Welcome to this week's Off the Ball, which has more goals than you'll see all season.

The goalden age of football?
Last week's e-mail from OTB reader Sean Tyler suggesting a return to the days of scorelines like 8-4, 9-4 and 7-6 made me do some digging in that perennial favourite, Rothmans Football Yearbook. (It's funny, despite being strongly anti-smoking, I just can't get bring myself to call it Sky Sports Football Yearbook; just like Division Three is not League Two, Ashburton Grove will never be referred to by Arsenal fans as the Emirates Stadium, and Crappy Bunch of Useless Mercenary Unprincipled Wanderers will never be accepted as Milton Keynes Dons).

Presumably Sean was thinking of the days (in 1890-91, as it happens) when Derby County enjoyed scorelines of:

· 5-4 v Aston Villa
· 8-5 v Blackburn
· 2-6 v Everton
· and 9-0 v Wolves (some things never change then).

And that was just at home. Away from the Baseball Ground, Derby's home back then, they went down:

· 8-0 to Blackburn (that's one hell of an aggregate!)
· 7-0 to Everton (that's not bad either)
· 6-0 to Preston
· 6-1 to Burnley
· 5-1 to both Sunderland and Wolves (how could Wolves possibly beat someone 5-1, then lose to them 9-0 three months later? Oh hang on, I think there's a clue in the word 'Wolves'.)

And if that weren't enough, Derby also chucked in a couple of 4-0 defeats and a 4-3 win for good measure. Their away record finished played 11, scored 9, conceded 53!

Goals Were Never Celebrated Like This in the 19th Century!

It's certainly true that we get fewer cricket scores in football these days (and that's another thing, why are they always called cricket scores and not the far more appropriate rugby scores? As far as I'm aware no football team has ever made 401-6 declared, not even Arsenal under Wenger). Anyway, a bit of research unearthed a whole range of scores seen in pre-Premiership days that have never occurred since, such as 10-4, 12-2, 8-5 (three times) and 7-5 (five times).

That said, the past wasn't always a free-flowing footballing feast. In the five seasons up to 1925, on average around one game in every nine finished 0-0, and a quarter of all matches saw no more than a solitary goal (the average in recent years has been around 18%). Presumably goals, like food and clothes, must have been in short supply after World War 1 and subject to rationing (ok, well if you've got any better explanations&).

That said, the all-time British record for the highest-ever score in a match does date back to ye olden days, September 12th, 1885 to be precise. On that day, Arbroath scraped past Bon Accord 36-0 in a Scottish Cup first-round game. What's not so often remembered, though, are the circumstances surrounding this mismatch. Bon Accord was actually not a football club at all but a cricket club, and had received their invitation from the SFA by accident. However, being up for a laugh (let's face it, if you're a Scottish cricket team you're going to need a pretty strong sense of humour anyway) they decided to give it a bash, and in so doing earned their place in footballing history. Ah, so that's why they call them cricket scores!

Idiot Footballer of the Week
It's been a touch choice this week, with so many stars displaying positively Beckhamesque levels of stupidity. Paul Butler of Leeds, for example, who, against Brighton, brilliantly managed to get booked twice inside 30 seconds of stoppage time to earn a (very slightly) early bath.

Or Craig Bellamy, whose petulant outburst at Graeme Souness showed all the maturity, if not the vocabulary, of a badly spoiled five year old. Such a display merely for getting substituted is one thing, but picking a fight with Graeme Souness - now that is stupid.

And there's Adrian 'Yes I took coke. No, wait, only kidding' Mutu, star of Chelski, Rumania, and high-speed car chases with Rumanian cops. Whatever he took to make himself feel good, it appears to have affected his ability to remember things. This does, though, explain his recent form, as he's clearly forgotten what you're supposed to do with the round thing and those big sticks with the net behind them. Or maybe he just got confused by all those white lines on the pitch. Allegedly.

But the winner, however, is&Mr Rio Ferdinand. The self-appointed Martyr and Saint is still smarting following his eight-month ban for failing to attend a mandatory drugs test. He revealed to ManUre Television this week that he considered quitting as an England international as a result of the "unfair treatment" the FA had meted out to him.

The mind boggles! Rio, in case you hadn't noticed, it wasn't the FA's fault you decided a shopping trip was more important than a drugs test, it was yours. Yes, yours Rio.

Not once has Ferdinand (or, for that matter, his club) expressed the slightest remorse for missing the test, let alone said sorry. Indeed, he gives the very strong impression that it has never even occurred to him that he might actually carry some of the responsibility for what happened. Instead, he has set himself up as some sort of victim of a Salem-like witch-hunt.

Frankly, the man's arrogance knows no bounds. Failing to appreciate how lucky he is to receive obscene amounts of money each week for kicking a ball around, and unable to comprehend the wider picture of drugs in sport and the stand the FA had to take, instead of whinging and moaning like Kevin the Teenager that "it's so unfair", Rio should be grateful he didn't get the full two-year ban.

Rio, you committed the offence, so take your punishment and do us all a favour - shut up, and stick to playing.

Bloody kids
While I'm in rant mode, here's another one. I was all geared up to ask why, despite us being in one of the world's great university cities, with hundreds of the brightest minds of our generation living within a couple of miles radius of the Abbey, it was impossible to find a child prodigy somewhere who could actually read out the winning Golden Gamble ticket number without cocking it up. Week after week the task of reading out a five-digit number is delegated to some hapless sprogs who have clearly never seen a number bigger than anything on Sesame Street. Consequently, they do to the great set-piece that is the half-time Golden Gamble draw what United do to every other set-piece, ie make a complete balls-up of it.

And then what happens? In our home match last week the kid who had the honours went and read the number out perfectly. Flaming typical. Still, I should have known better, never work with animals or kids.

Got any favourite scorelines? Nominations for idiot footballers? Ever ripped up your Golden Gamble ticket in despair, only to find out it was the winning ticket after all? If so, drop us a line at cufcofftheball@aol.com

Neil Cole