THIS anonymous tale of the good old days of football has been circulating among e-mail groups.

We send it on for your enjoyment:

The problem with football today

To be read with a northern (wooly) accent!

"I'm feeling all angry about these modern day footballers, I know why they have gone all soft - It's because of poncy names. That's what it is.

Remember in the old days, when foot players kicked a f**king ball made out of ten pound of clay stitched inside a steel-reinforced leather shell with laces made out of piano wire?

Well, in them days players could only survive the rigours of the game because they were called things like Albert, Arthur, Bert, Harry, Bill, Eddie, Bob, Jack and Tommy.

F**king tough names for tough men, them was.

And what do we have now? Jason, Wayne, Dean, Ryan, Jamie, Robbie.

F**king tarts' names, they are. Great big f**king puffs. No wonder the ball's like a f**king balloon and shin pads is like slices of bread. In the old days you never saw a Len Shackleton or a Billy Wright with a puffy little

Sondico piece of paper down his little thin socks. F**king shinpads in them days was made out of library books, and socks was like sackcloth.

Same with the jerseys. F**king shirts with holes in now so they can breathe.

Yes, so that little Jody's hairless chest can breathe and he doesn't get a chill. F**k off.

Stanley Matthews used to dribble round Europe's finest wearing a f**king tent and shorts cobbled together from the jacket of his de-mob suit. Aye,he f**king did. No wonder players fall over all the time whenever an opponent comes anywhere near them.

And they never used to show their arses at one another either. Can you imagine what might have happened if Don Revie had flashed his ring at Nat Lofthouse during a City-Bolton Wanderers game? He'd have got one

of them size 10 hobnail f**kers up his bastard chuff.

F**king therapy for stress my arse! Stan Collymore slaps his missus about and he takes three seasons off with stress counselling. What the f**k is that all about? In the old days it was expected for footballers to

belt the old sow about a bit, specially after a bad defeat. And the women used to expect it, and so they should have.

They was lucky to be married to footballers. Ha! Trevor Morley got a kitchen knife in his back off his wife and was out of action for three month. Soft t**t. Archie McShitt of Port Vale got run over with horse and cart one Friday night and he still turned out against Bradford the following day. And he scored two goals. That's cos

his name wasn't "Trevor".

Good old Archie. Broke his hip, both his legs, murdered his wife and buried her under the patio and still made the England team for the Home Internationals. Did he have any "stress counselling"? Did he bollocks!

And drugs? There was none of that in the old days. Oh, no. In them days it was a quick shot of morphine before kick-off and you was lucky if you got that. By half-time it had all but wore off so they pumped you full of

laudanum. None of this cocaine sniffing and shooting up class A narcotics.

Goal celebrations? Don't talk to me about goal celebrations.

Crawling on the floor and thrusting their hips at the crowd. Huh! I'd like to have seen Cliff Bastin do that after a run down the left flank and crossing for Alex James to fire home a winner.

Handshakes...and that was all you got. That and a w**** in the showers afterwards. But it was a proper

w***...all man stuff. None of these puffy w**** between blokes that you get nowadays with players like Greame Le Saux and Stephen Gerrard. Allegedly.

In them days, there was nowt wrong with it cos it didn't mean nowt. They used to say there was a "gay atmosphere" in the dressing room after the match.

But it didn't mean owt mucky. Just a bit of harmless spanking the plank among healthy young sportsmen. Aye. I know. Me dad told me.

Sixty grand a f**king week! Ha! I wouldn't pay 'em tuppence. Two bob Tommy Lawton used to get...a month! And Tom Finney still worked as a plumber four days a week when he was playing for England. It's true, you know. F**king is.

Players had to work them days just to make up their money. Not like today.

Stan Pearson had to clean sewers and doubled up as Old Trafford s***house cleaner.

He had to go off during one game because some c**t had built a log cabin and blocked the U-bend. And that Eddie Hapgood was a male model...though he never liked to talk about it.

So I say we start calling kids real male names again. If you're having a kid, don't even consider puffy names and s**** names like what people call their kids these days.

Otherwise what we gonna get in 20 years' time?

The England team full of players called Keanu, Ronan, Ashley and f**king

Chesney. F**k that! Call your kids Alf, Herbert, Len, Frank, Fred

and Wilf.

And let's get the puffs out of the game once and for all!