Planet Football

New Zealand international Noah Hickey has had a varied old career to date, with spells or trials at Bury, Hull City, Watford and Finland's Tampere, before moving back home to play with Kingz FC of Auckland.

Hickey's off-the-cuff remark

He has also been nominated for the title of New Zealand Bachelor of the Year while also starring in the latest reality TV show, City Celebrity, Country Nobody, in which 12 famous Kiwis go subsistence farming in the middle of nowhere.

But nothing he achieves in his career could ever be as memorable as his contribution to the quiz show A Game of Two Halves last week, as reported by Football 365. When asked to guess the name of a sportsperson from the clue "It's what you keep birds in", Hickey replied: "Handcuffs".

Dyer goes way over the top

Newcastle's Kieron Dyer should probably think about getting a bicycle because he's not having much success with cars. Three years ago he crashed his Mercedes, then he wrote off his Ferrari, while also picking up two driving bans for speeding. Despite already owning two pricey cars (one of which is a £167,000 Aston Martin), Dyer added a £55,000 Hummer H2 to his collection last month, complete with the obligatory "K13 DYR" registration plate.

The Hummer, which looks like something you'd use to invade a country, does a mere 10 miles to the gallon, its cost-effectiveness not helped by the fact that it's almost 7ft wide, 14½ft long and 7ft feet tall - if only Newcastle had a centre half of those dimensions.

You're sensing a problem here, aren't you? Over to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle - "Moment Of The Week: Witnessing Kieron Dyer's monster Hummer car wedged against the roof of the players' indoor car-park at St James' Park last Saturday because it was too big to fit in."

Reid revealed

The Coventry Evening Telegraph, it would seem, remains unconvinced about Peter Reid's managerial abilities, suggesting in this photo (of Stern John being unveiled as the club's latest signing) that he is a touch limited in the tactical department.

Quotes of the week

"People don't see us as monsters any more. It is logical. It is just the same with Cameroon. We are not invincible any more."

- Manchester United's Eric Djemba-Djemba who, coincidentally, is one of the reasons United aren't invincible any more.

"We were slow-starting, slow-finishing and slow in-between."

- Watford manager Ray Lewington on his side's rather unhurried display against Brighton.

"My players are always the best players in the world, even if they aren't."

- Jose Mourinho, the best Chelsea manager in the world, even if he isn't.

"Did you see that? Just look at Rommedahl go!"

- Co-commentator Steve Claridge, as heard during Charlton's game against Southampton. Problem: Claridge was commentating on BBC Radio Five, so "did you see that?" wasn't a tremendous help to the listeners.

Everton fans shirty with Rooney

We could be wrong but we're sensing Evertonians aren't taking young Wayne Rooney's move to Manchester United all that well . . . as this Ebay auction item suggested. "Fantastic opportunity to own a truly one-off item," read the blurb, "Rooney Man Ure No 8 shirt (brand new), torched, and presented in a souvenir Everton FC FA Cup 1995 commemorative mug. The whole shirt is beautifully presented in a molten state complete with shirt authentication tag."

The incinerated shirt-in-a-mug sold for £22, with the seller being complimented by several fellow Blues, including the chap who wrote: "Shame you couldn't have burnt the fat little nobhead as well". Lovely.

Burke gets a call to the podium

These are dark days for Glasgow Rangers. After their miserable start to the season their players, including Chris Burke, must be beginning to sense that it's going to be a trophy-less 12 months.

It was nice, then, to read in the Daily Record that when he was spotted in Asda in Glasgow the lady at customer services, at the request of two Celtic fans, kindly announced over the PA: "Would Chris Burke please go to the silverware department?" Tut.

More quotes of the week

"I've got nothing against women but they can't run as fast as us, so how will she know when to flag for an offside?"

- Tenerife's Daniel Fagiani, unhappy with the appointment of Marisa Villa as an assistant referee. But if male assistant referees can run as fast as the players what's their excuse for not knowing an offside from a can of spaghetti hoops?

"It's a lot of bull and a big pile of crap . . . they should stick their finger out of their ass and actually do something for the players . . . (flying economy) is just very, very difficult".

- Canada's Tomasz Radzinski, coming over a bit Roy Keane-ish in his objections to the Canadian Soccer Association's failure to fly their players first class.

"Lamps puts in something like 12, 13 kilometres each match. If you multiply that by 114 matches it's a big engine, and a special car."

- Jose Mourinho on Frank "vroom vroom" Lampard.

"Will it be hard to go in and cement him in a 50-50? No comment."

- Celtic's Neil Lennon, welcoming Henrik Larsson back to Glasgow. Larsson, of course, left Lennon and Co encased in concrete.

Middlesbrough's dress code

You might have heard last week about the new dress code for supporters at Middlesbrough. Have a look at the ticket above, one of 30,000 sold for Thursday's UEFA Cup game against Banik Ostrava: "It is a condition of entry that gentlemen wear a jacket, collar and tie. Jeans, tracksuits and trainers are not permitted."

"You what?," asked the 30,000 scruffy callers to the club's complaints department, which promptly reassured them that it was all a terrible mistake, the warning should only have been printed on tickets for the hospitality box.

Souness finds target

It has been claimed the only reason Graeme Souness got the Newcastle job was simply because the club wanted a hard man to sort out some of its unruly players.

Well, judging by this picture of Souness arriving for his first day's training at St James' Park it looks to us like the problems should be sorted.

United prepared for Benitez

It's a rare thing for an official club website to offend anyone, so sanitised and careful are they inclined to be. Eyeballs popped out of sockets last week, then, when the "Fanzone" section of Manchester United's website provided Spanish translations for tunes ahead of tonight's visit of Liverpool's Rafael Benitez and his Spanish players.

"Usted encuentra una rata muerta y usted piensa es un gusto, en sus barrios bajos de Liverpool," was one (i.e. "you find a dead rat and you think it's a treat, in your Liverpool slums"), along with "Construya una fogata, puso el Scousers en la cima". . . "build a bonfire, put the Scousers on the top". The reaction? The chairman of the Merseyside branch of the official Liverpool supporters' club demanded an apology, while United quickly deleted the offending tunes from the site.