Darren Huckerby bows out of professional football

Darren Huckerby has told BBC Radio Norfolk that he will retire due to a hip injury, which seems as good a reason as any to re-post this classic interview.

Just watch the former ‘Norfolk Team’ player’s puzzled expression as he is called a ‘legend’ three times in his introduction.

Some American soccerballers paid less then what Cristiano Ronaldo spends on hair gel in a year

A document discoevred on the MLS Players’ Union website declares the salaries of every person playing football in the big country in 2008, and some of the figures make for surprising reading. David Beckham’s $6,500,000.04 (don’t forget the 4 cents) has been well publicised, but as you can see from the listing above above, some of his LA Galaxy colleagues earn a modest $12,900, or just under £8,500 in real money. In other words, Mr B is approximately 504 times more valuable than some of his no-name colleagues.

Elsewhere, Darren Huckerby, known in San Jose as “the legend from the Norfolk team” is pulling in a decent $355,000, while former Aston Villa hitman Juan Pablo Angel is rewarded with $1.6m per annum for breaking MLS goalscoring records.

See the salary list in its entirety here.

Former Coventry and Norwich star living it up in California

Darren Huckerby was the inspiration behind Coventry finishing 11th in the 1997/98 Premier League, and since then he has floated around at Leeds, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Norwich, and now San Jose in America. Such has been his immediate impact over in the MLS that he has been named ‘The Sheriff of San Jose’, as his goals and assists have fired the San Jose Earthquakes towards the play-offs.

Despite now earning just $355,000 a year Huckbery claims he has never been happier, and many would argue that he’s having a more successful time than another English winger giving the American dream a bash.

Ahh, the plot thins…

Don’t believe everything you read in your socialist pamphlets, America is not always the enemy. Yes, they created everything that’s bad in the world: war, swearwords, rabbit punches, Madonna. But they also came up with some good things: body-popping, high fives, meat, sexy “soccer” fans.

That’s not to take anything away from Blighty’s homely woman supporters, with their big knitted scarves and even bigger knitted hats, but when you look at their women (above) compared to our women (below), doesn’t Beckham’s move and Huckerby’s recent defection to the MLS seem somehow easier to compute?

‘English legend’ is responsible for ‘greatest goal ever’, apparently

Darren Huckerby has just signed up for MLS team San Jose Earthquakes, and its safe to say that KRON 4 (a news channel, not a distant alien planet) are quite excited. The 32 year old from the ‘Norfolk team’ may have scored just five Championship goals last season, but that doesn’t stop the interviewer using the term ‘legend’ three times in the first 25 seconds.

Huckerby, clearly embarrassed by this over-stated praise, failed to score in his debut against Toronto last week.