I tell ya, the Dutch are weeping in four languages at least

YES, IT'S ANOTHER FALL REFERENCE. I know. Look, I know! I mean, what about it? What abloodybout it, hmm? Two years ago, I never got to use the headline I'd lovingly prepared for after the Euro 2008 final: "They'll be soliciting perverts in the streets of St. Pauli tonight!". So I'm having my fun this time. It's either this or "They'll be abusing animals horribly in the streets of Pamplona tonight!". Which would be insincere anyway, because I'm not that fussed about that sort of thing. If God hadn't meant for us to stick a spike through a bull, he wouldn't have made it get angry by some fella waving a cape in his face, would he?

The keen-eared Fall fan may notice that the above performance is the one that ended up on the Perverted by Language LP. There you are, now.

And to prove there's a Fall song for every occasion, here's one about England's elimination:

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Kicker conspiracy

Back in that innocent age we called "June", when it looked like every group in the first round of the World Cup (the first round? Remember?) might end up in one of your actual lotteries, we pondered on the last time that happened: to wit, when Ireland and Holland finished joint second in Group F of the 1990 edition. More precisely, we wondered whether we were imagining things when we thought that said lottery had been televised. We were, after all, quite young, and were probably outside playing football at the time.

But the Après Match team were way ahead of us, and they dug out the footage at the beginning of the tournament as they gathered their showbiz pals to make one last plaintive plea for Ireland's rightful place in South Africa.

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