Artful Dodging

Why's Stuart Pearce going to the theatre and which midfielder is handy with a paintbrush?

The Premiership manager planning a trip to the theatre and an art exhibition from a German midfielder, Back of the Net casts it critical eye over the last week in football.

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Disappointed by the over-reaction of supporters to their teams' performances this season, Manchester City boss Stuart Pearce has revealed he intends to let off some steam himself. "The next time I go to the theatre I am going to let some thespians have it. It might make me feel better and then I will claim I pay their wages when I leave." Pearce could prove his point with a few rotten tomatoes but then that may give City's home fans a few ideas...

Artful Dodger...

Hertha Berlin midfielder Andreas Neuendorf, who began a second career as an artist five years ago in order to be able to use his nickname 'Zecke' on his jersey, has presented his artwork at an exhibition. The 32-year-old wanted to have 'Zecke' emblazoned on his jersey five years ago and cited the Brazilian players who are able to use their artistic names on their jerseys. But the German football federation rejected his request. Only after he began painting portraits to prove he was an artist, and changed his passport to read 'Zecke', did the federation allow him to change the name on his jersey.

Thankfully English authorities impose no such demands. Derby's former West Ham defender Tyrone Mears had to submit nothing but a montage of sliced clearances before 'Ty' - to his friends - was allowed to have that nickname printed across the back of his shirt.

Why oh why...

West Ham fans will have few happy memories of Javier Mascherano and the Argentine admits he still doesn't know why he ever joined the club in the first place. "God knows when I would have played football again had I stayed there," Mascherano, who made just three Premiership starts for the club before leaving for Liverpool in January, told the News of the World. "I wondered what would happen to my career - at my age I need to be playing. I asked myself 1,000 times why did I agree to go to West Ham." It was not until the 40,000th time of asking that he agreed to put pen-to-paper - Lucas Neill took even more persuading apparently...

The best of enemies...

Despite what many in the media may think, title rivals Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho are not sworn enemies. The pair have even been sending one another congratulatory text messages! "He says what he thinks, I say what I think and everyone turns it into so-called mind games. I like Jose, we get on fine. He sent me a text right after our match with Roma congratulating us on our performance and I sent him one back to say well done on beating Valencia." ;-)

And finally...

Oliver Kahn can't play a round of golf without being reminded of his resemblance to Snowflake, the world's first albino gorilla. While Snowflake bowed out gracefully some years back, though, Kahn continues to monkey around between the posts.

Compiled by Chris Stanton
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