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Football's ten greatest hissy fits

Tom Dart

Geovanni, 2009
Hull’s playmaker did not take kindly to being replaced by Nicky Barmby against Blackburn in March. Well, who would? He chucked a sweater and lashed out at a water bottle, prompting Phil Brown to say that he “will never do that to me again”. Maybe not to his manager - but, earlier this month, Geovanni rowed on the pitch with Daniel Cousin, his team-mate.

Robbie Keane, 2008
“What the **** is that all about?” the Tottenham captain appeared to rant as he ripped off his armband and chucked it away when he was replaced by Darren Bent away to Manchester City. It was the seventh time he had been taken off in his past eight games, and he had scored. Keane’s strop cost him a £120,000 fine from Juande Ramos, a brilliant manager whose decisions should never be questioned.

Pascal Chimbonda, 2008
The glove-wearing, transfer-requesting right back was another Tottenham player to be provoked into an insane rage by the sound and wise management of Ramos. Chimbonda was furious when Ramos replaced him with Tom Huddlestone when Spurs were losing to Chelsea in the Carling Cup final and trudged down the tunnel after being persuaded to leave the pitch by Jermaine Jenas. Yet when Spurs won, Chimbonda was only too happy to return to enjoy the celebrations.

Hossam Ghaly, 2007
The Tottenham midfield player came on for the injured Steed Malbranque but Tottenham were behind to Blackburn so the substitute was himself replaced, by Robbie Keane. Ghaly ripped off his shirt and threw it to the ground in front of Martin Jol as he stalked down the tunnel. “You’re not fit to wear the shirt,” sang the Tottenham fans; Ghaly obviously agreed.

Chelsea end Arsenal Cup jinx – and more of Tom Dart’s Weekend in Numbers

62: Years since Chelsea last beat Arsenal in the FA Cup before Saturday’s win

12: Goals in seven top-flight fixtures — half of them in one match

4: Football League clubs relegated or promoted

11: Wins in the past 60 league games for Charlton Athletic

3: Burton Albion’s Blue Square Premier points lead — from 19 two months ago

Superstitious or just plain crazy?

Kolo Toure’s bizarre insistence on being the last out of the Arsenal dressing-room – even if the second half is getting under way without him – is one of the more extreme examples of footballing superstition, but the defender is far from unusual in his adherence to weird rituals.

Setting aside whether Sir Alex Ferguson would have reacted in the same way as Arsene Wenger to his player's extended interval during a crucial Champions League tie we thought it was a good opportunity to examine further examples of the neurotic footballer.

John Terry has said he has around 50 pre-match superstitions, including wearing the same lucky shin-pads for over a decade. But he lost them before a Champions League game in Barcelona in 2004 – and Chelsea lost the game. “Those shin-pads had got me to where I was in the game,” Terry said at the time. “I was thinking, f***ing hell, I’ve had those shin-pads for so long and now this is it, all over.”

Terry had the opportunity to wear Chelsea’s number 5 shirt in 2003 but preferred to stick with the number 26. I do have loads of rituals before every game,” he said in 2004. “Stupid things like always rotating tape round my shin-pads three times and never going to the two toilets on the left of the dressing room. I also don't have anything to drink - not even a cup of tea - once I wake up on the morning of a game. And I always count the number of lamp-posts on the journey between home and Stamford Bridge. I know they are all ridiculous things and I don't know why I do them - other than it is something I have always done and always will.”

Chelsea proving fallible at setpieces – and more of Tom Dart’s Weekend in Numbers

7: Goals conceded by Chelsea from set-pieces in their past ten games.

762: Minutes since Manchester United conceded a goal in the league.

10: Bookings for Marouane Fellaini, the Belgium midfield player, in 17 appearances for Everton.

3: English league matches on the South Coast postponed because of frozen pitches.

3: Homecoming Scottish Cup matches north of Aberdeen that beat the weather.

QPR cup cheer in short supply – and more of Tom Dart's weekend in numbers

7: The number of teams who won or drew against opponents from a higher division in the third round of the FA Cup at the weekend

14: The number of teams who managed the same feat at the same stage in last season’s FA Cup

8: Clubs who had their highest attendance of the season in the Cup over the weekend

3: Clubs that have just suffered their worst gate of the campaign in the Cup

8: Number of years since Queens Park Rangers won a match in the Cup; on Saturday they played out a goalless draw with Burnley

Lib Dems demand cheaper beer for football fans

Tom Dart

There was a stunning new survey announced yesterday. Stunningly obvious, that is. Research by the Liberal Democrats found that Premier League clubs charge too much for a pint of beer. Hard to believe that top clubs take advantage of their fans, isn’t it, what with tickets and replica gear being such good value?

That the average price of a pint in the Premier League is £3.19, higher than the £2.84 average charged in rugby league’s Super League, can be explained by the presence of five football clubs from the capital, where the cost of getting drunk, like everything else, is higher.

Why Tottenham are like the Titanic

Two helmsmen 96 years apart but united by search for lifeboat

A Night To Remember? Try an afternoon to forget for Juande Ramos and Tottenham Hotspur. Sunday’s defeat by Hull City marked Tottenham’s worst start to a season since 1912, the year the Titanic sank. Is the man at the helm at White Hart Lane any safer at the wheel than the “unsinkable” vessel’s captain, Edward John Smith?

Awards

Smith Honorary Commander, Royal Naval Reserve; Transport Medal; Royal Distinction. Ramos Two Uefa Cups with Seville; Carling Cup with Tottenham

Salary

Smith £1,250 a year, plus £100 no collision bonus (unpaid). Ramos £4 million a year

Only here for the beers

There's a gaffe-prone, oddball character running Newcastle United, and - what are the odds - I'm not talking about Kevin Keegan.

One of Newcastle United's former owners, Freddy Shepherd, once mocked fans for paying £50 for replica shirts; the present owner, Mike Ashley, seems determined to wear his (he probably got it for free though). Ashley was at it again at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, sitting with the travelling fans in his zebra stripes as Newcastle lost 3-0.

Man of the people? He's not one of them. He's a multimillionaire businessman born in Buckinghamshire. He doesn't spend a big percentage of his income having to travel on coaches and trains to follow the Toon. He doesn't have to scrimp and save for his season ticket.

The world comes to London - and not for 2012

It's the day before an England game, so time for the usual fretting: are the manager/attack/defence/midfield/goalkeeper (delete as appropriate) up to it? Let's at least revel in London's status as a world-class city and a world-class football city. Tonight Australia play South Africa in a friendly at Loftus Road. QPR's home is a mere 6,000 miles from Cape Town and 10,600 from Sydney and the match kicks off at 5am Australia Eastern Standard Time, yet it's the perfect venue.

All of the Australia squad are based in Europe, and half a dozen in England - though twelve of the South Africans play in their home country. The location will help lower the blood pressure of club managers irked that their precious players fly thousands of miles for matches and returning late and jet-lagged, if not injured. (Of course, these club managers never stop to ask themselves: maybe I shouldn't have signed an international from a country halfway across the world?) And Loftus Road even has a South Africa Road stand. Bafana Bafana will feel at home.

What you missed this summer

If you’ve been in a football vacuum (the moon, maybe, or North America) since Euro 2008 ended, you may have missed out on what happened - and didn’t happen - among the Barclays Premier League clubs this summer…

Non-transfer sagas

Never has so much been written about so little. Despite the rumours, hype and devious attempts by agents and clubs, there was about as much movement as you’d get from a geriatric tortoise standing in half-set concrete. Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard, Dimitar Berbatov, Didier Drogba, Roque Santa Cruz (right) and Emmanuel Adebayor all went… nowhere. So far, anyway.