You might have noticed some players doing a silly celebration of late, making a sort of Village-People-ey "M" over their heads, but with their index fingers crossing. It's not just one player, there have been several, but due to the idiotic cows that some footballers tend to be, no one has really taken notice.

After all it's standard practise for some footballer to make up some weird celebration and then for the others to start copying it, they aren't the most inventive bunch in the world.

Well, I came across this article today from the Evening Standard, and it turns out that this new-fangled attempt to be cool by footballers is actually something a bit better than that.

What they are in fact attempting to do, is form an "A" over their heads, in support of a program called the "A Star Scheme" which aims to get young people off the street and help them to "be inspired by role models who do not glamourise crime, guns or drugs". Let's hope Rio Ferdinand doesn't lend his support then.

The A-Star website has full details about the projet, whose motto is "if you dream it, you can achieve it". It's co-founded by Wigan centre-half (One Size) Fitz Hall, who says that "This is a great chance for professional footballers to truly give something back". Other footballers involved in the project are Andy Johnson, Marcus Bent, Micah Richards and Emile Heskey

OK then. I leave with you Andrew Johnson looking silly.

Well, here's a surprise. Peter "Prudent Financial Genius" Ridsdale is at the head of a club that is facing administration and battles with creditors. Sound familiar? Of course it does... because our friend Peter is responsible for the fall (and to be fair, the meteoric rise before that) of Leeds United Football Club. I'll never really be too harsh on him, because I hated Leeds, but really... who hires an administrative head who spends £250,000 a year on tropical fish, £11m on Robbie Fowler, and gives Seth Johnson a first and final contract offer of £50,000 a week.

Well, Cardiff City did.

I'm not sure what exactly they had in mind when appointing Ridsdale as Chairman, but it certainly wasn't common sense. Ridsdale was initially appointed in 2006 as Vice-Chairman to help with Cardiff's project for a new stadium (this is the man who borrowed £60m against future gate receipts at Leeds, and lost the stadium in the process), but was made Chairman when Sam Hammam stepped down. Quite what struggling Cardiff expected, i'm not sure, but they also seemed to have ignored the fact that in between these two forays, he was responsible for buying Barnsley and almost sending them into liquidation.

Ridsdale has now warned Cardiff fans that the club could go into administration if they lose their legal battle against Swiss firm Langston, who are their biggest creditors. Cardiff owe them £30m, and the Bluebirds are insisting that they don't have to pay the money back until 2016, whereas Langston want it NOWWWW.

Said P.Riddy - "If we were to lose we would go straight into administration - it's a straightforward situation, the club's Championship status would be determined by the amount of points we collect come the end of the season, minus 10." Recently relegated Leeds and Luton have both suffered the 10 point administration penalty, and it's no joke for a struggling side.

Amusingly enough, the Stadium project which he was brought in for over a year ago is still unfinished. The Cardiff City council had granted them unconditional funding for the project, which involved a new stadium and accompanying athletics facility to replace the ruinous Leckwith Athletics site in the city. However, this is severely in doubt now, and if the club went into administration, the council would most certainly rethink its decision for unconditional funding.

Said P.Riddy again - "In terms of the stadium it would depend who buys the football club, whether they prove to be an acceptable partner for the council and whether they have enough money to finish the stadium, which would probably be about £20m."

Excellent stuff Peter! Cardiff now have to find approximately £50m pounds to complete the stadium AND satisfy their creditors (assuming the case is lost).

... but of a different kind. Poor Sheffield Wednesday have had their stadium completely flooded because of the recent deluge of rain in England.

Wednesday, in the Premiership not-so-long-ago, and then fighting for promotion in League One not too long after, had finally stabilised themselves in the Championship. However, this will be a big blow to their fortunes... quite literally.

The flooding will cost the the Owls a massive £120,000 pounds in repair money! Fine, it's only a week's wages for Thierry Henry, but it's a big deal for struggling Wednesday. Let's hope that it doesn't affect them too badly, because they are one of the oldest institutions in English football.

Pictures courtesy of Soccer Investor Weekly:

For several years, Jim Smith, the then Derby manager (also known as the bald eagle), somehow or the other managed to keep Derby up every year. Random unknown foreigners and Britishers would arrive in, some of them would be absolutely terrible, others would be washed up underperformers or overperformers, and there would be some gems that were picked up from nowhere. Thankfully they were underpinned by the excellent goalkeeping of Estonian Mart Poom, who once was once of the best 'keepers in the league, but the rest of the squad was a hotchpotch of journeymen - Stefan Schnoor, Simo Valakari, Danny Higginbotham, Georgi Kinkladze, Fabrizio Ravanello, Malcolm Christie, Branko Strupar, Youl Mawene, Paolo Wanchope, Dean Sturridge, Deon Burton, my god... the list was endless. 

And year after year, although Jim Smith and his random signings, somehow hatched together enough points to stay up, there was never any feeling of progress. They were never building towards anything; it was all short term. The players coming in, although they did the job, were of an ever-decreasing quality, and the youth-system never produced any players of note in those years. And so it was no surprise when in 2002, Derby went down. They were a mess went they went down as well, with a large squad and wage bill to match, and almost went bankrupt and got relegated again. But they were saved - they were bought for £3, and George Burley was drafted in, and he duly steered them clear of relegation!

The new owners rebuilt the club around the philosophy of youth and development. Tom Huddlestone (now at Tottenham) and Lee Grant were building blocks of the new team, and now other exciting talents like Giles Barnes and Lewin Nyatanga will ensure they have a great future (or else a good cash-flow). They've got a great mixture of old heads and promising youngsters, and Billy Davies has done fantastically to steer them up to the Premiership again, after a long, torturous season. At won stage they looked like they would win the league outright, then they flagged badly, but they were excellent throughout the playoffs, and deserve their promotion.

Welcome back Derby! Paul Boertien will be delighted - the young defender has been there since back in the old days, and never left. Seth Johnson is back there too, although he did jump ship for Leeds in-between, but the £10m  they got for him was probaby more essential to their survival than he was.

I decided to go down to Poole/Bournemouth for the weekend and take in AFC Bournemouth's last home game of the season, against Gillingham. A good run over the last 2-3 month has seen them move out of the relegation zone and before Saturday's game, they were 5 points clear of safety ahead of Bradford (oh how the mighty have fallen - I remember Paul Jewell managing them to 1-0 win against Liverpool on the last day of the season at Anfield to beat the drop not-so-long-ago). Although safety was not assured, it was more or less predicted.

Well, as it happens so often (or so rarely) in football, everything just clicked on the day, and perfectly. Bournemouth went a goal down, but soon Chesterfield were beating Bradford 1-0. Chesterfield then scored a second to make things even more secure for the Cherries, and then Bournemouth equalised through a very nicely taken James Hayter goal to put the fans in terrific spirits. And by the time Chesterfield scored their third, the Bournemouth fans were all getting ready to run onto the pitch and celebrate.

An interesting backdrop to all of this was the plight of Leeds. I hate Leeds. Bournemouth fans hate Leeds. We have that in common.

Anyways, back in 89/90, Leeds had come down to Bournemouth for an away game, which they won. Leeds fans, being a bunch of utter ****ing yobs proceeded to trash and destroy the entire Bournemouth Town Centre and surrounding stadium areas, and since the game was on a bank holiday, the local police decided that there would be no more football on bank holidays - which is horrible really, since it's one of the few weekday opportunities for teams to get in big crowds. Anyways, Leeds went on to gain promotion (Bournemouth were relegated) and haven't played the mighty Cherries since. And so Bournemouth fans hate them. I hate Leeds because of Harry Kewell, Lee Bowyer, Rio Ferdinand, Ian Harte, Alan Smith and the other host of generally disgusting c*nts they always never seem to be short of.

But back to their "plight"; Leeds were in the relegation zone just below Hull in the Championship. Hull were playing playoff-chasing Cardiff away, and Leeds had Ipswich at home, so there was every chance that they could get out of the relegation zone. But, as I said before... "everything clicked". Leeds had gone 1-0 up at home to Ipswich, but Hull went 1-0 up away at Cardiff a bit later. Still not too bad for Leeds, but then the Bournemouth fans got a fantastic boost just before full-time when Ipswich scored. Hull held on to win, the Leeds yobs invaded the pitch with 30 seconds left to get the match halted and started fighting with each other, but then had to wait around and watch those remaining 30 seconds be played out. They're mathematically almost gone.

So sing along with the AFCB fans to the tune of Yellow Submarine

"Leeds are going down and we're staying up, we're staying up, we're staying up"