Top 10 Embarrassing Celebrity Manchester United Fans – by Rob Atkinson


As Leeds United fans, we will all know at least one Man U “supporter” who – let’s face it – is a bit of a knob.  You know the sort – they never go to the game, but they drone on and on about “Nitid” to anyone who’s unlucky enough to be trapped in conversation with them.  Most of them can name David Beckham and Eric Cantona, but they’re not too sure about more recent names.  They’ve ALL swallowed the “Biggest Club in the World” myth, all of them.  Hook, line and sinker. They’re pretty dismal individuals. Now, fame and money don’t normally improve a person – so how much worse are the Pride of Devon’s celebrity fans?  I mean, loathe them or hate them, you can’t deny there’s some things their fans are good at, and being utterly dislikeable is right up there. Take a look at these prize specimens, presented here in time-honoured descending order of detestability…

10. Mick Hucknall

There’s a website entitled 1000 People More Annoying Than Mick Hucknall. A whole thousand. That’s not bad, really – out of a world population of seven billion or so – and it shoots him straight to the bottom of this list of horrors.  In truth, Hucknall only just edges in here in 10th place, as he actually has a couple of redeeming features. He’s absolutely from Manchester for a start, which for a Nitid fan means he should probably be stuffed and put on display.  He’s also a Labour Party supporter, which is the next-best thing to being a socialist.  With Mick, it’s probably mainly his support for Man U itself that makes him annoying – apart from those ginger dreadlocks and the silly “slept with 1000 women” nonsense. As a human being, Hucknall is faintly ridiculous – as a Man U fan, he’s just about the best.

9. Steve McFadden

Born in Maida Vale in London, McFadden therefore exemplifies the standard Man U fan demographic. His acting career has been mainly characterised by pretending to be hard, an echo of the qualification condition for membership of the so-called Red Army, a group of 1970’s Man U fans who roved around the country from their southern base, looking for stragglers and scarfers to attack in numbers. When his stint pretending to be hard in Eastenders came to a temporary halt in 2005, McFadden turned to documentaries, mainly surrounding violence, in which he pretended to be hard.  He later returned to Eastenders, and resumed his accustomed role of pretending to be hard.

8. Michael le Vell

Another rare and exotic beast – a Man U fan from the local area, Newton Heath – which was the original name of the Salford club. Michael le Vell has had to endure a tough and humiliating period of his life a while back when, during a court case he was outed as a fan of the Theatre of Hollow Myths outfit. “I have to admit,” said le Vell, “I did find that a lickle bit embarrassing.”  A former winner of “Most Ridiculous Moustache in Soaps” award, le Vell (real name Michael Robert Turner) started his acting career at the Oldham Theatre Workshop. During the 1980’s, he gained a following as a gay icon due to his daft ‘tache and also the skintight jeans which he wore mainly to ensure the high-pitched voice of Mancunian indignation which he used for the majority of his Coronation Street lines.

7. Brian Blessed

Born in Mexborough, South Yorkshire, Blessed is one of that sorry Legion of the Damned, the Man U fan from the God’s Own County, or the Tyke Scummer, as they are sometimes known.

Blessed has made a very successful career in theatre and TV, managing to circumvent the normal requirement for some talent by building upon his childhood discovery that he could shout.  Since then, Blessed has managed to shout his way, aided by an immensely passionate love affair with himself, to public recognition as a loud-mouthed huge person capable of dominating even modern 50″ TV screens simply by filling them.

Blessed lists his chief preoccupations as “Shouting, climbing mountains, shouting, growing a ridiculous beard and voice projection (shouting)”.

6. Zoë Ball

As with many a child before her, Zoë followed the football team her Dad supported as is quite right and proper – most of the time.  In her case, Dad was Kids’ TV guru Johnny Ball, and the team was Liverpool FC. So far, so good.  But as the years went by, and Liverpool’s star fell somewhat – alongside the fact that Man U were in the ascendant –  Zoë realised that being blonde, passably pretty and having a famous Dad wasn’t going to be enough to bring her the media success she craved.  How, then, to enhance her public profile?

And behold, a new Man U fan was born.  Zoë tumbled to the fact that the Pride of Devon were BIG in media circles and she noticed that lifelong Nitid fans were crawling out of the woodwork everywhere.  Joining that degraded crew, she decided, could be good for her career. So it came to pass. Whenever she needed a new job, or to impress some vacuous hack or TV exec, she now had the choice of referring to her famous Dad or to her newly life-long support of Man U. Enough of them were pleased enough with what they heard to give her a leg-up, so to speak, and her career blossomed out of all proportion to her mediocre talents.  It just goes to show – if you want to succeed, Opportunism Knocks.

Dad Johnny remains a Liverpool FC fan.  Whoever hears of him these days??

5. Roger Moore

We’re heading rapidly for the more despicable end of the list now.  Roger Moore is not only notorious as the Worst James Bond Ever, he’s also a prominent supporter of David Cameron’s Conservative Party, a well-known brown-noser of foreign royalty, universally acclaimed as the only man ever to have been comprehensively out-acted by Tony Curtis (in TV’s  The Persuaders!) and worst of all – whisper it softly – a Man U fan.

“I love M.U,” said Moore in one TV interview, using his Spitting Image parody voice and creaking one eyebrow upwards. “I nearly went to a game once.” Spitting Image figured large in media piss-takes of Moore.  The satirical latex puppet show featured a Bond movie spoof, “The Man with the Wooden Delivery”, with Moore’s rubber character receiving orders from Margaret Thatcher to kill Mikhail Gorbachev. Many other comedy shows at that time ridiculed Moore’s acting, Rory Bremner once claiming to have had a death threat from an irate fan of Moore’s, following one such routine.  Some people have simply no sense of humour.

4. Geoffrey Boycott

Into the top four most embarrassing now, and the standard of these pieces of human flotsam continues to decline steadily.  What can we say about “Sir” Geoffrey, folk hero to the dafter kind of Yorkshireman, professional Tyke and shameless exploiter of anything to do with the White Rose county, particularly in a “creekkit” context.

Geoff’s lop-sided grimace and tortured accent have become familiar annoyances to anyone who follows the sound of willow on leather, and the unashamed forthrightness of his views is far more famous than any worthwhile content or relevance that might occasionally be detectable. Boycott used to be a Nottingham Forest fan, due to his admiration for fellow gobshite Brian Clough; after Cloughie’s ignominious exit from the City Ground following relegation in 1993, “Boyks” jumped ship with the alacrity of a trained-up rat, settling on the Evil Empire for his devotion from that time on, blithely ignoring his supposed Broad Acres affiliation.

Together with fellow “Pro Yorkshireman”, Michael Parkinson, Boycott continues to capitalise financially on his home county whilst lending his dubious support to Man U. Parkinson possibly deserves a category of his own, due to his self-promotion as a fan of lovable little Barnsley; his early defection to Man U to worship and write about future dissolute waster George Best is less well-known.  It’s only right that two such examples of base treachery should share one item though.  May they be happy together in their wretched infidelity.

3. Usain Bolt

Some Man U fans, blissfully unaware of the irony of what they’re spouting, will often drone on about “not choosing your team, but your team choosing you”. We’re meant to nod, acknowledging that yes, of course, Man U are the biggest and the best – and that’s why they’re a natural to be supported by such a damn fine chap as whoever the plastic gloryhunter might be that’s coming out with such self-aggrandising crap. Dear me.

Man U fans for the overwhelmingly most part are sensitive little souls, slightly inadequate and socially inept, desperately insecure and in need of a morale boost and some reassurance – natural victims who need in their own minds to be identified by what they see as size (let’s not get too Freudian here) and success. Supporting Man U gives them a vicarious feeling of good times and well-being – or at least it used to – and they hope others will see them in this light too.

Tragically, as they walk down whatever southern high street in whichever of the current half-dozen Man U shirts they’re wearing, people are just looking at them, sighing, shaking their heads sadly and thinking “Tosser”.  But we need to recognise these character defects for what they are and not be misled by any outward display of bumptiousness or arrogance.  It’s almost never what it seems – except in some very isolated cases.

Usain Bolt, undisputed fastest man in the world and self-proclaimed living legend, is one of the genuine articles.  So utterly self-obsessed and convinced of his own wonderfulness that the world actually has a guilty feeling it should be turning around him, Usain is a case study in arrogance. He is not above a little bragging in much the same way that the sea is not above the clouds.  He follows Man U, we might surmise, not to make himself feel better, but to do Man U a favour; Usain’s support might, he must reason, make Man U look good.

He feels that, when he retires from running, he might decide to play for Man U. This is a deeply, deeply self-involved person – not a typical Man U fan at all. Just the living embodiment of the arrogance the lesser Man U mortals so dearly would love to radiate. And yet for all this natural talent and detestability – he’s still only the 3rd most repellent Man U fan.  Oh dear, Usain. Fail.

2. Terry Christian

Terry, for his sins, takes the most mangled, nasal, godawful accent anywhere in the British Isles – and performs the almost impossible feat of making it sound ten times worse after the Christian treatment. Add to that grievous assault on your ear-drums the hooded eyes, the arrogant “bollocks to you” Salford lad smile and – oh, just bloody everything else about the man, and you have a person who could make your very soul bleed at 500 paces.

Nothing is needed here about his career, or his piss-poor book, or anything except just the persona of the man, his carriage, his attitude.  There’s a phrase some Man U fans use to describe, by their own lights, a desirable and cool human being.  “A clued-up, clobbered-up Manc”, they say in tones of awe and deep, abiding love. Obviously the rest of us can’t imagine anything more nightmarish – but this is the image Christian projects. Just too, too horrible for words.

Christian chooses to define himself by his support of Man U, so I’m afraid it’s a case of “live by the sword, die by the sword”. It’s important to point this out, otherwise it might seem harsh to rip a man for supporting what is his local club. But Terry is just so offensively Man U, he embodies so absolutely everything that people love to hate about the most intrinsically disgusting club in the Universe, that it’s difficult to imagine just what there might be about him that anyone, anywhere, could possibly love.  Apart from other Man U fans, obviously.  And, equally obviously, they don’t count.

1. Eamonn “Feckin'” Holmes

This is The One.  He out-scums Christian, he out-oils even Moore. He’s a rabid Man U fan who comes from Northern Ireland and lives in London. He pronounces “Fiona” as “Fye-owner”, for Christ’s sake.  He makes feeble links and uncomfortable connections in the course of his daily work to give him some reason – any reason – to drone on in his annoying voice, with a smug, annoying smile on his smug, annoying face about Man U, the source of his violently unhealthy obsession.

It gets worse.  He’s friends with S’ralex, which is enough to exclude him from polite society everywhere.  Your typical Man U fans hate him, but feel they can’t admit it for fear of being disloyal to such a rabid, gloryhunting obsessive.  So they give themselves hernias trying to find something nice to say about the loathsome Holmes, ending up with something feeble along the lines of “Well, he’s certainly Man U frew and frew, innit – and he’s S’ralex’s mate you know, squire.  Cor, blimey, stone the bladdy crows an’ lavvadack.”

There is no excuse for Eamonn Holmes.  No shadow of any justification for the look he gets in his eyes when he thinks he has something clever to say, no allowances to be made for that annoying little smacking of his lips he does prior to delivering another laboriously-prepared ponderous one-liner to be dutifully laughed at by his long-suffering colleagues.  And I know it’s wrong, but I hate the way his features stay the same size as his face expands.  It’s nauseating, as is everything else about him.

More than anyone else on this list, I would say of Holmes – he deserves to be a Man U fan.  There. You just can’t be more offensively downright cruel than that. I feel spiritually cleansed.

-o0o-

These are the ten worst I could think of.  There are many who could have qualified as “dishonourable mentions”, people who would deserve the utmost denigration if associated with any other clubs.  In the soul-less, dismal ranks of Man U fans, they are merely ordinary and unremarkable. Michael Parkinson, who actually got a dishonourable mention in there. Michael Atherton.  That blonde wench on Countdown who can’t add up quite as well as la Vorderman (also a Scummer of Convenience, a Career Scummette).  Bill bloody Clinton.  The Neville chimps.  There are many. But these ten, I honestly believe are the worst of the worst, and they each merit inclusion for their own particular, despicable reason. I would be interested, though, to hear of any other nominations.

78 responses to “Top 10 Embarrassing Celebrity Manchester United Fans – by Rob Atkinson

  1. This has cheered me up this afternoon…..

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  2. Make one about Leeds… Oh yeah, you would probably find it hard to find ten fans, let alone ten celebrity fans, hope you are enjoying the high life in the Championship.

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    • Such bitterness! Tune in next week, scummer.

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    • ’20times’…what’s that wanks a day over Giggs you’ve had since hammering mighty soon to be relegated, 19 defeats already this season, Norwich City. Gullible twats!

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    • Hi. Tarquin V. Prawnmuncher here, massive Yoo-nited fan from Devon. I’m no celebrity, but you have a point about all the cringeworthy so called famous people following Yoo-nited. Dogshit celebs supporting a dogshit club, although I may still be smarting a bit after PSG gave us a right old Gallic going-over the other night. I guess we’ll just have to hope Manchester’s No.1 club City can avenge us when the competition gets serious. Oh, woe is me.

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  3. beckham and cantona played for them too did they not, so have a right to support the club, oh and actually yet another article about your jealousy for man utd

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    • This is the one and only contribution I’ll allow by “Paul” – just to give an idea of what I have to put up with. Paul reads everything I write and he hates and disapproves of every single word. He usually comments to try and make his views know, but sadly these contributions are always either illiterate, abusive, obscene or an incomprehensible mix of all three.

      He pretends to be a Leeds fan, but I’ve seen more convincing performances in Hollyoaks. Paul is a very sad man with nothing in his life but attempting to be a nuisance on my blog and other Leeds United blogs. I’m pretty sure he’s a southerner as it seems obvious he’s a Man U fan, probably having been to as many matches as he’s had girlfriends: less than one. Enjoy your one and only appearance on this blog, Paul – or whatever your name really is. You’ll not be darkening my doorstep again.

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  4. Pingback: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Hypocritical “Leeds Fan” of Them All? – by Rob Atkinson | Life, Leeds United, The Universe and Everything

  5. I must be getting old. I’ve not heard of half of these so called “celebs” Too busy watching Leeds—writing about Leeds; playing golf and training for marathons. Am I missing out?
    Con—“Trilby Man” to many away season ticket holders

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    • The moment I realised Holmes was a scum, was once on ye old GMTV, he interrupted the news when they were about to report on a match Manure lost, demanding they not report on it. C U Next Tuesday eamonn.

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      • Mr Rearguard

        Yeah I remember that fat wanker Holmes doing that on more than one occasion.

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  6. Pathetic scummer ‘celebrities’..all of em….if its not a friggin dog in a handbag it’s supporting that shower. Anything for column inches !
    Kelly Jones from Stereophonics is a Leeds fan and so is Finchy from The Office…..that’ll do me !!!

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  7. Ps…who does Phil Collins support ? Wouldn’t surprise me if……….?

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  8. This might make you feel better Rob, but I had never heard of Numbers 9,8,6, 2 and 1. Living in Australia for 27 years has its compensations after all! I do miss seeing me team though. The one and only. M.O.T.

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  9. Jagged John

    A quite brilliantly written piece. However, years of defeats have definitely soured the man. Man United Forever!

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  10. I am a leeds fan, and I do enjoy your blog but this is I am afraid is a little tedious.Was jimmy saville a leeds fan !?!?!?!

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  11. I don’t like united but zis is z worst thing i ever read. , .probably z perfect example bad writing

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  12. Ian Finlay

    Hi, rob, let the scum have em,would you want the likes of mick hucknall,, lurking the corridors of elland road, scaring the kids,not to mention Kevin Webster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  13. blue monday

    Great article but…as a ‘southern softie’ life long LUFC fan (over 40 years and yes I have been to some home games) I feel a little like an intruder! Given your previous article on tee shirts and being proud to be from Yorkshire, maybe a sideline should be shirts with ‘ would have liked to come from Yorkshire’!

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  14. oldcomrade

    Rob, thanks for the Brian Blessed bit , words cannot explain my dislike for the gobby tw@t, now i find out he’s a plastic, should have known. Makes out he’s a Tyke born and bred and the goes glory hunting round scumchester.

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  15. wetherby white

    Flash ah ah Gordon! Oh no, ive always really liked Brian Blessed, well hes off my xmas card list now.
    Man utd fans are famous for there home counties homes but surely there is NOTHING worse than a Yorkshire born man utd fan. You must have travelled the M62 to Old Trafford in days gone by and seen all the Yorkshire reds coaches coming out of Huddersfield, Halifax etc..
    Ive met many of these creatures, always the same excuse “oh well I used to have an uncle that supported them etc”. Pathetic.
    Now I know we shouldn’t celebrate our hooligan past but it did make me laugh when I read the Service Crew book- that they used to make an annual visit to a well known Barnsley reds pub and “rearrange” it for them once a year, every year.

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  16. fabulous article as usual rob! as if I needed any more reasons to despise eamon holmes. if they had a deathmatch on live tv between him and piers morgan I think I’d have to cheer piers on.

    two minor points, one, scummette she may be but would you really turn rachel riley down if she came on to you in a nightclub? and two, I always rather liked brian blessed,however now he is forever tainted in my eyes by his love of the pride of surrey.

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    • I’d rather pull Norah Batty. I have a more general, non-scum dislike of simpering bimbos who prance around thinking how bleedin’ gorgeous they are. Sorry, but she’d get the right about from me mate, so she’s all yours.

      Brian Blessed used to be ok, but he became a parody of himself and started to be his own number one fan. Classic scummer material.

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  17. F@ck me !! Boycott and Blessed ??? I can understand Bolt as he probably knew f all about it living where he did (and he seems a nice chap in other ways) but those two !!?? I’d hang my head in shame if I was related and definitely no longer from Yorkshire supporting a team whose un original set of fans chants include Yorkshire scum.

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    • For some reason it’s Parkinson that annoys me most, with all his Barnsley FC bollocks. I was too pissed off with him even to include him as one of the examples. Pathetic fake of a man.

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  18. Robbie Huge

    You’ve left out the biggest embarrassment – Jimmy Saville! He was a regular on Man U TV before news about him broke. I know because I was forced to watch the Scum channel while working in an office with a scum boss

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  19. quality Rob – there is one more ( and I think I am right ) that deserves to be taken to the tower and have his bits cut off before beheading – Michael Vaughan. Despite being Yorkshire and England through and through I am sure he has mentioned in celebrity circles his love of the red rose.

    I was born in Saddleworth ( then of the West Riding) but long since part of Oldham so I had many a difficult moments with accents in the 80s!

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  20. The one that gets me is Boycott . What an absolute arsehole of a human being he must be . In the days when Yorkshire C C only fielded yorkshiremen , to think of a packed headingly in a Roses clash and realise our Geoffrey was a scumbag . Unbelievable .
    I also read somewhere Dickie Bird was with him on occasions . If true he should be in the top ten .

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  21. Interesting article but how about the vilest of em all, jimmy saville obe, who used to have regular programmes on manure tv.

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  22. Jake Holmes

    James Nesbitt, Ian ‘Lovejoy’ McShane, Angus Deayton, Gary Rhodes, bet that Cliff Richards’ a scummer too…

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  23. Dave DB – unfortunately Colin Montgomery WAS a Leeds fan but switched to chelski when they began buying trophies

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  24. You’ve forgotten Olly Murs – he is another plastic southern arse-hole who supports the scum. The worst on the list should be Boycott and Blessed – traitors to their county. And yes Rob, my mate who claims to be a fanatical united fan hails from Birmingham and has never been to Manchester – says it all really – pathetic. By the way, keep up the good work.

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  25. Pingback: The Top Ten Most Embarrassing “Celebrity” Spurs Fans – by Rob Atkinson | La Vita, Leeds United, l'Universo e Tutto

  26. Does Giggs’ brother’s wife belong on here now he is manager? Surely she will be in the manager’s office a lot more post match. Ooooooooooooooo. Who said that?

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  27. Pingback: Top Ten Most Embarrassing “Celebrity” Spurs Fans – by Rob Atkinson | La Vita, Leeds United, l'Universo e Tutto

  28. alf tupper

    Brilliant! genuinely laugh out loud stuff – keep up the good work Rob

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  29. If Angus Deayton was still famous he could have made this list, but sadly he isn’t.

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  30. Neil Roche

    Did you know that Sir Geoffrey played for LU jnrs April-Sept 1957. Wikipedia entry claims he played in same side as Bremner in summer 1958, but Billy only signed as 15-year old in July 1958, so it seems unlikely (and I’ve never found any trace of it). Seems to have joined the “anybody but Leeds” set.

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  31. Dont forget Rod Hull of EMU fame who famously went on his roof to adjust his TV aerial so he could watch them and well ermmmmm FELL off …OH WELL WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

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  32. Can i draw everyones attention to a couple of total scumbags who just so happen to support millwall? Rod liddle and danny baker,both mouthing off after the charlie hebdo false flag where it was glaringly obvious it had “feck all” to do with Muslims (identity cards left on the back seat of the car? Mentioning the Prophets name yet forgetting to say “peace be upon him? Please) i could go on. Anyway,that piece of human detritus and murdoch shill rod liddle copies the senile old bats comments word for word – “all muslims must take responsibility for what happened in Paris”. I hope every supporter of Leeds United knows better and will refuse to align Islam with terror. These false flags are carried out not by Muslims,but by those with strong links to israel,just like those who sexually abuse children with impunity around the uk and europe. rod liddle + millwall = racist Scum.

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  33. How can you have a top 10 isn’t it all of them

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  34. RoystonLUFC

    I think Phil Lynott deserves a mention. Author and singer of some of the most boring, dull, puerile songs to which my poor ears have been subjected. Alcy and junkie – just like his one-season-wonder hero – he is definitely up there amongst them

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  35. BITESYERLEGS 74

    Ooooh these scummers get a bit tetchy dont they. You can almost hear the tears and snot dripping onto their cream teas. F##k em, despicable t##ts. 😂😂😂

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  36. red_headed_animal

    This is you at your very best, Rob! Worth re-blogging it again to remind us of the odious creatures.

    Speaking of odious creatures, does your mate Paul still bother you?

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    • Think he may finally have died of shame. I sort of miss him – he’s not even there for me to automatically spam now. Thanks for the kind words, man – MOT

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  37. Robert Hague

    You forgot Jimmy Saville!

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  38. Pretty sure that Michael Vaughan is a Sheff W fan. Top article, I think you have the order pretty much spot on. I used to have to turn off Radio 5 when Holmes came on and Boycott is an utter disgrace supporting The Red Shite,

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    • It was Atherton I mentioned though, not Vaughan who – despite being born ovver on t’wrong side like – partially redeemed himself by leading the White Rose back to their rightful place as County Champion. Pity he’s a Wendy – but it could have been much worse!!

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