Soccer in everyday life in England

Let's take a hop across the pond to England for some fun soccer stories.

Offside explanation on the money?

In honor of this summer's London Olympics, England's Royal Mint issued new designs for the 50-pence coin, each highlighting one of the 29 sports in the Games.
The soccer coin features a graphical explanation of the offside law, one of sport's most challenging rules to simply explain.
Production journalist Neil Wolfson came up with the design, which uses triangles to represent the attacking team and squares for the defending team.
Arrows show potential passes for the attacker with the ball; the teammate level with the second-to-last player from the defensive team is listed as "not offside," while the other between the two defensive players is shown as "offside."
As if to underscore the confusing nature of the law, some referees criticized Wolfson's design – which was selected over nearly 30,000 entries – as inaccurate as it doesn't point out the 1995 revision that it is "not an offense in itself to be in an offside position." Wolfson responded by noting that there is no mention of any offense on the coin.
"Neil Wolfson designed his coin in the hope that it would encapsulate football in a simple image," according to the Royal Mint website. "As the offside rule is a perennial talking point, the image is designed to provoke discussion, which was what he was aiming for."

Something borrowed and blue

Longtime Manchester City supporter Karen Bell didn't follow all of the wedding traditions when she got married to a fellow Blues fan last month, but she certainly met two of them.
The 38-year-old made her own wedding dress, using her husband's old City jerseys.
"We wanted to do something different because we have both been married before," Karen Bell told the Manchester Evening News. "It was a labour of love. I was at the sewing machine six nights a week."
After the ceremony on Dec. 21, the happy couple rushed off to Etihad Stadium, where they watched Manchester City thump Stoke City 3-0.

Fabulous FA Cup goals

Premier League teams enter the FA Cup in the third round, and this weekend's matches produced two stellar strikes by Frenchmen.
Midfielder Arnaud Mendy came up with an impressive volley as Macclesfield Town of League Two, three levels below the Premier League, tied Bolton 2-2 to earn a replay against the Premier League side.


Meanwhile, Hatem Ben Arfa showed off his considerable skills on a tremendous run and thunderous finish to help Newcastle United oust fellow Premier League side Blackburn Rovers 2-1.