Regretably one loyal fan passed away this week at the age of only 54. HIs name was Digby Embling and he was a season ticket holder and had supported Swindon Town all of his life.

On hearing of his passing the players all signed a shirt and gave it to his family so that Mr Embling could to leave this world wearing the clubs colours.

Often sporting teams get bad press for their treatment of their fans, but here is an example of a simple gesture touching the hearts of many, and even more who did not even know Mr Embling, but shared a passion for the club he supported.

May he rest in Peace, but hopefully still be able to enjoy promotion and the trip to Wembley from the best seat in the house!

Perth Glory this weekend will be playing in their normal away strip of white against the Brisbane Roar as part of their “White Line Fever” promotion to raise money for Therapy Focus, one of their chosen charities; and Not The Footy Show urges everyone attending to go in white to show their support for this great cause.

The club is to be commended for really trying to get behind such a worthwhile cause, and they even put together a short video promoting the White Line Fever.

It showed a select few players in the tunnel and then when given the signal they step over a white line on the ground, however the white line is actually on the concrete in the tunnel. It would appear that the marketing person behind the filming is definitely not a sports fan. The ‘white line’ referred to in ‘White Line Fever’ is of course the white line that players step over and into the field of play on the pitch, not some rare line in the players tunnel.

No matter really, as long as everyone wears white, supports the cause and roars the team into a home final.

Some are sadly more remembered for missing one penalty than the rest of their career, Roberto Baggio, Gareth Southgate and Chris Waddle to name a few; Although with Waddle his perm would be a close run second.

A new name can be added to the list that of Ghanaian striker Asamoah Gyan. Gyan missed a crucial last minute penalty in Ghana’s quarter final against Uruguay, a penalty that had he converted would have seen the African nation progress to the last four. The first time any African nation would have gone so far in the tournament. Instead his miss gave him a record as the first player two miss two penalties in two consecutive World Cup Finals.

To make matters worse Gyan missed again in the semi final of the Cup of African Nations against eventual winners Zambia. The central African nation ended up winning 1-0 while many people’s favourites Ghana headed home.

Gyan, has now written to the Ghanaian Football Association announcing he wishes to take an “indefinite break” from international football as a result of the abuse he has had to suffer since that miss via social media. It is undoubtedly a great shame that such a prolific striker at international level, 28 goals in 59 games should feel he is left with no other course of action.

Emotions run deep in Africa when it comes to football, and one has to admire the courage Gyan showed by stepping up to take that vital penalty. He obviously never intended to miss it, and no doubt hoped to atone for South Africa two years ago, but he didn’t. Now his vilification has cost Ghana a proven goalscorer and a man his international career. Should we not try to remember as painful as defeat is, it is still just a game?

Interesting we received an email asking us to race the issue of coaching badges and how this has become a money making exercise for the FFA.

The FFA has a goal that all Hyundai A League coaches must have the minimum qualification of an A Licence; a couple do not possess that at the current time.

They then wish to enforce that all state league coaches must have a B Licence. A goal with merit, but they have to make it beneficial to those wishing to coach and not prohibitive. Currently the cost for a coach from Western Australia to fly to Sydney to sit the course does not make it viable, especially as there is no job security in state league coaching. These courses should be subsidized and the FFA should send trainers to the various states rather than make them fly to Sydney.

This however was not the crux of the email we received. There are we have been advised close to 20 coaches in Australia who have the highest coaching qualification, their Pro-Licence. At the conclusion of the last Pro-Licence course the attendees were advised that they would be the coaches that the FFA would be looking to fill the top jobs.

Four coaches with Pro-Licences applied for the head coach position at the AIS. All four were advised that they were not suitable for the position. It was then given to the personable Tony Vidmar, who we believe was not on the original short list. A man with outstanding pedigree as a player, but who does not have the much-talked about licences.

Obviously without being privy to the interviews we cannot comment on the merits of those who applied and Vidmar’s appointment, but once again it has caused – judging by our correspondent who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution – a great deal of ill feeling and undermined faith in the system and the need to be qualified to coach at the highest level.

He revealed last week that 54% of the Local Organising Committee’s 70,000 staff were women, and that five key departments are headed by women.

He at least still has a sense of humour as he added “After all my political landscape, for 20 years was dominated by a woman…”

That was when Muhammed Ali disposed of Briton Richard Dunn in five. At the end of the fourth round Ali leaned down to the television commentators and told them to “Get those commercials in quick, I can’t hold this sucker up any longer.”

It is a shame Chisora did not try and do battle with his wit rather than his fists once the fight was over!

At the weekend it was sad to see that cameras were not just in the A League dressing rooms, but that Ange Postecoglou the coach of Brisbane Roar was actually “miked-up” so viewers could hear all that he was telling his players.

Is this really of interest to the viewer, does it add to the viewing experience or is it simply an attempt to make the fare on show more appealing?

We don’t like it, but what do you think?

Not the Footy Show has heard that one event that we were not too sure was a sport has put forward a request for Olympic inclusion, sheep shearing. We have however since learned that it is a recognized sport in Australia and New Zealand.

A New Zealand farm lobby group have stated “the world’s top shearers are athletes who take it to another level.”

If it did get accepted we hope that no one will try and pull the wool over any judge’s eyes!

Miron Bleiberg has departed, and in truth maybe it was for the best, as Miron never seemed as enthusiastic to coach his young charges when he was told that he must make do with the youth players coming through. Sure they made mistakes, but one felt he never had faith in a lot of them, and as Clive Palmer rightly says many are extremely talented.

Palmer is also correct when he says “I’m not happy about the fact that the top five executives in the FFA are paid in excess of $5 million, but at the same time we’re going cap in hand to the federal government asking for $8 million and it was granted to them to support the league.”

Neither should any football fan in Australia. The time has come for fans to find a voice.

Palmer says that he is not pulling out of the League but the FFA may well try and force his hand.

If he and Gold Coast United do go that will mean that the A League will have lost two clubs within the first seven seasons of the A League. Something that is nothing short of catastrophic. If we include the acceptance and subsequent withdrawal of the West Sydney bid, it is an even greater blow to the game moving forward.

It is time that the fans found voice and demanded that people are held accountable for these decisions. Such backward steps must also make the Federal Government, who has supported the game beyond the call of duty, question their loyalty, as they too become implicated.

It is time we looked at who was at the helm when North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United were accepted into the League. Who felt that the time was right for expansion? Who was in charge and accepted the bid from West Sydney?

Ben Buckley the CEO of the FFA was the man to oversee all of these events and to simply admit he made a mistake, which he did last year, is not enough. This is the same man who tried to justify the FFA giving its support to Sepp Blatter for another term as President of FIFA, despite the farce that was the voting for the World Cup hosting rights in 2018 and 2022.

There comes a time when the fans have to say enough is enough. Does this man have what it takes to take the game forward, if we trawl back through his performance over the last five years questions have to be raised?

The FFA is quick to promote weekends where the Football communities pull together for a cause. Maybe the fans around the company should all do a Poznan at the start of every home game in the next week, to send a message to the powers that be that they are far from happy in the job being done by those at the top? Only the power of the people can change the direction the game is headed.

Mr Richardson was quoted in the West Australian as saying “You can’t just parachute in. You have to be able to land the plane as well.You can’t just come in with no knowledge of rugby league and no knowledge of running a rugby league club. There has to be credibility and knowledge. You have got to have a passion for the game of rugby. You are likely to lose money at the start and nobody loses money forever.”

There are many who would like to see the FFA read this quote before issuing Franchise licences in the Hyundai A League. The lack of knowledge in their code has caused the league an immense amount of damage. Hopefully they will learn.