You might think that all of us here at Umbro eat, sleep and drink football – and you’d be right. However, when we’re not debating whether Liverpool have turned a corner or if Newcastle are going to run away with the Championship, we do have an interest in other things. Here’s some of the favourite things of 2009 picked by Umbro’s staff: music, films, television, books, and our top footballing moments….

Music

There was a real range of musical styles represented by Umbro’s staff, but one record clearly got more votes than any other: Kasabian’s West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. The Leicester band’s psychedelic third album was a clear winner, with its closest rival (Empire Of The Sun’s self-titled LP) mustering just two votes. Other records suggested by the Umbro gang included:

Wild Beasts’ Two Dancers, Imelda May’s Love Tattoo, Gallow’s Grey Britain, Vitalic’s Flashmob, Manic Street Preachers’ Journal For Plague Lovers, British Sea Power’s Man of Aran, Take That’s The Circus, U2′s No Line On The Horizon, La Roux’s self-titled album, The Silversun Pickups’ Swoon, XX by The XX and Blakroc’s rap-rock collaboration.

For our favourite tracks of the year, there was no clear winner, with a wide range of tracks picked out. Highlights are:

Uprising by Muse, In For The Kill (Skream remix) by La Roux, Black Eyes by Gallows, Rabbit Heart by Florence & The Machine, My Girls by Animal Collective, She Wolf by Shakira, Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear and Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal.You can imagine the fights we have over the stereo here at Umbro Towers!

Film

Not sure what it says about Umbro’s weekend habits, but The Hangover seems to have rung a bell with our staff, winning the most votes for favourite film. Once again, votes for other films were spread across a few titles, with Pixar’s charming Up and alien allegory District 9 the only other films to gain a pair of votes. Elsewhere, other films picked out were: Up, Ice Age 3, Harry Brown, Monsters Vs Aliens, The Damned Utd, Watchmen, Twlight – New Moon and Inglourious…

TV

The fact that we’re all big football fans here at Umbro is obvious, but the fact that Match Of The Day and the Football League Show were both picked out as some of our favourite television shows. Elsewhere, American imports such as Entourage and Lost were picked out, while UK comedies Gavin & Stacey, Peep Show and The Inbetweeners were also chosen. The fact that votes were cast for The Thick Of It and Stephen Fry’s Last Chance To See at least shows that the more cerebral mind does lurk somewhere along Umbro’s corridors.

Books

Asking Umbro staff about their favourite books of 2009 provoked some strange reactions. ‘I don’t have time to read!’ was quite common, as was the usual jokes about The Yellow Pages. However, there were some sensible suggestions, with the Twilight series of books featuring heavily. Elsewhere, Peter Hook’s How Not To Run A Club struck a chord, as did Victoria Hislop’s The Island, Iain Banks’ Transition, Antonia Frazer’s Marie Antoinette and Mark E Smith’s Renegade showed that at least a couple of us appreciate some culture!

Football

Asked for their favourite footballers and favourite football moments, Umbro’s staff turned into the usual tribal beasts, with plenty of one upmanship at play. Lionel Messi was a clear winner for favourite player, with Jimmy Bullard coming second, but a sign of the teams supported here at Umbro comes with the news that Newcastle’s Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan were nominated alongside Ryan Giggs, Shaun Wright Philips, Darren ‘Twitter’ Bent, John Terry and Preston North End’s Ross Wallace.

Football moments varied so much, it’s probably easiest if we just quote some of our esteemed colleagues…

“Me winning the Umbro International 5-a-side Tournament”

“Boro getting relegated”

“Thierry Henry handing France a ticket to South Africa”

“Bent’s assist to the beach ball”

“Beating Chelsea and Arsenal in the same week”

“Wolfsburg winning the Bundesliga to show Europe that there are teams outside the Champions League.”

And for those of us that got to do it a couple of weeks ago, it had to be… “playing at Wembley!”