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When Football Daily heard that Newcastle United had invited a celebrity saxophonist to play their iconic walkout music before Wednesday night’s Carling Cup semi-final second leg against Arsenal, it was beside itself elves with excitement. Sadly, our favourite blue-haired horn-tooter, Zoot from The Muppet Show, failed to materialise and it was left for local muso Johnny “Blue Hat” Davis to step into the breach and play Going Home instead. A lifelong Toon fan, he provided more than adequate cover for the terminally stoned and famously unreliable sax-man from Electric Mayhem, who wasn’t alone in failing to turn up at St James’ Park. For all Gabriel Martinelli’s pre-match talk about Arsenal looking to “score three, four, five” in order to overturn their two-goal first leg deficit against Newcastle, the Gunners failed to land anything resembling a glove on their hosts, with Mikel Arteta’s players possibly still basking in the afterglow of the open-topped bus parade that followed their emphatic weekend win over Manchester City.

Tottenham’s recent signing of Mathys Tel might well be a good omen since the former Spurs legend and England manager was an FA Cup winner in both 1967 (as player) and 1991 (as manager). Of course, only time will, ahem, tell” – Adrian Irving.

While I have sympathy with Jane Beer as regards supporting one team (Tuesday’s Football Daily letters), I feel that if you move across the UK such that your new local club is unlikely to play your previous team, and it’s not exactly near, it is acceptable to at least follow another side. Having lived in Derby for 15 years (County, third from bottom in the Championship), now residing just outside Maidenhead for the last 20 (United, third from bottom in the National League), I’m not sure I can be accused of any sort of glory hunting. Like Peter Harris (Monday’s letters) I just enjoy going to watch live football with some skin in the game, even if we get thrashed with alarming regularity. Nine defeats from a 10 combined games this year, since you ask” – Adrian Bradshaw.

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