We’re delighted here at State of the Game to help our friends at North East football magazine ‘Players Inc.’ publicise the release of Issue 7 of their great magazine covering all of the main talking points in football in the North East, from Newcastle United, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Hartlepool United and Darlington.

?Players Inc? is a monthly magazine covering all aspects of North East Football. Founded in July 2005 ?Players Inc? aims to bring you the views of some of the most respected names in North East Football and from the most important people in North East Football?.you the fans!

Every 2 months we will be bringing you a mixture of hard hitting articles written by people who have played at the top level and letting you have your say on your particular clubs fortunes. We are on the look out for regular contributors for our publication, so if you feel that you have something that you want to get off your chest then drop us a line on paper or a tablet of stone, or email us using a virus free pc, or ring us on our phone number and we will give you the chance to let the world know what you really think. We are also on the look out for match day sellers at all North East grounds.

So if you fancy making yourself a few quid before you cheer on your favourites then please give us a bell. We pay very good rates. Honest! You may also be interested in hiring one of our former players for a sportsman?s dinner or an end of season presentation night. If you are, then, once again contact ?Players Inc? and we will guarantee you a night to remember. Look forward to hearing from you all. Enjoy??

Email: playersinc@hotmail.com

Website: www.playersinc.org.uk

Telephone: 07950180922

Contact Steve at Players Inc about getting your copy today. Players Inc have a great range of football writers including State of the Game’s own Gareth Johnson so give them your support.

Thursday?s draw for the Champions League group stages threw up some intriguing looking clashes, and for once I can honestly say that I don?t envy Chelsea. Their group with beautiful artists of Barcelona, the cavalier German side Werder Bremen and the rather unknown quantity of Levski Sofia of Bulgaria will not make Jose Mourinho happy (but then, what would?) but it will be an interesting test of his new-look Chelsea team.

The draw was much kinder to United, and a group made up of Gordon Strachan?s Celtic, Danish side FC Copenhagen and our conquerors of last season Benfica does not look too troubling (but then I thought the same of our group last year?)

I would bet that newspapers around the country are preparing their hackneyed ?Battle of Britain? headlines already after we were paired with current Scottish champions Celtic. They won?t provide any surprises for us, though, as we?ve played them twice fairly recently, for Roy Keane?s testimonial and in a pre-season friendly this year. Even though you can?t read too much into the last friendly (which we won 3-0) because both sides were missing several key players (and it was only a friendly) it is hard to see Celtic beating us, despite a squad containing some very talented players and boosted by the recent signing of Dutch striker Jan Venegoor de Hasselink.
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Football Punter has been watching the Sunderland manager’s situation this week and with former Manchester United legend Roy Keane ready to take over the hotseat under his former Irish teammate Niall Quinn’s chairmanship it looks like there will be plenty of interesting stories coming out of the Stadium of Light over the next few months.

VC Bet have put together a series of Specials as Keane prepares to take up the reins and Football Punter has found a few of them especially interesting.

Do you fancy Sunderland to win the Championship, win promotion or just make it to the play-offs? Maybe you think Keane won’t see next season or even the New Year in the hotseat? Either way VC Bet have got some great odds on these bets and seeing as they are offering a free ?20 bet to new signups at the minute it could be worth signing up for a bit of interest in the goings on in the North East.

Football Punter takes a good look at VC Bet’s offerings and examines the latest odds at Roy Keane and Sunderland.

Sign up now with VC Bet and get a free ?20 bet as a singing on bonus!

We’ll be covering the draw as it happens for the UEFA Cup first round as British clubs Tottenham Hotpsur, Newcastle United, West Ham United, Blackburn Rovers, Derry City Hearts and Rangers wait to see who they’ll face.

The first-round matches are played over two legs on 14th and 28th September.

A total of 40 teams will then advance to the group stages, where pools of five teams vie to reach the knockout stages.

The winner, runner-up and third-placed team from each group advance to the last 32 where they are joined by eight clubs knocked out of the Champions League.

The competition will culminate in the final at Hampden Park on the 16th May.

UEFA Cup First round 2006/2007 Draw:

Levadia Tallinn v NEWCASTLE
Molde FK v RANGERS
DERRY CITY v Paris St Germain
Sparta Prague v HEARTS
FC Salzburg v BLACKBURN
WEST HAM v Palermo
Slavia Prague v TOTTENHAM

Monaco hosts today’s UEFA Cup First Round draw as 80 teams prepare themselves for their ticket to a European adventure. While the glitz and glamour of yesterday’s Champion’s League draw mightn’t be quite as evident, the UEFA Cup still holds some of it’s old glory and there is a strong selection of Europe’s big footballing names, both seeded and unseeded, with which to make for an interesting tournament this season.

These 80 sides will play each other home and away before the winners progress to the group stages where eight groups of five teams will play each other once.

For today’s draw the sides have been split into seeded and unseeded groups and then further divided into eight pools of ten teams, five seeded, five unseeded from which the draws will be made. Seeded teams can only play unseeded teams from within their own group or pool. Confused yet? Have a look down the following tables to see which of the British clubs involved (Newcastle United, Rangers, West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur, Hearts, Blackburn Rovers and Derry City) have the toughest possible draw.

We’ll be covering the draw live here at State of the Game from 1200 BST.
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Chelsea and Champions League holders Barcelona will renew their rivalry after they were drawn together in the first phase of this year’s competition. The two sides, who have now been paired for the third time in three years, also face Werder Bremen and Levski Sofia.

Manchester United will meet Celtic in Group F with Benfica and FC Copenhagen.

Last year’s finalists Arsenal take on Porto, CSKA Moscow and Hamburg while Liverpool face PSV Eindhoven, Bordeaux and Galatasaray.

British teams in bold and the top seeds in CAPITALS.
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Chelsea?s group stage opponents in this season?s Champions League will be determined today (Thursday) when the draw is held in Monaco at 5pm BST.

The 16 winners from this week?s qualifying matches join the automatic qualifiers to make up the 32 teams in the group stage. They will be divided into four pots for the draw according to a coefficient decided by past European results.

Chelsea will be in Pot 2 and will be drawn against a team from each of the other three pots. The fact that we cannot draw another Premiership side means we are guaranteed to play either Spanish or Italian opposition from Pot 1 containing the top seeds.

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Jose Mourinho?s men went into their match against Middlesborough at the Riverside Stadium hoping to avenge last season?s mauling at the hands of the North-east outfit.

Confidence would have been high in the Chelsea squad after Sunday?s home win against Manchester City and it didn?t take long for the visitors to continue where they left off. 16 minutes on the clock to be precise when great work from Wayne Bridge down the left hand side saw him produce the cross for Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko to stab home and score his first goal of the season. Bridge was once again showing Mourinho he doesn?t need to fork out unnecessarily for the services of Ashley Cole.

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I have always respected Stuart Pearce, first as a no-nonsense defender for Nottingham Forest and England (when Spurs had Justin Edinburgh at left back during that time I came to appreciate a quality fullback) and then as an energetic manager with some of Martin O’Neill’s traits of kicking every ball he watched from the touchline. That respect ended after watching Pearce vindicate Ben Thatcher for the GBH he had just inflicted on Pedro Mendes and say, with a smirk, that the referee had been right to issue a yellow card.

IfI was the Manchester City chairman I’d tell Pearce that he had one day to do an interview with Sky Sports on camera and make a very public aplogy for his flippant remarks and a couple of hours in which to tell Ben Thatcher to pack up his stuff and never come back to City. Pearce should have known better.

Thatcher on the other hand has always been a loathsome thug. An overrated youngster at Millwall and then Wimbledon led to a big money (waste of money) move to Spurs where he spent more time on the treatment table than the pitch (thankfully given his awful performances) and was then shipped on. He’s a paper thug, a snidey dirty individual with no redeeming football features and last night’s assault on Mendes proves that beyond all doubt.
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I saw this rumour before heading off to bed last night and thought I would give it a few hours unti lthis morning to see whether it would really pan out. The rumour persists in a strong fashion so we might as well discuss it.

I’m truly flabberghasted I have to say. Niall Quinn’s inglorious spell as manager of the shellshocked and war weary Sunderland side has obviously came to an end as big Niall realises that there’s just a little more to this management lark than meets the eye and then promises the Black Cats fans a “world class manager” to lift thir spirits and fortunes.

I shuddered when i heard the words “world class” being used because I knew straight away that it was going to be either a decrepit old time manager (like George Graham) or a recently retired high profile player with no actual experience and it looks like I was right.
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