FourFourTwo UKOctober 2025的目錄

X @JamesAndrew_ E james.andrew@futurenet.com Whatever is happening around the world, and whatever the knock-on effect to everyone’s lives, football remains immune. Cost of living crisis? Energy bills rising? Despite it all, Premier League clubs spent £3 billion on transfers this summer. The lowest spenders in the league were Fulham, paying £34.5m for two permanent signings, while at the other end of the scale came champions Liverpool, who splashed more than £440m on a host of new additions. Alexander Isak was the biggest and last of those signings, as the striker joined from Newcastle for a British record £125m on deadline day. Isak arrived with a phenomenal goalscoring record, finding the net 62 times in 109 appearances for the Magpies – Arne Slot & Co will hope he can continue that…

01 Who was the first British club to win a European trophy, in 1963? 02 Which of the Premier League’s 20 managers at the beginning of this season played the most games in any top-flight European league? 03 For which season did the Premier League drop from 22 to 20 teams? 04 Paisley Panda is the mascot of which Scottish Premiership club? 05 Including this season, all six of Arsenal’s away wins at Manchester United in the Premier League era have finished with what scoreline? 06 Erling Haaland netted five goals as Norway beat Moldova 11-1 this month – which Rangers player came off the bench to score four times? 07 True or false: Sam Allardyce has appeared in Coronation Street? 08 Which club won the last edition of the…

Troy Deeney had been out of prison for just nine months when he scored the goal he’s most remembered for. The frontman would later find the net nearly 50 times in the Premier League, but he’ll forever be associated with Sky commentator Bill Leslie and his iconic cry of “DEEEEEENEY!”, as he slammed home a 97th-minute play-off semi-final winner for Watford in 2013, 20 seconds after Anthony Knockaert had missed a penalty that would have clinched it for Leicester at the other end. It’s one of the great Football League moments. “You can call it that, I can’t!” Deeney laughs, attempting to remain modest as he sits down with FourFourTwo. “In the moment, I was so calm – it felt like everything slowed down, like you see in the movies.…

Aweek is said to be a lifetime in football. That adage has never rung truer than for Morecambe, who across just seven summer days, journeyed from despair to delirium. On Saturday, August 16, most other National League sides were preparing for their second game of the season. Morecambe, relegated from the EFL in April, were yet to play. Having been unable to show sufficient evidence that they could finance their entire 2025-26 campaign, the Lancastrians had been suspended by the league. A further meeting, at which their participation for the rest of the season would be discussed, was due four days later. A planned takeover had dragged on for several years, but even with the prospective buyer ready to complete a deal, the existing owners – the Bond Group, fronted…

Jimmy Ball was simply visiting his sisters. After a stint coaching at Stevenage, his aim was to enjoy some downtime before a return to the Football League. The eighth tier of the English pyramid was far from his agenda. But on Ball’s south coast visit, several friends recommended local side AFC Totton, a club that had “grand plans”. Ball, whose father Alan won the 1966 World Cup with England, reluctantly agreed to an introduction. “Honestly, at first I wasn’t really that interested,” he tells FFT. Yet something about their vision appealed. The initial meeting happened in early 2022. Three seasons and two promotions later, Ball has nearly half of his five-year contract to run. Totton went up as champions in his first full campaign, before reaching the Southern League Premier…

Marcus Stewart can still remember the first time he suspected something about his own body wasn’t quite right. It was during the Covid pandemic and, like so many others stuck inside trying to alleviate the stresses and boredom of the time, the former Bristol Rovers, Ipswich and Sunderland forward was getting a home workout in. “Suddenly, I just noticed my left hand wasn’t gripping properly,” he explains to FFT. “I’m left-handed, so it should be my strongest one, but it just wouldn’t close properly. It wasn’t fatigue or anything like that – but it wasn’t responding as it should. That was the start of it all.” Over the following months, Stewart began noticing other little peculiarities; the once reliable reflexes of a former professional footballer slowly began to falter. “I…

The legendary defender on his seven glorious years at Celtic, fighting for breath in South Africa and passing his club tie on to Rod Stewart Sir Alex Ferguson and yourself grew up in Glasgow’s Govan area around the same time, in the early 1940s… That’s right. Sir Alex went to Govan High School and I went to St Gerard’s, which was very local. Around 40 years later, he said to me, ‘You should have gone to Govan High, Jim – we’d have been good friends’. We also played against each other when he was at Rangers. You turned professional at Celtic in 1965, aged 21, just as Jimmy McGrory ended his 20-year tenure as manager and Jock Stein took the reins… Jock got on with everybody when he arrived, but…

“DO YOU HAVE THE ’87-88 AWAY, PAL?” BIEL, SWITZERLAND Can you call yourself a real Liverpool fan unless you’ve laid 1,047 shirts on a pitch, and set a new world record for the biggest collection of jerseys from one club? Swiss fan Florian Thurler did just that – for a mere £116,327 (possibly). Shirts ain’t cheap… Pic Harold Cunningham/Getty A TRUE BALLER WASHINGTON DC, USA Trinity Rodman has endured injury woes since shooting to stardom as one of the USA’s finest footballers – as well as a complicated relationship with father Dennis, of NBA fame. She was back on the pitch for Washington Spirit recently, though – good luck catching her when fully fit. Pic Patrick Smith/NWSL/Getty “ER, WE NEED A NEW TRAINER” BOGOTA, COLOMBIA Hugo Rodallega scored at 39 as Santa…

There is a story that is told by Alexander Isak’s youth coach at AIK, Elias Mineirji, about the first time he saw the youngster train with the first team. Appreciating that it was a big stepup for Isak at 16 years old, at one of Sweden’s biggest clubs, Mineirji went along to provide some moral support. “He took the ball inside his own half and set off at high speed,” Mineirji later recalled. “No-one could catch him – it was 60 yards, down the right, and those of us watching in the stands thought he would run, then pass. But outside of the penalty area from an angle, he instead took a shot. It flew straight past the goalkeeper. Everyone just applauded.” The youngster, born in Sweden in 1999 to…

Lionel Messi is this year’s new Maradona, the most exciting teenager in world football, the star shining brightest in a Barcelona team that’s now rivalling Real Madrid’s Galacticos status. Who says so? Maradona, for one. Messi is not simply the flavour of the month, an over-hyped tabloid creation who’ll fade away as quickly as he’s risen to prominence, one more Diego double who fails to match expectations. “He’s different to the rest,” insists the original (and the best). “He’s different to Pablo Aimar, Juan Roman Riquelme or Andres D’Alessandro. I see myself a lot in him.” Six months ago, Messi was just another hopeful playing for Barcelona’s B team in front of crowds of 2,000 fans at best. Although he featured in seven first-team games last season and became, at…

With each Premier League season that has come and gone, a fiendishly difficult quiz question has survived for yet another campaign. Throughout the entire history of England’s top flight, who holds the record for the most goals scored in a season by a foreign-born, overseas-registered player? It’s not Erling Haaland – despite his 36 goals in 2022-23, the Norwegian was born in Leeds, where father Alf-Inge was plying his trade at the turn of the century. It’s not Mo Salah either, despite his 32 goals in 2017-18. Nor is it Luis Suarez or Cristiano Ronaldo, who each struck 31 in a campaign – the latter en route to the Ballon d’Or in 2008. Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie both hit 30. Back in January 2023, I found myself taking…

XI BEST: Jon McLaughlin, John Brayford, John Mousinho, Darren Stride, Aaron Webster, Jacques Maghoma, Jackson Irvine, Nasser El Khayati, Robbie Weir, Daryl Clare, Stuart Beavon. WORST: Stephen Bywater, Stephen Warnock, Danny Blanchett, Richard Jackson, Darren Moore, Steven Lawless, Lee Williamson, Jake Flannigan, Colin Daniel, Nialle Rodney, Aurelien Joachim. PLAYER B: It has to be John Brayford. Perhaps not the most technically gifted player to ever pull on a shirt, but his defensive mentality was absolutely monstrous. W: There have definitely been some contenders from recent seasons, but I’ll go back a bit. I’ve heard a lot about Danny Blanchett – none of it has ever been good. MOMENT B: Tom Naylor rattling in a 90th-minute header against Gillingham to all but secure our promotion to the Championship. W: Thinking we’d…

The defender has no regrets about choosing to miss this summer’s Lionesses triumph – despite spending the whole tournament shouting at her TV… You recently launched a clothing range with artwork inspired by your tattoos and personal motto, ‘Dream big’. What tattoos do you have? I’ve got a tattoo of an owl to represent home, as we’ve got a barn owl at my family’s stables in Sheffield. I’ve got a matching ‘1/2’ tattoo with my best friend Rachel Daly, ‘hakuna matata’, which means ‘no worries’, and a tiger that represents strength. ‘Dream big’ is something my mum has said since I was little – before every game, she still messages me that. No dream was ever too big, my family never held me back and said, ‘That’s not realistic’. My…

You can’t overstate just how big the shirt sponsors were in 1970s French football. Back when kit sponsorship was still a relatively new concept, being tentatively phased in across the game, clubs in the French top flight threw caution to the wind by giving their partners the biggest possible real estate. Plain, hoops, pinstripes – nothing was exempt from the oversized logos. In some cases, the sponsor was tastefully matched despite their mammoth size. Sochaux featured the lion of Peugeot for several strong efforts, matching the colour of the logo to their yellow and blue colour scheme. Other teams weren’t so lucky – Paris FC, for example, whose then orange kits were impacted by an inelegant application of the charming, if unfortunately clunky, logo of stationery giants Bic. Though it…

Look through the Spain line-up that won the 2010 World Cup Final, or the Barcelona side that clinched the Champions League at Wembley a year later, and you’ll find only one name who’s still playing for a club in European football’s elite leagues. Together with Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and David Villa, Pedro was one of six players to be part of both of those iconic XIs. Aged 38, he recently commenced his sixth season in Serie A, after maintaining his goalscoring form for Lazio and penning a one-year contract extension. Six is a number that has long held significance for the forward in other ways, too. Back in 2009, he became the first player in history to score in six major club competitions in the same…

ATLETICO NACIONAL 1 IND MEDELLIN 0 Categoria Primera A, 1994 “The first of my great games as a professional, for Atletico Nacional, with the Colombian title at stake. Independiente had nothing to play for except attempting to stop us, their eternal rivals, from winning it. It was goalless when I came on with 20 minutes left – with my second touch, I scored. I can still hear the deafening noise. It was special because 1994 was an incredibly tough year. Our team-mate Andres Escobar had been murdered months earlier, and we made it our mission to honour him with the title. Football became an escape. That moment also allowed me to leave my mark on the team I supported.” RIVER PLATE 2 BOCA JUNIORS 0 Torneo Apertura, 1999 “The Superclasico…

NICK WOLTEMADE NEWCASTLE, £69M Woltemade’s move to St James’ Park came out of the blue, a bit reminiscent of his emergence for both Stuttgart and the German national team. A product of Werder Bremen’s youth setup, the 23-year-old has blossomed later on in his career than many of his Premier League peers. Woltemade had only a handful of cameo Bundesliga appearances before going out on loan to the third tier at 20, where he scooped the title with SV Elversberg and won the division’s player of the year award after finding his goalscoring groove. Returning to his hometown club, that eye for goal didn’t translate in the top flight, at least not until his departure. Bremen said, “Auf wiedersehen, pet” to Frankenstein’s footballer a year ago. This summer there’s a…

David Duke knows better than most people how quickly life can spin out of control. The Glaswegian had a girlfriend, a steady bar job and an apartment in his hometown, when some unexpected news changed everything. “My father suddenly passed away,” he tells FFT. “He’d had his problems with drinking, but it still came out of the blue. Mentally, I just didn’t know how to deal with that.” Without any other significant family to turn to and still in his early 20s, things soon spiralled. “I began to drink,” he winces. “I shut myself away and was struggling hugely. I started not turning up for work. I lost my friends, my job, my relationship, my home and I was on the streets pretty quickly.” Duke spent a few months living…

Football’s influence lasts longer than 90 minutes – and top South Korean club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors (JBFC) are proving it. In partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the K League giants are doing something both simple and serious: treating social impact with the same significance as performance, revenue and fan experience. To mark World Food Day on October 16, FFT met the people behind the collaboration. What was behind the initial planning to form a partnership with WFP? Wonchan Tea, JBFC Head of Marketing: Since 2024, we have shaped the club’s corporate social responsibility efforts to be more defined and purposeful, setting out ‘Progressive Pioneer’ as our guiding slogan. At a strategic level, I believed that if there was a project capable of strengthening the meaning of…

You made your debut for Rangers at a packed Ibrox against Panathinaikos in July – what was that like? The size of this club is mad. Playing in that Champions League qualifier was like nothing I had experienced before. The manager, Russell Martin, said to me, “I know you’ve played nearly 100 games in the Premier League, but this place is different.” I felt that. You hear about the passion of the fans but it was just so loud the whole game. They were incredible and that was a big part of me coming here. When Rangers called, there was only one place I wanted to go. It must be a different kind of pressure? There’s definitely pressure playing for Rangers, but that’s something I thrive off as a player.…

01 NON-LEAGUE TREE HUGGER After receiving a lifetime ban from his beloved Epsom & Ewell, Salts fanatic Richard Lambert has had to, er, branch out to cheer on the ninth-tier side this season – by climbing a nearby tree that overlooks the pitch. Lambert has been following the club for over four decades and even served as its historian, but was banished after a series of disputes with the committee. He claims the ban was issued after he changed the name of his personal X account to look as though it was the official club profile. Not one to be stumped, he got clambering. 02 SUNDERLAND FANS ON A VAN When the Black Cats played Oxford behind closed doors at the three-sided Kassam Stadium in September 2020, a group of…

The Real Betis right-back talks about leaving La Masia for North London, Mikel Arteta’s genius and suffering heartbreak against Chelsea in May You left Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy to sign for Arsenal at 16. How did you find that experience? I was very inexperienced in both football and life. I feel that the UK made me an adult and a professional, experienced player. Most of my growth happened in London. I was really lucky that the years I spent there, I had great team-mates and coaches, and opportunities to play top-level football. That was probably the most important part of my development as a person and as a player. How do you reflect on the nine years you spent in North London? I feel very nostalgic about it. I’ve…