The Circus - 10 July

Anfield goes to the birds

Young children are the Holy Grail of football club membership departments. Get them hooked at an early age and they'll fork out for season tickets for decades to come. The only potential hurdle for the club is identifying what sort of child they should aim to attract. Future city bankers are ideal; future career criminals not so much (unless you're old-school Chelsea, or Millwall.)

Liverpool isn't quite so picky, though. When deciding on their new junior mascot, the Reds opted for a giant delinquent bird, presumably to appeal to delinquent kids who don't want to watch their team win titles.

"When I'm not in school, in detention, or playing footy with my mates, I get to go with the Liverpool FC Foundation to meet kids all over the world!" exclaims the nondescript bird on the club website. If they're not in detention, of course.

One young guest who wasn't in detention was six-year-old Daniel from Wavertree. "I couldn't believe it when he walked in," he said. "My mum said there might be a special guest but we weren't expecting to see Mighty Red today."

The Circus is quite sure that Daniel from Wavertree had no idea that Mighty Red existed before he gatecrashed what had been a perfectly lovely day at Anfield, but that is beside the point.

At least Liverpool has finally found something useful for Andy Carroll to do until he departs for a club that appreciates a decent ponytail - at least for a season or so, anyway.

A question of leadership

For future reference, here are the rules surrounding the appointment of football captains for England and Great Britain:

- If you cuckold one of your teammates before later being charged with racially vilifying an opponent, you will be stripped of the captaincy. However, you will still be selected in the team when available.

- If you are a serial adulterer who cheats on your wife with your brother's fiancée, you will be selected to captain your team at the Olympics.

- If you do nothing other than represent your club and country with distinction for more than a decade, including a stint as captain, you will be unceremoniously dumped from the national team altogether while the aforementioned players face no ongoing sanction.

Glad we sorted that out, then.

A dedicated follower of fashion

Part-time Manchester City fan and full-time twat Noel Gallagher was on hand to help launch the Citizens' new playing kit in Belgium on the weekend.

A little known fact about Noel is that he is a huge fan of the show 'Embarrassing Bodies', which seems quite apt, considering that in the shoot he looks to be in worse shape than Keith Richards.

Another odd thing about the shoot is Gallagher's height differential to Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany. In some shots he is considerably shorter and in others he is taller, which means either the shoot took place in Lilliput and Brobdingnag, or the singer's famous quibbles with other UK musicians is most likely a result of small man syndrome.

The spoken word

"I've read one or two articles over the last week or so on how football within the Olympics should be taken as a bit of fun. I personally take that as a bit of an insult because I've always lived my life as a professional sportsman to try and give my best. We've trained for excellence, and we'll enter and prepare this team to win gold."

- Team Great Britain coach Stuart Pearce explains the thinking behind appointing Ryan Giggs as captain for the Olympics. Clearly there will be no funny business with the Welshman as captain.