If you’ve taken a tour around the rest of this site, you’ll know that we’re all about incisive and provocative comment on football, but with just a hint of humour, wit and sarcasm because, as Jesus said, “Man cannot live on incisive and provocative comment on football alone”. OK, so I’m paraphrasing - He’s not meant to be taken literally, you know. Anyhow, that’s what you’ll find here too. MikeTV is going to try to stay away from “Wasn’t Andy Gray/ Eamon Dunphy/ Mark Lawrenson talking crap last night?” because that’s too easy. Join with us as we paddle our canoe into the backwaters of football on TV. Hopefully we won’t meet any albino kids with banjos or get sodomised by rednecks.

This week, MikeTV has been watching:

I haven’t really been following the details of the case, but what has driven me to comment is the appearance of Messrs Bowyer and Woodgate at the court each day. They look like they’re going to a fashion shoot for GQ rather than a trial for GBH! Have they not learned how to knot a tie? Do they not realise that judges tend to have contempt for any element of fashion or popular culture that has emerged since George Formby was in the charts? I guess this is what can happen when young men leave home at 14, start earning money and are allowed out into clothes shops without their Mammies. It wouldn’t happen in Ireland.

This was a film starring Steve Guttenberg and I happened to catch the last 20 minutes of it. I tuned in at 10 a.m. on account of being off sick from work (touch of a cold - runny nose, headaches, achy all over, but I’m alright now, thanks for asking) and the best I can say for it is that it probably assisted my recovery better than Beecham’s. The plot - so far as I could tell - was that Steve Guttenberg was the coach of a kids team that weren’t much good, they were about to lose their clubhouse and the bould Steve wanted to bury a 30 yard volley in the top corner of the star centre-forward’s mother’s net (I think you know what I’m talking about).

This whole film looked dubious - the pitch was unencumbered by grass and the team’s shirts were sponsored by a firm of undertakers (a major plot point, I’m sure). In the crunch game of the season, the sides are level (perhaps due to all 20 outfield players running after the ball all the time) but our heroes win a last minute penalty. Up steps the scrawny kid wearing the flat cap who drills it down the middle to win the game, helped by the keeper diving over the ball. OK, so the kids are happy because they’re not losers anymore and Steve’s success as a coach might allow him to bring his volleying technique into action, but what about the clubhouse, I hear you ask? This is the best bit - a crusty old guy, maybe the undertaker - has bet his life savings on the game with a bookie in Las Vegas and will collect $250,000, enough for a new clubhouse and milky bars for everyone! Pure genius - now where could I find a bookie like that?

After Steve Guttenberg had begun to work his magic, I watched some of this, part of the Premiership Classics series on Sky Sports 3. I mention it here because it was one of the games a few years back that Liverpool won 4-3, with one S. Collymore scoring the winner in injury time. That night, he was guaranteed a lifetime of adulation on Merseyside; now - what a spanner!

There is a grain of truth in what nearly every journalist and commentator has said, i.e., that the FA Cup has been reinvigorated this year by the exploits of Tranmere and Wycombe. While I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, I feel I’ve got to point out a few uncomfortable truths:

1. The penalty that Wycombe feel they should have had was debatable and was by no means a cast-iron certainty

2. If you race down the touchline, as Lawrie Sanchez did, to have a row with the linesman, then you deserve to be sent from the dugout

3. Maybe, as Sanchez claimed, being knocked out by virtue of a dodgy decision would have cost them a million pounds. But if they had been stuffed 5-0 by Leicester, would he have berated his side for costing the club a million pounds? I doubt it - more like “the lads have done brilliant - I’m ever so proud of them”.

4. It is a rule, and every player knows it, that you get booked if you take your shirt off

5. Santa Claus is a myth

6. The bird in The Crying Game was a bloke

Having said all that, I hope they win the cup. It would make for a great movie - how about Steve Guttenberg as Lawrie Sanchez?