Anyway, in the meantime Michael Jackson passed away. He was actually, for a brief period of time, a director of Exeter City FC. Along with Darth Vader. I really wish I was making this up, but I’m not. I’ve told the whole bizarre and somewhat depressing tale over at Soccerlens.

Plus, over at twofootedtackle.com, we also did a slimmed down summer podcast. Listen and laugh at our woeful Confederations Cup predictions and marvel that nothing has happened on the transfer front in a week. That’s so not news it’s almost news.

We will be doing occasional podcasts over the summer but we’re taking a bit of a break for the time being to let us charge our batteries.

Then I’ve also put my two pence forward at Soccerlens on what changes should be made to the FA Cup, Champions League and UEFA Cup.

It’s already got accused of hateration from an Arsenal fan…

It’s not something I EVER thought I’d witness as a City fan and I’m still pinching myself as I look at the teams we’ll be playing next season. Norwich, Charlton, Southampton and possibly Leeds, plus a couple of great local derbies against Yeovil and Bristol Rovers.

Needless to say, Saturday afternoon at the rather bizarre Don Valley Stadium (hopefully Rotherham can vacate the athletics stadium asap as it does them no favours either) ranks among one of the best of my football-supporting life.

I won’t bore you any longer on here, but predictably I’ve got a piece up on Soccerlens about Exeter, so go read.

I also imagine it’ll be discussed in the twofootedtackle.com podcast tonight as well. Being the host has it’s advantages…

Ok, now I’ll get back to media, t’interweb, journalism and PR, aye?

Over at Soccerlens, the column looks back at the events of that day and tries to put it in some form of context.

Unsurprisingly, Luton’s Johnstone Paint Trophy Final victory featured, alomg with a general chat about Luton’s ongoing woes. Continuing the woe theme, Southampton, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Barry Ferguson and, erm, Ade Akinbiyi all featured in the discussion.

And Southampton are also the topic of this week’s Soccerlens. Sad times on the South Coast.

So, in addition to this week’s Soccerlens column, which is mainly on Burton Albion’s title wobbles and includes references to Wilde and an impotence joke, there’s exciting news on the assorted football stuff I do.

As from next Tuesday (hopefully), my good friend Chris Nee and I will be producing the Two Footed Tackle podcast. Which is essentially chat about football, but hopefully an entertaining chat about football.

It’s not like this was planned. We’d both chatted about various podcasts we liked, he happened to mention he may have access to a radio studio, I mentioned my broadcasting background, and at that point we thought “why the hell not”.

It’ll be fun to get behind a broadcast desk again and even more fun to chat football for 40-odd minutes.

It’s very much a communal effort and we’ll be reviewing the big stories on the blogs as well as the papers, plus we’re hoping to get some guests, bloggers and general football fans, in the studio to counterbalance our witterings. Should be fun.

At some point in time, I should also be contributing (hopefully) to the excellent Soccerlens podcast, which is a couple of episodes old and a very good listen indeed. It’s also different to the one I’ll be doing with Chris, so you don’t get football fatigue.

It also means that all three of you who missed my dulcet tones after left the newsreading business will be able to get, um, aural pleasure from it again.

Or something.

Can somebody please make the weeks or days longer please?

Over at Soccerlens I crunch through the numbers and try my best to analyse why there’s been such a drop in membership (if my figures are correct, about 20 thousand won’t renew) and also what this means for the club.

It probably won’t be pretty.

When I first heard about MyFC, I was naturally cynical. I’ve spent enough time watching, reading and reporting on football and have seen enough ambitious and often hare-brained schemes collapse.

MyFC always seemed a bit different.

There was always a chance it would work, that the club would achieved success and, buoyed by that, it attracted legions of more fans and would be able to compete in the league.

There was also a (to me) higher chance that the voting elements, especially fans voting on picking the team, would cause more problems than it was worth. And the idea of a business model based on an unpredictable number of yearly subscribers looked shaky.

That said, even I’m surprised at how quickly things look like they’ve started to go wrong. I always maintained the idea would have short-term success but the acid test would come about two or three seasons down the line. Looks like my estimate was a little out.

Ebbsfleet were owned by fans but not owned by their fans. That, I think, was always going to be a key issue.

Anyway, that’s the article. Read. Comment. Bookmark. Pass it on. And if there’s anything you can add to it, please do.

Over at Soccerlens I wax lyrical about the 10 greatest ever drawn FA Cup ties and the subsequent replays.

The words “You’re a bit of a sad geek, aren’t you” may be used in conjunction with this article. You’d probably be right.

I’ve also managed to irritate Manchester United fans. Makes a change from having Manchester City fans chasing after me with pitchforks. I’ve actually got nothing much against either club. They both do things well and not so well. And things are never dull with either of them…

I have got other stuff I’d like to write on here, but I’ve not had the time as I’m insanely busy. And I don’t commission myself to write a weekly piece. If I did, I’d have sacked myself by now.

I’d also like to point out this was written before I went to Dagenham to watch Exeter play last night, which was one of those games that reminds you just why you love football.

Nonetheless, the sentiment of the article stands. I’m probably going to be chased from city to city with burning pitchforks, mind, as I’ve criticised most Premier League clubs. It’s not that I have anything against the clubs per se, it’s just part of a wider malaise.