David Artell / David Artell / 29 November 2007 / 1 Comments " class="free-bet-btn" rel="external" onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/G4/inline-freebet');" target="_blank">Free Bet

Morecambe's star defender David Artell on training with Messi and Henry, Gazza's antics and why Birmingham may be a decent outside bet at the weekend

A couple of weeks ago I attended a charity function to raise funds for a group of children to go on tour to Barcelona. It took place at golf club in Pudsey and was organised by the referee's chief David Allison. The Bradford manager Stuart McCall and Premiership referee Mark Halsey also attended it.

We had to answer questions from the floor and I was particularly interested to hear what Mark Halsey had to say as you only usually get to speak to referees on the pitch and it's not normally all that friendly! Halsey and Allison both said that it was inevitable that goal line technology would be implemented within the next two to three years although both stopped short of technology being used for other major decisions such as penalties and sending offs.

As the event was held close to Bradford, McCall had to fend off some interesting questions about the possibility that Bradford could have the best ground in the Conference next year having been in the Premiership only a few years back. For me the most surprising thing that McCall said was that the best player he ever played with was Andy Goram. Having played with the likes of Gazza, Brian Laudrup and Ally McCoist, to pick Goram (pre his serious knee injury) surprised me. McCall also told stories of Gazza turning up to training in waders and a shirt and tie (it was club rules to wear collar and tie to training) and borrowing a car off Gordon Durie and hiding fish in it so it smelled that much that he had to sell the car! It was a great evening; I just wish I were going to Barcelona too.

Speaking of Barcelona, I think that would be the team I would most like to play for for obvious reasons. A couple of years ago it would have been Real Madrid and before that the great AC Milan side of the nineties but at the minute Barcelona have all the players the other big guns across Europe want. To train everyday with the likes of Ronaldinho, Henry, Messi, Xavi, Puyol.... the list is endless, would be any footballer's dream. Maybe playing on the same team is better than training with them as they can't take the mickey out of me when I'm on the same side whereas in training they would destroy me!

We can all dream of great things happening to us but football doesn't always work like that, the flip side being a horrendous time on a match day. A couple of bad days spring to mind. The first being my home league debut when I got sent off and the second being only a couple of weeks ago when I returned to my hometown club Rotherham for the first time and gave away a penalty (which the referee later apologised for giving 'but I had no choice because the linesman was flagging'!) and was at fault for the horrific injury caused to our keeper. We lost 3-1 and it was a truly forgettable day.

With Raphael Benitez this week complaining that the owners of Liverpool are lacking foresight with regards to transfer targets in January it seems one person who has made his mind up about moving is Dimitar Berbatov.

Although you can never completely believe reports in the media the old adage 'there's no smoke without fire' often rings true. In Berbatov's case, reports of him being a prima donna, not giving 100% and throwing tantrums seems to be his way of engineering a move away from White Hart Lane. It appears to be working as Daniel Levy this week said there was no guarantee that Berbatov would be a Tottenham player come February. When a player wants away it causes unrest which might just cause a few of the Tottenham players to take their eye of the game on Sunday against a Birmingham side no doubt looking to impress their new manager Alex McLeish. The odds offered for a Birmingham victory (8.8) must surely be worth a small flutter.

David Artell plays for Morecambe FC:

https://www.morecambefc.com/

Tags: Berbatov, David Artell, football betting, Morecambe FC