It’s a Bank Holiday this weekend here in the UK, which for many of us means one thing – a trip to the seaside! With this in mind, it was an easy choice for this week’s Friday Fun Pun choice of category.

Once again, we can only thank you for getting involved and giving us a laugh on a Friday afternoon, it’s been great seeing some of your great (and frankly terrible) puns! If you want to get involved, head to Facebook or Twitter on a Friday afternoon and get your punning hat on…

Inspired by all the A-Level and GCSE results around at the moment, we asked for your School Footballers this week, and once again you’ve stepped up to the plate. Inspired by all things schooly – classses, teachers, exams – we got the good, the bad and the ugly through our Twitter and Facebook platforms, and here’s our pick of the bunch.

If you want to get involved in our weekly pun fun, make sure you keep an eye on both our Twitter and Facebook platforms every Friday…

A week into the new season, and we’ve already had plenty of great matches, top transfer gossip and smart goals. It’s great to have it back, isn’t it? But what else has been happening in the world of football? How about a list of the top ten strange injuries that have befallen some of football’s top stars? If that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, then look no further than Caught Offside, who have got just the thing up on their blog this week. Some of these are hilarious, but they’re also probably quite scary for the injury prone or paranoid amongst you.

If you were going to organise a nice, gentle pre-season friendly to get your top players warmed up, you wouldn’t pick the country’s biggest derby match as an ideal fixture, would you? Alas, that’s exactly what the authorities in Turkey did recently, and FourFourTwo have got the whole story on Fenerbahce vs Galatasaray. Players trying to trip up the ref, flares raining down on the pitch – this is the perfect start to the season, isn’t it?

With the Premier League and Football League kicking off, the FA Cup might not be at the forefront of everyone’s mind, but the early rounds of the competition are already underway. It might grab your attention more if you were making an appearance on the teamsheet for your club at the ripe old age of 40. That’s what happened to lucky Jonathan Haggart, the man behind the blog Haggis In Ponderland, who found himself on the teamsheet for Glossop North End’s match against Wigan Robin Park. Find out how he did so by reading his blog here.

Finally this week, we’ve featured The Guardian’s Joy Of Six a few times here, but we couldn’t resist their latest list: their top childhood football memories. Of course, it’s possibly the most subjective list imaginable, as we’ll all have our own personal memories, but it’s fantastic bit of nostalgia for a rainy Friday afternoon. Enjoy!

With the Premier League about to kick off, the transfer window beginning to come to a head and managerial intrigue left right and centre, football is at the forefront of the web at the moment. This also means that you get a lot of people wanting to have their say without actually having anything to talk about, so it’s a good job that we’re here to steer you through the detritus towards the great and good with our round up of the best stuff we’ve dug up….

One of the best things we happened upon this week is this cracking archive football footage from the British Pathé collection. Showing classic footballers from yesteryear up close, it’s a fascinating window into a past era. Some brilliant haircuts as well – no nonsense football.

Elsewhere, there’s a million and one season previews saying who’s going to win the league, but Sport.co.uk have compiled a more important list – all the Premier League kits for the forthcoming season. Want to know what your opponent’s away kit looks like? This is the best place to keep track. You can guess which ones we think look the best…

Instead of concentrating on the top league or just the opening weekend, Off The Post have done a sterling job of looking further and wider with a list of the top ten matches to look forward to this season. Unearthing some hidden gems amongst the big derbies and potential title deciders, it offers a panaramic view of the forthcoming football instead of the narrow picture we so often get.

In terms of new signings for the new season, there’s a couple of good blogs we’ve recently discovered that we’d like to point in your direction. The first, Roy Of The Rovers, is a blast of pure nostalgia, offering everything you need to know about the legendary cartoon striker. The second, The Two Unfortunates, is a blog that focuses its attention on the Football League, and could be a vital resource for fans of clubs outside of the top flight. We’ll be keeping an eye on both as the season progresses…

Yep, after a bit of a summer break, we’re back in time for the new season with the finest football-related stuff we’ve unearthed around the web. Slightly connected to this summer’s football action, in which comedian Mark Watson wrote a guest blog for us, here’s a great story about his brother. Who just happens to be the world’s youngest international manager. Paul Watson is the boss of Pohnpei, a tiny nation in the middle of the Pacific. The Ball Is Round have got the full story here on his remarkable career move here, massive inspiration to all of us who imagine we’d do a great job in the hot seat!

Back on domestic turf, and everyone’s trying to preview who’ll be successful over the forthcoming season. If it’s Premier League you’re after, then you can’t really go wrong with The Guardian’s previews of each and every team. They’ve releasing them one at a time, so start here with Arsenal and work your way alphabetically through the league.

If it’s lower down the divisions that you’re looking for, then TwoFootedTackle do a good job of offering opinionated but insightful looks at all the English leagues.

If you want to get even closer to each team, then classic boy’s football mag Shoot have enlisted a blogger from every one of the 92 league teams in England, each entrusted with the job of talking about their club, and starting with a preview of their hopes for the season. As with all these previews, there’s going to be a decent amount that they get wrong and a bit of impartial opinion on offer, but isn’t that part of the fun?

Away from predictions and Pohnpei, most of football’s drama recently has centred around money, and the new rules about squad players and nationality. Covering both of these bases, this intriguing article at The Run Of Play makes interesting reading. It looks at the changing identity in Liverpool’s dressing room, and how much a team can be ‘English’ and succeed. Interesting stuff. As that’s quite serious, you can also check out something a bit more lighthearted in the shape of this video on Who Ate All The Pies, showing Liverpool’s latest signing showing off his skills last night.

Finally for this week, if there’s anyone who’s not yet got excited about the new season, here’s something that should get you in the mood. The Guardian’s Joy Of Six column, looking at half a dozen footballing surprise packages. It’s this kind of thing that fans of every club dream about – coming from nowhere to grab success. Maybe this time it could happen to your team? We’ll soon find out…

Taking place this Sunday at Old Trafford, Soccer Aid is a terrific event raising money for a very important charity – Unicef. A team of English celebrities and footballers led by Robbie Williams and James Corden are taking on a Rest Of The World Squad that boasts Gordon Ramsey, Zinedine Zidane and half of Westlife amongst its ranks. Should be a great game!

It’ll be even better for us as both teams are playing in Umbro kits, ensuring that whatever level of fitness the players have, they’ll still look good. Robbie’s boys will be playing in the England home strip, whilst we’ve created a special one-off kit for the Rest Of The World team. Earlier this week, we travelled down to London to give the players an insight into the tailoring process behind the kits, and to give them the same bespoke fitting experience that the England players get when they’re called up into the squad.

The video above offers a sneak peak behind the scenes at the fitting, featuring some interviews with the celebs as they tried on their kits, plus plenty of chances to glimpse the guys flexing muscles and whipping their shirts off. Should keep you going until the match kicks off on Sunday night!

To find out more about Soccer Aid, the great work it does, and to get tickets for Sunday’s game, head over to the Soccer Aid website.

It’s Friday, 5pm, it must be time for pun-filled team of footballers! We had a great response to today’s theme of Location Footballers, perhaps inspired by our Walls situated around the UK, but most likely because it’s sunny outside and nobody wants to do any work! Either way, it’s great that so many of you get involved, congratulations to those who made it into the first team, and commiserations to those who missed out, but there’s only so much room in the team!

Make sure you check back next Friday to see what the theme is – take a look at our Twitter and Facebook pages to find out what we’re looking for, and then get punning!

Here it is, this week’s Friday Fun quiz – Car Footballers! Congratulations to everyone who made it into the first team, and remember to check our Facebook and Twitter every Friday for the theme of the day. And a special congratulations to the genius who came up with the idea that these guys should play for Borussia Monchenhatchback!

We’re in a strange pre-South Africa limbo here at Umbro at the moment, looking forward to the action this summer, but not wanting to get too excited yet. This hasn’t been helped by our ongoing sticker addiction, an amazing delivery to Umbro HQ this week which we’ll be talking about soon and the fact that every blogger on the planet is talking about the action in Africa.

You’d almost be forgiven for thinking that the 2009/10 season was over, when in fact two of its most important games are yet to take place. This weekend, we get the League One and League Two playoffs down at Wembley, matches that are sure to deliver a fair bit of drama and suspense. Top football mag Four Four Two have taken a close look at the Swindon and Millwall teams ahead of tomorrow’s match which you can check out here – essential reading if you want to watch the match but don’t know much about the teams beforehand. As for the League Two final, take a look at Peter Jackson’s thoughts on the final here, and decide whether you’re going for Rotherham or Dagenham (& Redbridge).

Apart from that, it’s all South Africa this week, with every aspect of tournaments past and present being analysed by the blogging community. One that we think will come in very handy during the action is the self-explanatory South Africa’s World Cup Stadiums, which gives a nice run-through of each of the grounds that will feature matches. Want to know the capacity of the stadium that’s hosting a game you’re watching? This is the place to visit.

Looking back at tournaments past, or rather football kits past, Who Ate All The Pies have dug up some absolute beauts with their round-up of the most garish WC kits they’ve ever seen. We’re not ashamed to admit that some of their choices come from Umbro’s own back catalogue – indeed, having seen them again we’re tempted to dig them out of the archive and wear them over the weekend. Put some shades on and check out their choices here…

Another look at past tournaments, but much more artistic, is the Score-Line project that Adrian Newell pointed in our direction earlier this week. Basically, the idea is that the goals from each WC final (and FA Cup final, Champions League, etc) are drawn out as tactical style drawings, giving an interesting spin on classic matches. That’s not really doing it justice to be honest – these are some really innovative images that work just as well as works of art than as football memorabilia – so just take a look at the images here, and you can even pick one up to decorate your wall with!

Finally this week, it’s often said that these big tournaments can bring a country together, and the BBC’s Paul Fletcher has unearthed an example of just how that can happen. Looking at Honduras, a country that we know little about, the blog explores how the South American country’s political tensions were threatening to boil over, but have been soothed by their qualification for this summer’s tournament. It’s fascinating stuff, and a terrific backdrop to the on-pitch action. Check it out here.

By the way, that terrific picture at the top is from City fan Andrew Mallileau, who is offering it as a free wallpaper to use on your computer. To download the image, just click on it to go through to Flickr

With just a few games left in their season, and with talismanic captain Charlie WB returning to the fold after various volcano-related calamities, Howard’s Juicebox recently lined up for another vital game. Here’s the man himself to tell us how they got on…

“So with Howard’s Juicebox having played seven of the season’s ten games, we were sitting pretty at the top of the table with a four point lead. Not to mention an unbeaten campaign and the highest scorer in the league (Jack). Our rivals Giganten Brodre had suffered their second defeat at the hands of Average Joe’s whilst I was gone and tonight offered us a chance to further cement our authority on the league.y

A win in tonight’s match would guarantee promotion and bring us one step closer to the league title. Our opponents went by the name of Mon Utd, we had met them before in the first game of the season and defeated them 3-1, but with it being their debut season in the league surely they must have progressed since those days…

Having missed the last couple of matches, I felt it best to start the game on the sidelines, and ease myself back into the fray – basically I felt really unfit. The match didn’t start well. Mon Utd were on the offensive, forcing Alex into three early saves, one of which he pushed onto the bar and out of play. It soon became obvious that these guys had come a long way and meant business.

It’s often said that when you are top of the league, things tend to go your way, and it’s only with that timeless piece of football punditry that I can explain us taking the lead. With Mon Utd’s constant surge of pressure, they must have left a gap at the back. Jack found himself on the edge of the area and worked the ball onto his lethal right foot, He deceived the defender and made some space for the shot. Wham, bam, thank you mam. Jack’s 8th of the season put us in the driving seat.

The game teetered on the edge of boredom for a while. Then, we had a couple of free-kicks and with the second one we managed something a little special. Olly C made a cute run behind the wall, Jack played the ball in to his feet and one left-footed shot later we found ourselves 2-0 up, with half-time looming. But just before the whistle, an over-lapping run breached our lines and one of the opposition rifled in a shot, Alex could only parry it onto the post and into the net. Once again we had let one in right before the break, what a bunch of schoolboys…

As the second half began we were all too aware that if we could hold on, we would later be celebrating an unprecedented promotion. With that in our minds we knew we had to dig in deep. In this second period Juicebox chances were few and far between. My match fitness was seriously in question as I rolled on and off the pitch like a well used breadpin. Soon enough my poor fitness levels would translate into a personal error of catastrophic proportions. Catastrophic.

The ball came to me at the bottom left side of the field, with my back to goal. The inner Jamie Carragher inside of me told me to kick it out for the throw. The outer Olly C told me to pass the ball across the field to him. I should have listened to Jamie, maybe things would have been different, maybe I could have been a hero, but it wasn’t to be. I tried to steer the ball over to Olly, but my tired legs had other ideas, they thought it would be much more beneficial for me to sell him short and let a Mon Utd striker in on goal. The writing was on the wall. 2-2. All my fault.

I instantly called for the substitution and as soon the touchline was crossed, I crashed to the floor in defeat. My mind was spinning at a million miles an hour, had I cost us promotion? Was I good enough for the team? Would I ever play again?

As I lay on the sidelines almost in a coma, contemplating my future, I couldn’t even bear to watch the rest of the game. But I heard things. I heard Locky screaming out in pain as his hamstring went. Followed by the whole team screaming out in pain as we conceded the match-winning goal, costing us our unbeaten run and a point.

The team was devastated and as we warmed down I apologised for my failings.

Brodre went on to win their match that evening, cutting our lead to just a point, making next week’s match a must win fixture. The penultimate game of the season, Giganten Brodre vs Howard’s Juicebox. A clash of the titans, of the most epic proportions. It’s make or break and you’d be a fool to miss it…”