Ben

“I have come for advice."
"That is easily got."
"And help."
"That is not always so easy.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Five Orange Pips

“We decided to have some fun in the final match of the season against Luton. A few months earlier we'd given 'the 50p game' a try, and with nothing riding on the Luton result we thought it was time to revisit it. The rules are simple: someone walks out onto a pitch with a 50 pence piece in their hand, which has to be passed among teammates while the game is going on. You can't give it back to the player who has just given it to you, and whoever ends up with the 50p at the full time whistle has to get a round of drinks in after the match. Its obviously all supposed to go discreetly, but against Luton we got caught by the referee, who took the coin off us and handed it over on the sideline — a bit like a teacher might confiscate something in a classroom. When we got a throw-in by the dugout, Danny, our kit man, gave the 50p to the player taking it and we carried the game on. At one points, Mangs went down injured when I had the coin, so I saw it as a perfect opportunity to hand it over. I think Scotty Davies, the goalkeeper, ended up with the 50p at the end. And that was Fleetwood in a nutshell: brilliant but mental.”
― Jamie Vardy, Jamie Vardy: From Nowhere, My Story

“Management is like chess, even though the pieces perform themselves. They're not bits of wood - they've got their own minds, their own bodies and their own abilities. But you can position them where you want and hope the strategy works out. You try to out-fox and out-manoeuvre the opposition manager. Do you do that by leaving a piece in a certain place to affect what the opposition is going to do? Or do you keep pieces in station?”
― Leon Osman, Ossie: My Autobiography

“Six minutes earlier a message had been flashed from the touchline : 'Tell Bobby (Charlton) to move up front'. We were still searching for that elusive second goal. But fortunately, the message didn't have time to get through as Bobby, playing deep, engineered a move that led to (George) Best flicking a (Pat) Crerand ball round the defence for (David) Sadler to run in and snap home. Bobby still hadn't got the first message when another one came from the line : 'Tell Bobby to stay deep.”
― Nobby Stiles, Soccer my battlefield;