Unless you’re a football nerd and knew from which club Steve Heighway joined Liverpool back in 1970, there’s a fair chance you never heard of Skelmersdale United until last week.
The non-league side, who play in the ninth tier of the English game, made the news with the quirky appointment of former Wigan and Spurs (etc, etc) defender Pascal Chimbonda as their new gaffer, his first such role in football.
“It is a great honour to become manager of a club with a history as rich as this,” he said, like he was being unveiled at the Camp Nou. “I’ve been inspired by Guardiola, Mourinho, Simeone and Zidane, my philosophy will be to play attractive football.”
That’s a big ask for a team that had lost 15 of its 16 league games before he arrived, and they were beaten again on Wednesday, 3-1 by Kendal Town in the Macron Cup, in his first game in charge. The Guardian reported that he was so unimpressed by the opposition’s direct style of play, he offered Kendal’s manager £10 if they could string 10 passes together. But at least the attendance was bigger than the 50 expected, it “including a man positively critiquing the quality of pies through a megaphone”.
Come Saturday, though, Skelmersdale only went and won 4-1 against Barnoldswick Town, 27 points above them in the table – the feat all the greater because they picked up three red cards: two of their players were sent off as well as, eh, Chimbonda. Netflix need to do a series on this bunch. Now.
Press release of the week: Grin and bare it
Undoubtedly the one that arrived from a company promising that their analysis of search-engine data “will be of high interest to you and your audience”. What were they analysing? Which Premier League players and managers “get the most interest with regards to their teeth”.
Now, it’s been a while since Manchester United topped any class of table, so Alejandro Garnacho’s number one spot in the players’ list will have given the club a lift. “This shows that even if a player does not play for one of the most recent successful teams” people will still want info on their gnashers if they glisten, they wrote, like Garnacho plays for Skelmersdale.
Less positively for United, Erik ten Hag, runner-up in the managers’ list, got 18 times fewer searches than the predictable winner, a man renowned for “his iconic laugh, smile and teeth”. One clue: Jürgen.
Quote of the Week
“You get so emotional and hyped up that you want to run through a bowl of spaghetti and stick your head in it.” – Jackson Irvine on the rather unusual impact of Ange Postecoglou’s pre-match team talks when he was manager of Australia.
Number: 969
That’s how many days there were to go before the 2026 World Cup when Guam’s qualifying hopes were ended by Singapore last week. There’s always 2030.
Word of Mouth
“He’s away with the fairies. The fact he talks about himself in the third person tells you all you need to know. I mean, who does that? And then the “Bayern Munich nearly signed me” stuff. Well, I nearly flew to the moon.” – Apart from that, Chris Sutton is a big fan of Rangers’ Todd Cantwell.
“At PSV, they used to call me ‘long neck’ – because I have a long neck.” – Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo. That explains it, then.
“I’m happy for them. They can watch soccer again. When I left, they started watching baseball.” – Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Lionel Messi succeeding him as the saviour of American soccer/football.
“I was like, ‘you know I’m 38, right?’” – Cheltenham Town’s Curtis Davies on receiving his first international call-up from Sierra Leone just the two years short of his 40th birthday. (He could have played for Ireland too, he had an Irish granny, but when asked 10 years ago about his Irish connection, he said “I had a Guinness once”. So that was that).
“I was put on this earth to score goals, to be adored by people and sung to.” – Michael Owen? Stop.
“I hope the fans see differences, but I’m not Harry Potter with a magic stick who can change everything suddenly.” – New Rangers gaffer Philippe Clement tries to dampen expectations a touch. But after beating Hibs 4-0 on Saturday, the faithful will expect that wand to work wonders.
