David Beckham is always news. Whether he’s walking, talking, running or even just sitting, he’s guaranteed a place in the tabloids. Unusually though he found himself in the sport pages of The Sun instead of the gossip column when he bumped into a waxwork of Fabio Capello at White Hart Lane on Sunday. The tabloid desperately knew there was a pun to found in this meeting somewhere and almost in a fit of enthusiasm blurted this out. Partly this is a reference to Beckham’s nickname of goldenballs and also a reference to his desire to return to international football. Witty and layered as always, The Sun has once again excelled itself.

It was all happening at the Lane this weekend, as fans were also seen protesting against a possible move of home from North London to the east side of town, as they felt this would be a betrayal of their roots. The leader of Haringey Council, Claire Kober, might have a vested interest in the issue, but she also agrees with the fans. Her choice of words in describing her feelings though were slightly ambiguous and figurative given the competition for the Olympic Stadium Spurs face from West Ham. This didn’t bother the Evening Standard though who seemingly relished the double meaning.

Whether it’s off the field or on it West Ham are having a nightmare season. Not only are they stuck to the bottom of the Premier League with the one none likes off The Apprentice running their club, but they have also had to put up with the indignity of the most shambolic managerial chase in history. Martin O’Neill eventually decided he didn’t want to join the circus and Avram Grant was dignified enough to stay put for the time being. Naturally the leak was blamed on a mole and The Guardian’s tea time email The Fiver felt it was important to clarify that it wasn’t a reference to Grant, despite a visual similarity of late.

Unless perhaps you’re an aggrieved Sunderland fan, Darren Bent’s transfer to Villa in exchange for a mountain of cash is exactly what the January transfer is about and is what fans expect and want to see. His grossly exaggerated fee should spark the market into life and hopefully there’ll be more similarly extortionate deals before the end of the month. The Sun felt that readers wouldn’t fully understand the true value of the deal so they compared the fee to the country’s £trillion debt. There, that’s much clearer now.

Oh I remember Joe Cole. He used to be good didn’t he? Since his move to Liverpool from Chelsea, the midfielder has had a torrid time on Merseyside, which according to The Sun was typified by his appearance for the reserves in mid-week. Thankfully Cole will be able he be able to cheer himself up about the alleged collapse of a promising career with the tabloids pun of his name and accompanying misfortune.

The appearance of any representative of North Korea outside their Stalinist dictatorship is always something of a spectacle, so their presence at the Asian Games brought with it media attention. The Sun was one such interested party and they were fascinated with the support the country had brought with them, so much so that they wonderfully subverted the image of a typical football fan with a series of speech bubbles emanating form the crowd. Having said that, the entire crowd being dressed in shirt and ties helped with this.

Posted By Dan Mobbs - Friday January 21, 2011.
Tags: Aston Villa, Liverpool