And so begins the final act...

So here we are, about to enter the final month of the football season. Fans up and down the country are gearing up for one last push for promotion, a play-off place, or the lucky few, a division title. Or, dare I say it, fearing relegation, determined to fight it off, or for some, already preparing for next season in a lower division. In the Money-Bags Premier League, with a little further to go, there are plenty of battles still to be fought. So follows my predictions for the final shake-up in English football and beyond:

Starting at the bottom of the pile, in League Two.
Champions: Chesterfield. They have led for so long now, and although they've seen a substantial lead wither away, I think they'll have too much pride to let the title slip away.
Promoted: Bury & Wycombe. Bury have had a great spell over the past few weeks, catching Chesterfield, beating them on Easter Monday, but I think they will just fall short of the title, while Wycombe have been up and down like a yo-yo battling for the final automatic promotion place. I think a win for Wycombe this afternoon will be the deciding factor.
Play-offs: Shrewsbury, Accrington, Torquay & Gillingham.
Play-off Winners: Shrewsbury. Having been pre-season favourites again for some success, yet again Shrewsbury have failed to show the consistency that would earn them an easy automatic promotion. Previous play-off campaigns have ended in heartbreak at Wembley, but with this seasons final at Old Trafford, the pressure is off, there won't be the awe that comes with playing at Wembley. Which is why I'm tipping them to finally prevail.
Relegated: Stockport & Northampton. Stockport are already as good as relegated before today's games as they are 6 points adrift with 2 games to play, and have a far inferior goal difference. I'm tipping Northampton to join them in the Blue Square Premier next year as they are just not doing anything, while Barnet have sprung into life and are on a roll.

On to League One.
Champions: Brighton. Already crowned Champions, Brighton have been by far the best team in the division this season. They will be playing Championship football in their shiny new stadium next season.
Promoted: Southampton. The Saints have finally come good after sinking to their lowest point a couple of seasons ago. They've been involved in quite a battle, but I feel their pedigree will carry them up.
Play-offs: Huddersfield, Peterborough, MK Dons & Bournemouth.
Play-off Winners: Huddersfield. I'm going for the Terriers to succeed. They will only just miss out on automatic promotion and this will spur them on. Lee Clark has kept his team fighting all the way, and they'll get their reward with a return to the Championship.
Relegated: Swindon, Plymouth, Bristol Rovers & Walsall. Swindon are already down, Plymouth have battled back after losing 10 points for their financial troubles but it'll be too much for them. Bristol Rovers have two tough games left, and I can't see them getting anything, and Walsall will slip down at the last minute after a season of struggle.

Up to the Championship now, and the fight to reach the big time.
Champions: QPR. They have led for virtually the entire season, and will get the points on the board to finish first. However, with the current uncertainty surrounding them and a breach of rules on Third party player ownership, whether they are allowed to make the step up into the Premier League is still in the balance.
Promoted: Norwich. It's a tough one to call, but I think their late winner against Derby last week will boost their confidence for the final run-in.
Play-offs: Cardiff, Swansea, Reading & Nottingham Forest.
Play-off Winners: Cardiff. After countless promotion chasing seasons and subsequent play-off disappointments, this is the year they finally break their jinx and hit the big time. They've got the players to do it, and also the experience of failure to give them the extra desire to finally succeed and take their place at the top table.
Relegated: Preston, Scunthorpe & Sheffield United. Preston are already down before kick-off today, and inferior goal differences have all but condemned Scunny and Sheffield United to join them, as they are both 6 points back with only 6 to play for.

And so we come to the Premier League. Where dreams allegedly come true and the best players in the world apparently ply their trade.
Champions: Manchester United. A record-breaking 19th title awaits this bunch of flukey, jammy, fortunate but somehow still successful lot. Deserving? Perhaps not as I think they've just not been as bad as the chasing pack. Some will argue that it's been the closest and best season so far. That maybe the case, but I think last season was better, and next season will also eclipse this one.
Champions League: Chelsea, Arsenal & Manchester City. Chelsea and Arsenal are only one win away from guaranteeing it, while City are bringing up the rear. They may have the distraction of a Cup Final, but with a decent 4 point gap and potentially an easier game than their rivals this weekend, that should do it.
Europa League: Tottenham. The top four is just tantalisingly out of reach for them this time round. But to maintain a top four challenge whilst making the Champions League quarter-finals in their first year takes some guts and quality. They are just a dependable goalkeeper away from another top four finish. Assuming they can keep their stars.
Relegated: West Ham, Wolves & Blackpool. This has been the closest relegation scrap for some time. At the time of writing only 10 points separate the bottom 12 teams. However, someone has to go and for me it looks like West Ham will be one after a season of struggle. Wolves will join them after a poor recent run looks to have drained them of confidence and fight. Finally, after a season of unprecidented success (a double over Liverpool for starters) and much entertainment from manager Ian Holloway, Blackpool look to have dipped at the wrong time, they can't get a win for love nor money (a vital commodity in this league) and with others picking up the odd point here and there around them, it looks likely to be goodnight from them.

Elsewhere, there are cups still up for grabs involving English teams:
FA Cup: Manchester City. The blues will finally end their long wait for some silverware at the expense of gallant losers Stoke. Not the final many envisaged, but it certainly gives teams hope to have seen only one of the so-called Big Four even reach the semi-finals.

Champions League: Barcelona. After the respective first leg results, both Barca and Manchester United look odds on to meet again at Wembley. There will be no fairy tale win for Sir Alex this year either, as Barcelona on a bad day could still run rings around this current United side, even with Rooney. Lionel Messi looks untouchable, David Villa looks to be almost slacking in comparison. Xavi and Iniesta are still their imperious selves, and Pique and Puyol have continued to dominate their opponents. The only question for me is how many they'll win by.

And so ends my attempt at clairvoyance. I'll either be proved right or will have to smash up my crystal ball in anger and disappointment. But one thing's for sure, as a Shrewsbury fan, my heart is yearning for automatic promotion for two reasons. Firstly to prevent the nervy down to the wire nature of the play-offs. Secondly so I can head off to Austria in May already knowing that League One beckons.

Ta ta then.

Albums You Should Own Part 6

And welcome back for the sixth instalment of my guide to a record collection to make your friends jealous. Now we've entered the digital age, it's becoming rarer for people to actually own a physical record or CD. It's great for cutting down on storage (you can hear the designers at Ikea crying over their funky, stylish but practical drawing boards) but, let's be honest, it's screwing the record shops. The independents are all but gone, and even the bigger fish have suffered. Hands up who remembers Our Price?

The latest offering takes us back to the late Seventies...

The Specials by The Specials
Released in late 1979, this debut album by The Specials was produced by Elvis Costello and released on the 2 Tone label which is known for it's Ska output including briefly Madness and other British Ska revival bands. Whilst not exactly 'new' music, it brought Jamaican Ska (dating back to the late fifties and into the sixties) to a fresh audience. With songs describing desolate, rough and tumble inner-city life, it appealed to a new breed of people - skinheads, mods and created the 'Rude Boy'.

This album kicks off with 'A Message To You Rudy', a brass led romp that harks back to the Caribbean music that spawned this British genre. The other songs of note on this album are 'Nite Klub'; 'Too Much Too Young', a song that should be played to all teenagers as a warning against youthful bedroom antics; 'Stupid Marriage' a tale of a man found guilty of smashing his ex-girlfriend's window. The story is told using Judge Roughneck as a judge summarising the case, and Terry Hall as the defendant who explains his actions. The refrain of "Naked woman, naked man" runs through the song with variations. The song closes with the judge yelling "Take him away!"

My particular favourites on the album are 'Blank Expression' and 'You're Wondering Now'. 'Blank Expression' isn't a particularly deep song, but it is certainly expressive, with the repetition of the line: "Where did you get that (BLANK) blank expression on your face?" It's easy to sing along to, and it has that characteristic Ska guitar sound. 'You're Wondering Now' is a melancholic ending to the album which is fast paced in places, contains social comment in others (particularly 'Doesn't Make It Alright') and takes you through a tour of how the youth were living at the time (Thatcher had just come to power and was doing things her way). The closing refrain of "You're wondering now, what to do, now you know this is the end" may sum up the listeners possible feelings as the album ends, but it's also a message to someone who has done some wrong and is wondering how they will pay for their misdemeanor, the writer of the song confirms that they will be on their own, and as the backing fades out, leaving just the vocals, you get the feeling that maybe it really is the end...

That's it then, an album of it's time. When musicians had something to rally against. Not like these days, where all people tend to write about it their 'bitches', 'bling' and doing stuff with their man/woman. So, after you've listened to this album, you can go and buy yourself a porkpie hat, some shades and become a rude boy in the 21st Century. You may potentially be laughed at, but let's be honest, people tend to make fun of what they don't understand.

Movie Mash ups

You know how it goes... you text a friend to see how they enjoyed the Gadget Show Live, you talk about stuff, and the next thing you're complaining about silly films and how cool it would be to be a movie executive going to high-powered meetings, being paid a fortune to come up with all sorts of crap ideas for the next big film. Well, such a discussion took place over the course of today between myself and my old mucker, Dale. To follow is a list of what we came up with...

1) Trainspotting meets Four Weddings And A Funeral - Hugh Grant falls in love with heroin.
2) High School Musical meets Final Destination.
3) The Godfather meets Sex and The City.
4) War of The Worlds meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
5) Forrest Gump meets the Bourne series - "Life is like a box of faked passports, you never know which one is yours".
6) The Addams Family meets Raiders of The Lost Ark.
7) The Mummy meets Daddy Daycare - Eddie Murphy gets into all kinds of scrapes looking after a bunch of murderous preserved dead Egyptians.
8) Stuart Little meets Starship Troopers - Small mouse finds a new family with a barely trained bunch of marines whilst battling giant bugs.
9) The Graduate meets Godzilla - A young University graduate is seduced by an older lizard, but falls for the daughter.
10) Fantasia meets Nightmare on Elm Street - Mickey Mouse defends himself against dancing pink elephant dream demons.
11) Groundhog Day meets Jurassic Park - A bunch of people are terrorised by genetically reconstructed dinosaurs day after day after day after day...
12) The Nutty Professor meets Titanic - A shy fat professor drinks a formula that turns him into a manic Leonardo Di Caprio and steers the ship into an iceberg.
13) The Terminator meets American Pie - a cyborg arrives from the future to kill 4 high school buddies before they can lose their virginity.

14) Alien meets Look Who's Talking - A baby xenomorph thinks how weird life is as it stalks its way around a spaceship, killing the crew.

15) Home Alone meets The Eagle Has Landed - a small kid has to thwart a band of german soldiers posing as robbers.

16) Mad Max meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Two children and their mother meet an angry inventor with a flying/floating car in a post-apocalyptic world.

17) Robocop meets Doctor Doolittle - A cop is brought back to life as a cyborg and finds he can talk to animals. A hamster helps him track down his murderer.

And there you have it, the best part of a day's work. If you have more that you can think of, feel free to leave your ideas in a comment, because deep down, there's a movie executive in all of us!

Albums You Should Own Part 5

Hello all, and welcome to part five of my guide to having a great record collection. Now, up until now, it's been straightforward and fairly obvious. This time though, my choice may split the audience. I'm fine with that, because if we were all the same, life would be dull and tedious, much like most of the music in the charts right now.

Definitely Maybe by Oasis

Released at the end of August 1994, Oasis' debut album marked the beginning of the so-called 'Britpop' era. Liam and Noel Gallagher burst on to the scene as two mouthy Mancs who had alot of self belief and weren't afraid to tell people about it.

And to be fair, kicking off your debut album with a song like 'Rock And Roll Star' goes a long way to backing it up. It's loud, it's proud and it signals intent. Tonight and from now on, they really were Rock and Roll Stars, and they were going to live up to it!

The lesser songs on the album, 'Up In The Sky', 'Columbia', 'Bring It On Down' and 'Digsy's Dinner' may not keep up the quality, but they were and remain solid yet unspectacular, which can be said of many other bands' album tracks.

Of the songs that were released as singles, 'Shakermaker' is probably the weakest, with the melody unashamedly 'borrowed' from the New Searchers song 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing', so much so, that Oasis' own tribute band, No Way Sis released the latter as a single. 'Live Forever' is at the other end of the scale, a top class track, conceived by Noel as an antidote to all the self-harm grunge nonsense that was entertaining the British teenager thanks to Nirvana and the like. (Personally, I never saw the appeal of all that - I still haven't listened to every track on Nevermind. And I don't really foresee myself ever actually doing so).

In the middle, there's 'Cigarettes And Alcohol', another case of Noel lifting riffs or melodies from other songs, this time 'Get It On' by T Rex. The only thing is, it damn well works. The thundering guitar riff that ties the whole song together, along with Liam and his word pronunciation (or pronuncia-shiun as Liam would say). And of course, the song that launched them in the first place. The drumbeat, the sound of the plectrum running up the guitar string, and the opening lyric "I need to be myself, I can't be no one else, I'm feeling Supersonic, give me Gin and Tonic." (Just in case you're still not quite sure, it's called 'Supersonic' by the way.)

The last song of note on the album is 'Slide Away', the first attempt by Noel to write a love song. For me, it works well, sitting comfortably along the rest of the album, and standing above some of the later efforts, but that's another conversation.

But actually, that's technically not all, because if you had the vinyl release of 'Definitely Maybe', you would also know the extra track, 'Sad Song'. Certainly a hidden gem, the best version of the song is probably on a Noel Gallagher live performance given at the Teenage Cancer Trust gig and included on a CD given away free with a newspaper.

So, that's 'Definitely Maybe'. One of the best debut albums? Maybe. An album that inspired millions of teenagers and kids to pick up a guitar and play music? Definitely.

Albums You Should Own Part 4

After another random interval, I'm back with the fourth instalment of my suggestions for the perfect record collection. If you stick with me, by the time I'm done, your collection could be as good as mine. No, really, it's possible! If the previous offerings made you think I was well and truly stuck in the 60's or 70's, well, now I'll prove there's more to me than that. Not much more, but a little more. Enough waffling, let's get down to business.

Thriller by Michael Jackson
Released in 1982, as the follow up to 'Off The Wall', this album is widely considered to be one of the best albums of modern times. The production by Quincy Jones certainly plays a huge part in the feeling and sound of the songs, and shouldn't be underestimated. With unbridled success worldwide, the album spawned 7 (count 'em) singles, which leaves just 2 "album tracks", which is fairly unusual to be honest. In my opinion there are three reasons why this album is a 'must-have'.

Number one is the song 'Thriller' - possibly one of the most iconic songs of the last 50 years of popular music. Take the video out of the equation, the song stands on its own. From that bass line to the howling wolf sound effects, with the intro building to the synthesised brass sound, and the spoken word ending, voiced by horror legend Vincent Price. All squeezed into six minutes of timeless pop.

Reason number two is 'Beat It'. The intro ambles along until the guitar riff kicks in. It's a harsh, manufactured sound, but it ties the song together and it works. And then, from nowhere, comes the guitar solo. And the man who provides it? Eddie Van Halen. If you don't know, then it's just another solo. But once armed with the information, you can go back and listen to it, and it all makes sense. A typical Van Halen sounding guitar solo, am I wrong?

The third reason is 'Billie Jean'. When you've listened to this song, you can see how he ended up at 'Bad'. The vocal styling was beginning to emerge, with the "he he's" and the "whoo's" and the slight funk-style instrumental arrangements. Apparently written about an experience he had whereby a deranged female (obviously!) fan wrote to him claiming he had fathered a child. Hence the line "but the kid is not my son."

You'd be hard pushed to find an artist these days with three tracks of such impeccable quality on the same album (and greatest hits don't count). And I haven't even mentioned 'Wanna Be Startin Somethin' or 'PYT (Pretty Young Thing)'. I will just mention the cringe-worthy duet with Paul McCartney, 'The Girl Is Mine'. Oh, it's so, so cringe-worthy! The song isn't that bad, it's the chatty interchange between them both that does it. And another thing to note, this meeting sowed the seeds that resulted in Michael Jackson controlling the publishing rights to the Beatles catalogue.

So, whilst many find it hard to see past the controversy and mystery that surrounded his later life and ultimate death at the age of 50, if you seal yourself off from all that, and just listen to the craft contained in this album, you will agree that you have missed out by not having this album in your collection. And don't forget that album cover - another iconic image that has been mimicked and parodied time and time again (Ricky Gervais on the cover of his 'Animals' DVD is one example that springs to mind).