We wrote a lot of words, some of them alright

Dirk-Kuyt-001

Unprofessional Foul has been a beautiful thing in my life for a long time. I have a lot of friends as a result of our communal comment-sectioning in David Hirshey’s columns on Deadspin — and then the ‘stache ended up being one of the groomsmen in my wedding some years later. UFers have an almost daily email thread where our defunct website lives on. We even let Georger in.

We hosted World Cup viewing parties and gave away a lot of beer, some of which ended up on my shirt. We got New York Red Bulls midfielders Seth Stammler and Sinisa Ubiparipovic to attend a private screening of “The Damned United.” (Georgie Bingham was there too.)

We wrote probably millions of words about Henrietta Rushwaya, whose footballing exploits make Sepp Blatter look like a choirboy. We got comprehensively banned from EPL Talk. We live-blogged the 2010 World Cup in its entirety. We created #futureMLSfranchise years ago and watched in glee as Major League Soccer continued to give people reasons to revert to it on social media. (Seriously, is there a footballing tradition that Don Garber’s organization won’t try to co-opt?)

We fought with a semi-professional social media coordinator of a fledgling soccer boot company. We mocked John Terry. We held a healthy cynicism for modern football. We accepted that Arsenal would never win the league.

And, above all, we loved (and still love) soccer. I like to think that our blog helped inspire a lot of other people to write, but that’s because I have a lifelong relationship with narcissism. I also like to think we tried to introduce new voices and new ways of looking at a rather old game. But again, I probably believe that because I’m grappling my third bourbon of a particularly taxing day.

Because we inspired the formation of Grantland, probably, I’m stealing a page from editor Rafe Bartholomew’s book and choosing to enjoy this all-too-brief and entirely-for-our-pleasure UF revival/celebration to remark on some of my favourite UF post titles that made it out into the world. I think they speak perfectly to our sensibilities more than any discussion of the 4-5-2, the Fuck-You Brace or SASIC.

- Canadians are cheap bastards

- Being Joe Colekovich: The Joe Cole Selling Brochure

- David Beckham prepares to find out just how little influence he has

- 3 journalists die in mad stampede to destroy Joey Barton all over again

- Chinese soccer: it’s all about the genitals

- The tears of the vanquished still taste delicious

- Dirk Kuyt explains why American health care is in such a miserable state

- Tan, rested and still a wanker

- Yes, we do have emotional, hate-filled, knee-jerk reactions

- FIFA can’t even properly pave road to hell

- Octopus jumps shark and takes crazy Iranian with him

- Wanna see Gattuso’s junk?