The Football Blog

David James and the word reliant in the same sentence? Surely not...

Back when we used to play football (not that long ago, honest), the worst player in training would be thrown into the biggest, muddiest puddle we could find. No such larking around for the chaps at Portsmouth though, who, as David James here perfectly demonstrates, force the biggest loser of the day to ride home in a Robin Reliant. Brilliantly, according to the Mirror it plays animal noises from a loudspeaker when the engine is turned on.

Needless to say we think it's brilliant. Though we've a funny feeling this instance won't have been the first time Mrs James has seen her hubby park the Reliant on the drive...

Bored Ronny shells out on another runner...

What do footballers do when they're injured? Well, if they can walk, they play golf. If they can't, they buy stuff. And stuff includes cars. Expensive ones. So when he's not been spending his time getting the most ridiculous tan since Dale Winton under a UV light, he's been buying more cars. This new Bentley Continental GT Speed he bought this week for a mere £140k meant that his overall spending on cars since joining Man United soared past the £2m mark.

Male's Escort!

Barely a week goes by without Catflap reporting on the latest gas-guzzling monster to find its way into David Beckham’s ownership. It’s all Aston Martin this and Lamborghini that, all Bentleys and Boxsters. Yet there was a day when Becks was just as poor, desperate and clueless as the rest of us. That day was in 1995 when the young David had been loaned out to Preston North End and had to make do with a runabout that he wouldn’t be seen dead or, indeed, alive in today. "He was driving a Ford Escort, was wearing an ordinary track-suit and was a very shy lad who you wouldn't look twice at in the street," says his former team-mate Simon Davey, now Barnsley manager. Isnt’t it comforting to know he hasn’t changed a bit…

Strike a pose. Not a car!

Observe the Vogue model Range Rover, popular with footballers for it’s additional luxury, including heated leather front and rear seats, a heated steering wheel, DVD navigation, digital TV, and a 14-speaker digital surround system. Probably the main reasons why Chelsea’s Joe Cole splashed out £50k on it in the first place.

He probably wasn’t too fussed about it’s knee airbags, side-intrusion beams and seatbelt pretensioners, but those are the features that saved Joe from a potentially life-threatening shunt the other day, when a lorry smashed into his motor while he was sat in traffic on the way to training. You’ll all be relieved to know he escaped with only a sore arm. You are relieved aren’t you?

Jeep Throat!

Yes, another week passes by and another car finds its way into David Beckham’s presumably gargantuan garage. This time, the former England skipper was seen out and about with his son Romeo in Beverley Hills riding in a new Jeep Wrangler. That’s all well and good but given that it retails for less than a top of the range Ford Mondeo we can only assume that the credit crunch is even hitting Hollywood hard…