush” (I absolutely hated the original The Jets song)
- Sea of Bees – “Gnomes”
- “I think I’m getting old, the entire year has passed me by, I even checked the Guardian, Pitchfork and NME web site and I haven’t got any of their top albums or singles…“
- “Don’t listen to much new gubbins, too old. Liked that Jamie XX vs Gil Scott Heron track”
- “The Jamie XX mix of Adele’s Rollin’ In The Deep and Azealia Banks’ 212 have bookended the year nicely, and Oliver’s remix of Hot Mess by Chromeo deserved a proper commercial release.”
“Top Album”
…but Torquay fights back!
“Best Gig”
Stoners of the world unite…
- Top – Snoop Dogg
- “What’s my mutha f*ckin name? Snoooooooop Doggy Dooooooggggg…!”
- Runner up
- I Am Kloot @ the Lowry – “miles better than I was expecting!”
- Honourable mentions
- DFA 10th birthday at the 100 club – The Rapture & YACHT
- Steve Earle, Assembly Rooms Derby (I’d never of thought I’d put that a few years ago)
- The Charlatans – “in a random indie club while I was at my mates wedding in Ayia Napa”
- “I did have a cat nap during the gig because I was exhausted but Gruff, doing hotel shampoo at SheBoo”
- “PJ Harvey at the Albert Hall was pretty amazing”
- Jesus Jones and the Wonderstuff, Palace Theatre, Melbourne
- Shed Seven (you don’t put people’s names by these do you?!)
- Morrissey at Brixton Academy – “played the best set in years while the riots were due to kick off outside – surreal”
- I’m From Barcelona at The Ruby Lounge – “I still smile when I think about it several months later!”
- Sea Of Bees – Wilmington Arms – 24 February 2011 – “Seeing this remarkable, special and bonkers talent in a tiny venue coping with endless technical problems by just doing it all unplugged was a real highlight.”
- John Grant & Midlake – Royal Festival Hall – 7 September 2011 – “A big bear of a love in and mutual backslapping but this gig had the finest single moment of any gig this year – the performance of Queen Of Denmark , the soft, tender angst giving way to a maelstrom of anger was made all the more intense by Midlake’s masterful musicianship. Oh yeah!”
“Best Radio Show”
Five & Six rules the waves!
- Top – Fighting Talk Radio 5
- “not even Colin Murray can impair the only decent thing on the radio” / “recently started warming to Fighting Talk on Radio 5live. Still spoilt by Co’in Mrrrr”
- Runner up – Vernon Kay
- “guess I really like radio 1…”
- Honourable mentions
- Talksport Alan Brazil
- “Count myself as a new listener to 6 music. Although Annie Mac on 4th Jan from 10-13.00 takes the award for best show! (shame it was a one off- #havinarave)”
- Radcliffe and Maconie – “I really think this is the best radio show I’ve ever heard!”
- “6 Music Shaun Keavney and his middle aged shout outs”
- “mornings on R6”
- “Radio is dead! Annoying DJ’s and way too many commercials”
“Best Read”
“Squeal like a pig boy!”
- Top – Luke Haines “Post Everything: Outsider Rock N Roll”
- “The finest grumpy old man rants with a flawed manifesto and counseled by a sagacious make believe cat.”
- Honourable mentions
- “A book called “Dark Matter” about a bloke being haunted whilst overwintering in the Arctic.
- “I hate Rupert Murdoch, but the Times’ coverage of football kept me buying it every Monday”
- “The Weekend FT, try before you dis, it’s journalism as it should be”
- “My Sun scoop stitched that mop haired, dirty, disease addled little tw*t Frankie Cocozza up good and proper!”
- “David Conn in the Guardian, excellent on the mess that football has become…
- “Loved Andy Mitten’s “United! United! United in the 70s “ Blogs : Surreal Football, In Bed with Maradona, most stuff on the peerless Grantland. Pitchfork is good too”
- “Robert Enke book – heartbreaking”
- “AFC Collective and Sabotage Times on t’internet – Paper kills trees ;o)”
- “Only really read FHM. Has everything u need sport, injuries, jokes, and of course Interviews (get ur mind out the gutter Pab !!!)
- “The weekend just wouldn’t be the weekend without the Saturday Guardian and The Observer on Sunday”
“Best Film”
Why grow up?!
- Top
- “Inbetweeners”
- Runner up
- “Senna”
- “I don’t even like Formula 1, but this was just ace”
- Honourable mentions
- “Black Swan”
- “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”
- “Sherlock Holmes II”
- “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
- “Moneyball … baseball for me, Brad for the wife (she hates that “the” )”
- “King’s Speech – only non kids film I saw”
- “None, nothing has deserved this accolade I’m afraid”
- “Super 8”
- “Drive; from languid, heavily-stylised Michael Mann-ism, a la Thief and Collateral, to bursts of brutal violence and, in the scene where the Driver stalks Nino, the most stunning use of music in a film for as long as I can remember. Ryan Gosling’s as good an actor as you’re likely to see anywhere right now”
- “3-hours uninterrupted to watch a movie??! Sadly not for me in 2011 L”
“Best TV programme”
Like I said, why grow up…
- Top
- “Fresh Meat”
- Runner up
- “Misfits”
- Honourable mentions
- “Dexter”
- “Still Harry Hill’s TV Burp for me!”
- “Yes its Treme, there is no other TV show”
- “Match Of The Day – and apart from the football it’s not even a very good programme”
- “Black Mirror” – “sadly there were only 3 episodes” – “Charlie Brooker’s Twilight-Zone-style take on where technology is taking us is three excellent, tightly scripted, beautifully styled episodes”
- “House – If you haven’t watched it, start at the beginning and get addicted. Dark as hell, but brilliant TV”
- “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – the funniest, most f*cked up show. Watch it online”
- “Breaking Bad – Another beaut from the US, get involved” – “Don’t even talk to me about anything else. Utterly mind-blowing stuff”
- “The Killing (Danish version)”
- “The Shadow Line, best thing on TV since the Wire”
- Modern Family – “always raises a “LOL” or two (as I believe the kids say)”
- “Sherlock Holmes”
- “Octonauts”
“Follow! Follow!”
You need to get involved!
- Top – @TheBig_Sam
- “The only reason to be on twitter.. causes you to start looking at West Ham’s results and hoping that they lose.. sex/music/football obscure 80s references…
- Runner up – @Joey7Barton
- Honourable mentions
- @Sportschippers (Nottm sports fans only)
- “Don’t do twitter”
- “What is this Twitter thing of which you speak?”
- “Twitter, What ?????? I’m 42 !”
- @somegreatreward – “It’s me and I do f*ck all updates so won’t clog up your Twitter feed”
- @PabsPAS
- @gracedent
- @Glinner
- @jimmycarr
- @JackWilshere
- @OptaJoe
- Saint Etienne – @bobpetesarah – it’s going be a big year for them…
“Most Wanted”
“liv-ing in a mat-er-ial world, ma-teri-al..”
“My Weakness”
Who’d have thunk…
- “Crap food of any distinction I can’t help it!”
- “I’m ticklish”
- “I can’t predict football scores any more!!”
- “My mouth!”
- “short birds with great t*ts”
- “Foxes short cake rounds…”
- “I have to drink Stella to watch Palace!”
- “I got married on New Year’s Eve so started the year a married man. Actually, scrap that, let’s just say I got to go the FHM High Street Honeys party and was surrounded by some of the fittest women in the land who thought I was in a band. Who was I to tell them I wasn’t?”
- “If I put all my unfinished manuscripts together, I’d have about two chapters’ worth. Next year…”
- “Life long ago ceased being interesting enough to involve secrets. After two years working in Liverpool my life long loathing of scousers has been tempered slightly and I quite like the Evertonians now… I would be loath to admit that in public though…”
- “Not being able to say no to another beer!”
- “Twitter, Tour de France and Take-aways… and That Baseball”
- “The inability to say ’no, no more for me…”
- “watching TOWIE and not being able to turn it off”
- “nobody knew this but I actually like Olly Murs songs”
- “I would happily give up my whole world for Victoria Coren!!!”
- “a decent malt”
- smoking – I like it, think about it a lot and although have kicked well in to touch, I know that I have to work very hard to not give in… especially the herbal kind!”
- “Enjoying Gin & Bitter Lemon, obviously not in a bar though !”
- “Sue Perkins”
“2011 Felt Like Heaven ’Cos…”
Ahhhhh, bless!
- Top – Scalextric
- “I moved house, Palace beat the SCUM and Man U and got Scalextrics for Christmas” / “Christmas shopping for scalextric, remote control toys and lightsabres”
- Runner up – 19
- “19 titles, a new baby and not that I am a bitter man, Keys and Grey got sacked and John Terry’s luck ran out…”
- Honourable mentions
- “I got married and promoted in the space of a week!”
- “I slept with a certain (non)lesbian on 2 occasions! Lesbian my @rse!”
- “I’ve got everything I ever really wanted”
- “I listened to a lot of Fiction Factory”
- “I got married to Sam Hogwood (daughter of Nick and niece of Ben) in May… BOOM!!!!”
- “I got an extra £50 in my pay packet… from the public sector!”
- “the FA finally decided not to deduct any points from us. Much more a case of relief than joy in the end”
- “my daughter got married; my kids threw a surprise 25th anniversary party; my bro got married – and there was of course two stag dos…”
- “Family kept me sane in the face of adversity and loss”
- “I got engaged (bleurgh yer I know) and My Sister had my first nephew (Ahhhhhh)”
- “there seemed to be some decent music out there again!!!!!”
- “City finally won a f*cking trophy!”
- “my son scored his first goal for his football team”
- the Man “scummy” Utd will be live and exclusive on channel 5 on a Thursday night in 2012 chuckle chuckle”
- “EVERTON AVOIDED RELEGATION AND LIVERPOOL WON NOTHING… AGAIN”
- “RWC 2011 New Zealand awesome experience”
- “I went to Japan. Go now. Just go. Food? Language? Nuclear radiation? Don’t care, just go. It’ll be fine and you’ll cope, and the beauty, the culture, the people (they’re nuts nut they’re gentle!) and the wonder of everything else will make you forget any doubts you had.”