Official has attracted the ire of supporters but shows his human side on former striker’s podcast, as he nears final whistleA man who seems so laid back he could probably serve as a draught excluder at the gates of Winterfell Castle, it spoke volumes that after a senior career spanning 19 years, it wasn’t until seven months into Peter Crouch’s retirement from professional football that the scales blinding him from the truth about referees finally fell from his eyes. A recent conversation over drinks with Mike Dean convinced the veteran of more than 600 games to realise that referees are human just like the rest of us, rather than unthinking, emotionless, card-brandishing cybernetic androids who simply materialise, fully formed like...
While West Ham and Stoke score more goals when Andy Carroll and Peter Crouch play, there is little evidence that Chelsea using them – or Ashley Barnes – as a Plan B would workHow times change. At the dawn of the Premier League the news that Chelsea wanted a rugged English striker to hurl himself at crosses, preferably after smashing through a centre-half in the brusque style of Kerry Dixon or Mick Harford, would barely have caused a ripple. Yet when it emerged last week that they were lining up a £20m bid for Andy Carroll – and then started making eyes at Peter Crouch – their fans were entitled to check their calendars to make sure it was not...
Seeing Andy Carroll or Peter Crouch at Chelsea is too good to hope for as it could confirm suspicions about the basic numbers of effectiveness and opportunity in elite teamsIt is nearly 40 years since a famous photo emerged that left the nascent Indian space programme an object of widespread mockery. The photo, published in 1979, showed India’s brand new state-of-the-art communications satellite being wheeled out for its launch – on a bullock cart.For political opponents the picture exposed the space programme as a matter of grandiose ambition undercut by agricultural thinking, a bullock cart culture. That same year the Indian government announced it would also be spending $6bn on bullock cart research, with the idea of entering the white...