Stallone to pay Toffees Sly visit?

This week: 'Soccer mad' Stallone & Joe Cole's injury 'hell'

There could be Rocky times ahead at Goodison Park, if Everton's new second-largest shareholder Robert Earl has his way.

Earl, who recently increased his stake in The Toffees, has vowed to give the Premiership side a Hollywood makeover.

Earl made his fortune founding the Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe chains, where he formed a relationship with American film star Sylvester Stallone. "I definitely will be bringing some of the biggest movie stars in the world to Everton," said Earl. "Sylvester Stallone absolutely loves soccer and I spoke to him about the deal last night. He said he wants to come. He has just finished the last Rocky film and will be in England next January/February to promote it so, hopefully, he will be able to come up for a game then."

Bite Hart Lane...

Jermain Defoe's a lover not a biter, insists Tottenham boss Martin Jol. The bizarre exchange during Tottenham's Premiership clash with West Ham in which Defoe appeared to bite The Hammers' Javier Mascherano has courted numerous column inches, but Jol insists it is much ado about nothing. "He was nibbling his arm, there'll be no mark," said Jol flippantly, as if footballers having a quick nibble is now commonplace. "It is part of the game," Jol was at pains to insist. "They kicked him three times from behind in 10 minutes and he wanted to show his frustration in a nice, comical way."

Time to go...

Back of the Net always revels in unique criticism of referees and Sheffield United's touchline siren Neil Warnock obliged this week. Angry at the decision of Dermot Gallagher to award a penalty against his side at Everton, and then to show a red card to Claude Davis, Warnock suggested the Oxfordshire official should be put out to pasture. "He was a poor today. It looked like retirement time," sniped Warnock.

Regulars to this column will be well versed on recent controversies in South America, and more often than not they involve ball boys. The fairly innocent scamps we have come to expect in England take on a more malevolent form in Las Americas - and this time instigated a riot. The Peruvian programme was marred by unsavoury scenes at the Sport Ancash-Universitario match in the Andean city of Huarez - Ancash were leading 3-0 when the referee abandoned play in the 77th minute as stones and plastic bottles were hurled onto the pitch, apparently by Universitario fans furious with their own team. The match had turned nasty minutes earlier when Universitario became angry at the sudden disappearance of all the ball boys - the players having to fetch the ball themselves when it went out of play. At one stage, Universitario coach Jorge Amado Nunes saw one of the boys and angrily kicked a ball straight at him. Officials on the team benches were involved in an angry exchange, Nunes was sent off, and the players were involved in a pushing match. All in a day's work for South American ball boys it seems!

Cole's hell...

It's not all a bed of roses being a Premiership footballer, you know - there are injuries to contend with, and the chore of having to watch your football team from the stands, and then there's the fishing... Joe Cole has been laid low by a knee injury, and is set for his first start of the season in Chelsea's Carling Cup match at Blackburn on Wednesday, but he will never forget his injury torment. "You're not getting home until five, sometimes six at night, you're watching all the games from the stands, and that's really tough," said a clearly chastened Cole. "I had to make sure I was sitting down and not moving to begin with. So I got to go fishing a lot at the lake near my house. When you're injured you don't want to go out shopping or anything like that."

The other missus...

Blackburn Rovers' Benni McCarthy described strike partner Jason Roberts as 'like a second wife' this week, but surely Benni's first spouse would have made a better fist than either player's attempt at converting a penalty in defeat to Bolton on Sunday.

Compiled by Chris Stanton
Stay tuned for the next edition of Back of the Net later this week.