Hugo Steckelmacher
Hugo Steckelmacher has loved football since he can remember - indeed, his mother often jokes that he kicked so much as a baby due to his eagerness to get out of the womb and play football! Of German-Jewish descent, a rocky love-affair with Tottenham began at a young age, and his favourite players as a child were Nick Barmby and Gary Mabbutt. At the age of ten, he began to watch La Liga football and fell in love with the league and especially with the "juego bonito" of the two biggest clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Now living in Barcelona, Hugo regularly [sic] writes on La Liga and Tottenham.
Footballer Nicknames РPel̩, Pibe de Oro, Gazza, Becks, Zizou: A Century of Diminutives
Don’t call me Hugo any more. I’m English, don’t you know? So you have to change my name. At school, P.E. teachers insisted on branding me “Steckel”, although I suppose I should just be grateful I escaped that awful nom de plume that is the quintessentially British “Macca”. It’s 10:30pm, and a day both frustrating…
Ramos to play Football Manager this summer, what will Tottenham look like next season?
After a turbulent season as replete with failure as success — an extremely disappointing league position and a whimpering exit from the UEFA Cup compensated only by a euphoric Carling Cup win — one gets the feeling that Juande Ramos and his team are to take advantage of the long summer break to effect a…
Football Fanzines – the perfect way to get your voice heard
First off, as a sort of disclaimer I would like to start off by conceding that I am by no means an expert on the topic of football fanzines. I have read a few in my time, but have not yet had the good fortune to contribute to one. Much academic work has been carried…
Keeping the Bench Warm — The Trials & Tribulations of Back-Up Goalkeepers
For one reason or another, this season has seen a number of long-suffering back-up goalkeepers finally venturing into the first eleven on a regular basis. Almunia at Arsenal has at long last cast off the albatross of Mad Jens Lehmann from around his neck, leaving Lehmann to vilipend and gnash his teeth together like Muttley…
Every Ince a Premiership Manager
“See I was supposed to be a footballer but they kept pickin’ the other kid who was a foot taller I got lazy and less enthusiastic I stopped trainin’ and turning up to matches started sabotaging the manager’s tactics but when I did play I used to score hat-tricks then I gave up now I’m…
Lionel’s injuries – a Messi report
The stage is FC Barcelona’s famous Camp Nou stadium. The scoreline? 1-0, although you’d be forgiven for thinking that no-one cared. The reason for this lack of interest? One of the divo’s clothed in red and blue is prostrated pitchside, tears streaming down his youthful face. The moment is frozen in time. Thousands of fans…
Nigel Adkins — Adkins diet just the tonic for united Scunny
Back with the fourth installment of his series on exciting young English managers in the Football League, Hugo Steckelmacher looks at Scunthorpe United’s Nigel Adkins, a man hard to pigeon-hole. Come back next week for Paul Ince! Who needs Mourinho, we’ve got our physio — Scunthorpe fans’ regular chant, home and away. Nigel Adkins (born…
Carling — probably not the best cup competition in the world
“If the FA Cup final is football’s Ascot, then the League Cup final is its Derby Day.” — Alan Hardaker Now that the euphoria over my beloved Spurs’ Carling Cup win has abated somewhat, I thought it might be a good time to voice an idea as to how to salvage the dignity of a…
Professional Footballers’ Association – How The PFA Helps Players
“You give your life to football and then it often forgets you. Football clubs have a bad habit of taking players in, making the most of them, and then vomiting them up once they’re too old or injured [...] That’s where the Professional Footballers’ Association are so wonderful, because they do not forget anyone”. -…
Slavery in Football
The subject of slavery is one that rouses reactions verging from the understandably passionate to the frankly irrational. I can recall with a pang of melancholy the furore issuing from José Mourinho’s assertion that the French Football Federation’s treatment of Claude Makelele was tantamount to slavery. As such, slavery and football themselves share a formal…
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