Question Time

It's all been a bit heavy on here this week, hasn't it? Lots of discussion about the future of football, and that sort of thing. Bearing that in mind, I'd thought I'd lighten the tone somewhat tonight. I thought I'd do it in two ways: firstly by putting up the picture on the left of Kevin "Mighty" Mouse, the tubby, bespectacled Tottenford Rovers hero who appeared in "Roy Of The Rovers" in the early 1980s. A role model to us all, I think you'll agree. More on his cohorts tomorrow night.

Secondly, though, it's about time that we had a proper check through my referral logs. These are the logs that show exactly how people have arrived at 200percent. For the one or two of you that aren't already aware of this, referral logs are logs which show what somebody clicked to get here. Serious internet boffins use them to help them stream their advertising, but people like me, who put their advertising at the very bottom of the page by accident and are too lazy to change it, use them as a source for amusing themselves on long winter evenings.

We have established on here before that I have utterly ghettoised myself as a TV Theme Tunes Geek. About 60-70% of my referrals are for people looking for the theme tunes to sports shows from days gone by. I am, of course, delighted to be of service. I have a project in the back of my mind that involves creating the definitive website for football on the television, and will start it as soon as I can be bothered (volunteers welcome!). But that's for another day. For now though, let's have a look at what people have been typing into Google to get here - and let's see if I can't answer their questions and queries once and for all. What you'll see in inverted commas will be the Google search term. What follows that will be my considered opinion on the matter.

"What is the only score that cannot be obtained in football" - Well, how philosophical. In a match situation, you can't score a minus score, though you can do in a league table. If we work to the principle that it takes a minute to score and kick-off again, I'd say that you probably couldn't score more than 90 goals in one match. I'd be happy to fund a one-off friendly between Brazil and American Samoa (currently top and bottom of the current FIFA rankings) to get some sort of definitive answer, though.

"Ways to improve in football" - Well, that's the sound of a hornet's nest opening. I haven't got the room to go into this in too much detail right now, but if they ban all shirt sponsorship, distribute all television money completely equally, bring back safe terracing, close down MK Dons and fire Stamford Bridge into the sun from a space cannon, it'll be a start.

"Song that Man Utd come out to" - Last time I checked, it was still "United Calypso". It's available (almost certainly illegally, but I've not heard from any lawyers) elsewhere on this site.

"Helen Chamberlain's Arse" - Now, I should point out that I am still a Googlewhack for "Helen Chamberlain's arse". I'm not posting a link up to it on here again. This is a family site. It's a highly dysfunctional family, but you take my point.

"Tony Gubba Jonathan Pearce" - I can only wonder what this particular person was looking for. Suffice to say that one is the golden-throated, honey-voiced stalwart of British sports broadcasting, and the other... is Jonathan Pearce.

"The Likely Lads Theme Tune MP3" - The theme tune to "Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads" (which I'm presuming is what this particular person was looking for) was called "Whatever Happened To You". It was written by one of music's more idiosyncratic song-writing teams - the show's creator, Ian La Frenais and former Manfred Mann drummer Mike Hugg. You can download a cover of it by the punk band Snuff here. I've got the original - if anybody turns up here looking for it, I'm sure I'll be able to sort a copy out for you.

"The Number 14 Play" - This is complete guesswork, because I have no idea what was going on in the mind of the person concerned, but are they referring to the Cruyff Turn? See, he was wearing the number 14 shirt when he did it.

"What I Doing In Weymouth?" - I suspect that you can only answer this question for yourself, but I think that the correct answer is almost certainly "very little or nothing". You could avail yourself of the town's nearly-bankrupt Nationwide Conference football club, I guess. Otherwise, I'd suggest going to Monkeyworld, which is about half an hour's drive away. I'm going there in a couple of weeks.

"How Bent Is Ken Bates?" - I've been pondering this question for some time, since it first turned up in the referral logs, and have been trying to come up with an answer that wouldn't potentially land me in court. I can only really point anyone that hasn't read it in the direction of David Conn's brilliant "The Beautiful Game? Searching For The Heart & Soul Of Football". It has a very informative section on Bates' business dealings. Actually, even if you don't care about Ken Bates, you should still all read that book. It'll make you angry, but it's worth it.