This was posted on RedCafe, worth a quick read and a giggle 
From F365:
10 - Mick Harford
There are different sorts of mental and being a celebrated hard case most definitely comes under that particular umbrella. And so to represent that sub-set of mental players (with special mentions to the likes of Stig Tofting and Billy Whitehurst), we have Harford. All that probably needs saying is that - on his first day at Wimbledon and having heard about the various initiation japes of the old 'Crazy Gang' - he took Vinnie Jones to one side and warned him that if anyone touched his kit, clothes or car, he would 'come looking for you'. Nothing was ever touched.
9 - Hugo Gatti
They tend to do fairly literal nicknames in South America, and for this chap 'El Loco' seems fairly appropriate. Not so much a crazy man with endless tales of off-the-field wackiness, Gatti was an often brilliant but always eccentric keeper for various Argentinean clubs (River Plate, Gimnasia, Boca) from the late 60s to the late 80s. At a time when keepers were usually studies of Yashin-esque efficiency, Gatti brought a touch of flamboyance to the traditionally rather more staid business of shot-stopping. He could often be found anywhere but his own penalty area, operating as a sweeper and dribbling the ball out like Rene Higuita would do on a rather larger scale some years later. The difference was that Gatti got it right most of the time, most memorably in a title-clinching match against Estudiantes when he dribbled past two opponents and delivered a goal-creating pass. "Gatti wasn't actually a goalkeeper but a footballer who used his hands," said manager Toto Lorenzo. 'El Loco' is now apparently carving himself a niche as a professional gob****e in the Spanish media.
8 - Andoni Goikoetxea
You know that footage of Diego Maradona seemingly chasing the entire Athletic Bilbao team around, trying to kick them up the bum then running away? That was the first time El Diego had faced Bilbao after Goikoetxea, known lovingly as 'The Butcher of Bilbao', had ripped through his ankle ligaments with the sort of reducer that would make Ryan Shawcross look like a pussy. And was Goikoetxea sorry? Well, we can't be sure, but he did keep the boot used to cripple Maradona in a glass display case.
7 - Garrincha
In Brazil, Garrincha is almost held in higher regard than Pele. Perhaps this is because those that saw him believe he was a better player. Perhaps it was because he performed so brilliantly with bowed legs. Or perhaps it was because Garrincha was a 24-carat loon. Sadly, this loonery was often not the sort you can really laugh at. Ruy Castro, Garrincha's biographer and author of the excellent 'Garrincha: The Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing Hero', described him as "the most amateur footballer professional football ever produced". The root of his problems was alcohol, which seemed to be the one constant in his life, and the only thing that ran booze close was women. He had more affairs than Frank Lampard has had hot dinners, and sired anywhere between 14 and 36 children by assorted women - nobody is really sure. He died a shell of a man in 1983, but the tales of both his off-field exploits and on-field brilliance will survive long after he did. Oh, and yes - he apparently did lose his virginity to a goat.
6 - Edmundo
Sometimes you need a long list of evidence to make a point. However, in this case, all that needs saying is this: In 1999, Edmundo got a monkey drunk. The monkey's name was Pedrinho. Thank you.
5 - Carlos Roa
These days, contract negotiations tend to be tripped up by all sorts of petty squabbles - signing-on fees, 'ambition', agent being a prong - but they don't often fail because one of the parties thinks the world is going to end. Still, that's exactly why Carlos Roa didn't extend his contract at Mallorca. Roa was a devout Seventh-day Adventist, and was convinced that the Millennium would see humanity come to an end, so instead of continuing to play in La Liga, he retreated to rural Argentina to preach and prepare for the arrival of Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. As you will no doubt have spotted, the world did not in fact come to an end and Roa was thus forced to return to Mallorca to see out the remaining two years of his deal. Not even the impending apocalypse trumps contractual obligations.
4 - Robin Friday
Most never saw him play, but Robin Friday is always a name mentioned by pub bores who think they Know A Little Bit More About Football Than You. Still, that doesn't make the stories about him any less entertaining. These include getting arrested on his first day as a Cardiff player for travelling to Wales without a train ticket, kissing a police officer after scoring for Reading, introducing himself to Bobby Moore (then playing for Fulham) by grabbing his balls, playing while under the influence of LSD, showed up for a game with a shiner and when asked why said "I called my wife a **** and she threw a tin of beans at me," and, of course, after an altercation with Mark Lawrenson resulted in Friday being sent off, he did what many of us wish we could do - he **** in Lawro's kit bag. Actually, Lawro denies this ever happened, but if you pretend that's not true, then we will as well. 'If George Best was football's first pop star, Robin was the game's first rock star,' wrote Paolo Hewitt, Oasis hanger-on and author of a book about Friday. The problem was that Friday seemed to believe that too, dying a typically premature and stupid rock star death of a suspected heroin overdose aged 48.
3 - Faustino Asprilla
Google old 'Tino and one of the first pictures that comes up is of yer man wearing a white vest, apparently trying to stare down a horse. It's a decent start to any argument about his loonery, and you've got plenty more ammo for that discussion as well - literally, in some cases. Asprilla was placed under house arrest in 2008 for apparently shooting at some security forces with a machine gun near his farm in Colombia, and a few years earlier he decided to spice up a training session with Universidad de Chile by firing his gun in the air, hoping to get a little bit more effort from his colleagues. He also appeared naked on the cover of a gay magazine, walked out on the Colombia squad during the 1994 World Cup, got a bit squiffy on the day of his Newcastle debut because he didn't think he was going to play, once tried to cheer up the Newcastle team by putting a film on the team coach TV (which turned out to be Tino and his pornstar girlfriend enjoying some intimate times) and of course buying a football team in Colombia and doing what any sensible man with a messianic complex would do - naming it after himself. And that's even ignoring the hoopla at Darlington, when he agreed to sign for the Quakers and was paraded in front of their fans before nipping back to the hotel to 'get his passport'. He was next seen in Qatar.
2 - Lars Elkstrup
Some players are described as a bit odd if they do a back flip or wear a funny hat, but you don't qualify as really odd until you've joined a cult and changed your name to 'The river that streams into the sea'. For that's what Elkstrup, a Danish striker who was part of the 1992 European Championship winning squad, did in 1993 after losing all enthusiasm for football. Despite scoring for Odense in the Danish Cup final, Elskstrup decided that anarcho-Buddhism was a much better wheeze than this football lark, joined a sect called 'Wild Goose' and declared he wished to be known as 'Darando'. Obviously. This sect clearly wasn't enough for him however, as shortly afterwards he left to form his own splinter group, named 'Heart of the Sun', which is where things really started to go south as he was arrested for indecent exposure in a shopping centre. "In some respects, I do this to provoke people," he said, trying to explain the incident. "I like experiencing people's reactions. Some people may take my message to be 'sod off' and others an offer of sex. I am very aware of people's reactions and love the fact that people recognise me as Lars Elstrup." We'd think that people would recognise him even with his **** kept tucked away in his pants...but each to their own.
1 - David Icke
As those of you who have been with us for a while will know, David Icke used to write a column for Football365. And actually, when he was talking about football (and goalkeeping in particular) it was usually pretty decent. Then September 11 happened, and the old boy submitted a piece detailing exactly who he thought was responsible for the attacks. For rather understandable reasons relating to sanity and legality, this didn't exactly go down well with the F365 head honchos of the time.
For those of you who only know Icke as the son of God and a lizard enthusiast, he was a goalkeeper for Coventry for four years before injury curtailed his football career. He then became a journalist, working his way up to sports chap for the BBC Breakfast Time (alongside fellow tabloid favourite Frank Bough), and presented Grandstand every now and then. It was around 1991 that the wheels started coming off, after he gave a press conference in which he claimed to be a "channel for the Christ spirit" and predicted a very imminent apocalypse. This led to that appearance on 'Wogan' wearing that shell suit, and a notorious loon was born.
If you want outlines of Icke's views on who runs the world and whatnot, then you can look in the '****ing Space Cadet' section of Waterstones and make up your own minds. All that needs saying to justify Icke's place as the top dog, the daddy, the major domo of this list is that he believes a network of secret societies he calls the 'Babylonian Brotherhood' controls all that happens in the world, and that they are all reptilians from the constellation Draco who live in caves beneath the earth. Obviously.
I think I got all the swearies!
From F365:
10 - Mick Harford
There are different sorts of mental and being a celebrated hard case most definitely comes under that particular umbrella. And so to represent that sub-set of mental players (with special mentions to the likes of Stig Tofting and Billy Whitehurst), we have Harford. All that probably needs saying is that - on his first day at Wimbledon and having heard about the various initiation japes of the old 'Crazy Gang' - he took Vinnie Jones to one side and warned him that if anyone touched his kit, clothes or car, he would 'come looking for you'. Nothing was ever touched.
9 - Hugo Gatti
They tend to do fairly literal nicknames in South America, and for this chap 'El Loco' seems fairly appropriate. Not so much a crazy man with endless tales of off-the-field wackiness, Gatti was an often brilliant but always eccentric keeper for various Argentinean clubs (River Plate, Gimnasia, Boca) from the late 60s to the late 80s. At a time when keepers were usually studies of Yashin-esque efficiency, Gatti brought a touch of flamboyance to the traditionally rather more staid business of shot-stopping. He could often be found anywhere but his own penalty area, operating as a sweeper and dribbling the ball out like Rene Higuita would do on a rather larger scale some years later. The difference was that Gatti got it right most of the time, most memorably in a title-clinching match against Estudiantes when he dribbled past two opponents and delivered a goal-creating pass. "Gatti wasn't actually a goalkeeper but a footballer who used his hands," said manager Toto Lorenzo. 'El Loco' is now apparently carving himself a niche as a professional gob****e in the Spanish media.
8 - Andoni Goikoetxea
You know that footage of Diego Maradona seemingly chasing the entire Athletic Bilbao team around, trying to kick them up the bum then running away? That was the first time El Diego had faced Bilbao after Goikoetxea, known lovingly as 'The Butcher of Bilbao', had ripped through his ankle ligaments with the sort of reducer that would make Ryan Shawcross look like a pussy. And was Goikoetxea sorry? Well, we can't be sure, but he did keep the boot used to cripple Maradona in a glass display case.
7 - Garrincha
In Brazil, Garrincha is almost held in higher regard than Pele. Perhaps this is because those that saw him believe he was a better player. Perhaps it was because he performed so brilliantly with bowed legs. Or perhaps it was because Garrincha was a 24-carat loon. Sadly, this loonery was often not the sort you can really laugh at. Ruy Castro, Garrincha's biographer and author of the excellent 'Garrincha: The Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing Hero', described him as "the most amateur footballer professional football ever produced". The root of his problems was alcohol, which seemed to be the one constant in his life, and the only thing that ran booze close was women. He had more affairs than Frank Lampard has had hot dinners, and sired anywhere between 14 and 36 children by assorted women - nobody is really sure. He died a shell of a man in 1983, but the tales of both his off-field exploits and on-field brilliance will survive long after he did. Oh, and yes - he apparently did lose his virginity to a goat.
6 - Edmundo
Sometimes you need a long list of evidence to make a point. However, in this case, all that needs saying is this: In 1999, Edmundo got a monkey drunk. The monkey's name was Pedrinho. Thank you.
5 - Carlos Roa
These days, contract negotiations tend to be tripped up by all sorts of petty squabbles - signing-on fees, 'ambition', agent being a prong - but they don't often fail because one of the parties thinks the world is going to end. Still, that's exactly why Carlos Roa didn't extend his contract at Mallorca. Roa was a devout Seventh-day Adventist, and was convinced that the Millennium would see humanity come to an end, so instead of continuing to play in La Liga, he retreated to rural Argentina to preach and prepare for the arrival of Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. As you will no doubt have spotted, the world did not in fact come to an end and Roa was thus forced to return to Mallorca to see out the remaining two years of his deal. Not even the impending apocalypse trumps contractual obligations.
4 - Robin Friday
Most never saw him play, but Robin Friday is always a name mentioned by pub bores who think they Know A Little Bit More About Football Than You. Still, that doesn't make the stories about him any less entertaining. These include getting arrested on his first day as a Cardiff player for travelling to Wales without a train ticket, kissing a police officer after scoring for Reading, introducing himself to Bobby Moore (then playing for Fulham) by grabbing his balls, playing while under the influence of LSD, showed up for a game with a shiner and when asked why said "I called my wife a **** and she threw a tin of beans at me," and, of course, after an altercation with Mark Lawrenson resulted in Friday being sent off, he did what many of us wish we could do - he **** in Lawro's kit bag. Actually, Lawro denies this ever happened, but if you pretend that's not true, then we will as well. 'If George Best was football's first pop star, Robin was the game's first rock star,' wrote Paolo Hewitt, Oasis hanger-on and author of a book about Friday. The problem was that Friday seemed to believe that too, dying a typically premature and stupid rock star death of a suspected heroin overdose aged 48.
3 - Faustino Asprilla
Google old 'Tino and one of the first pictures that comes up is of yer man wearing a white vest, apparently trying to stare down a horse. It's a decent start to any argument about his loonery, and you've got plenty more ammo for that discussion as well - literally, in some cases. Asprilla was placed under house arrest in 2008 for apparently shooting at some security forces with a machine gun near his farm in Colombia, and a few years earlier he decided to spice up a training session with Universidad de Chile by firing his gun in the air, hoping to get a little bit more effort from his colleagues. He also appeared naked on the cover of a gay magazine, walked out on the Colombia squad during the 1994 World Cup, got a bit squiffy on the day of his Newcastle debut because he didn't think he was going to play, once tried to cheer up the Newcastle team by putting a film on the team coach TV (which turned out to be Tino and his pornstar girlfriend enjoying some intimate times) and of course buying a football team in Colombia and doing what any sensible man with a messianic complex would do - naming it after himself. And that's even ignoring the hoopla at Darlington, when he agreed to sign for the Quakers and was paraded in front of their fans before nipping back to the hotel to 'get his passport'. He was next seen in Qatar.
2 - Lars Elkstrup
Some players are described as a bit odd if they do a back flip or wear a funny hat, but you don't qualify as really odd until you've joined a cult and changed your name to 'The river that streams into the sea'. For that's what Elkstrup, a Danish striker who was part of the 1992 European Championship winning squad, did in 1993 after losing all enthusiasm for football. Despite scoring for Odense in the Danish Cup final, Elskstrup decided that anarcho-Buddhism was a much better wheeze than this football lark, joined a sect called 'Wild Goose' and declared he wished to be known as 'Darando'. Obviously. This sect clearly wasn't enough for him however, as shortly afterwards he left to form his own splinter group, named 'Heart of the Sun', which is where things really started to go south as he was arrested for indecent exposure in a shopping centre. "In some respects, I do this to provoke people," he said, trying to explain the incident. "I like experiencing people's reactions. Some people may take my message to be 'sod off' and others an offer of sex. I am very aware of people's reactions and love the fact that people recognise me as Lars Elstrup." We'd think that people would recognise him even with his **** kept tucked away in his pants...but each to their own.
1 - David Icke
As those of you who have been with us for a while will know, David Icke used to write a column for Football365. And actually, when he was talking about football (and goalkeeping in particular) it was usually pretty decent. Then September 11 happened, and the old boy submitted a piece detailing exactly who he thought was responsible for the attacks. For rather understandable reasons relating to sanity and legality, this didn't exactly go down well with the F365 head honchos of the time.
For those of you who only know Icke as the son of God and a lizard enthusiast, he was a goalkeeper for Coventry for four years before injury curtailed his football career. He then became a journalist, working his way up to sports chap for the BBC Breakfast Time (alongside fellow tabloid favourite Frank Bough), and presented Grandstand every now and then. It was around 1991 that the wheels started coming off, after he gave a press conference in which he claimed to be a "channel for the Christ spirit" and predicted a very imminent apocalypse. This led to that appearance on 'Wogan' wearing that shell suit, and a notorious loon was born.
If you want outlines of Icke's views on who runs the world and whatnot, then you can look in the '****ing Space Cadet' section of Waterstones and make up your own minds. All that needs saying to justify Icke's place as the top dog, the daddy, the major domo of this list is that he believes a network of secret societies he calls the 'Babylonian Brotherhood' controls all that happens in the world, and that they are all reptilians from the constellation Draco who live in caves beneath the earth. Obviously.
I think I got all the swearies!
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When I was a kid I didn't like Newcastle, but I still have there shirt with his name on the back.