Gary Speed

Gary has just become the first Premiership player to make 500 appearances – a few more than Big Al (441). Shearer was very complimentary about Gary’s achievement. “He could go on forever. He’s a top pro who looks after himself so well. Gary should be an inspiration to any youngster coming through the ranks.” At 37, Speed has just signed a new two-year contract with Bolton, where he continues to solidify the backfield as he did for so many years at St James’ Park. The Toon could surely use him to anchor our defense at the moment. Speed expects to target a managerial future when he finally hangs up his boots.

Return of the Apprentice?

Earlier this season, Alan Shearer called for the restoration of the old-style apprenticeships in the Premiership. When he started at Southampton in the 80’s he was paid a little over $50 per week. His chores included cleaning the senior pro’s boots, as well as sweeping the changing rooms and the baths, and other menial chores. Nowadays, professional cleaners are employed to do these tasks. One might also ask whether the young Turks of today would put up with what they would regard as servile activities. That’s precisely why Shearer suggested a return to the old days. “There has been a change in young footballers. The old apprenticeship scheme probably wasn’t nice at the time, but looking back, it taught me tremendous respect. You had to earn the right to go into the first-team dressing room.”

Goal-Line Technology

FIFA President Sepp Blatter expects to have some kind of goal-line technology in place for next year’s World Club Championship in Tokyo. He said it would be either a system with a chip-embedded ball triggering a sensor, or using a goal-line camera. “But we will not have video technology and stop the game.” He argued that soccer matches did not have time or would lose their continuity to constantly stop a video recording to re-examine refereeing decisions while a game was in progress. “We have to keep the human factor, and that includes refereeing error.”