We may be experts on all things football here at Umbro, but we have other interests as well – when there’s no matches on the telly, we’ve been known to watch something else, and we need something to listen to on the way to the game!

As it’s the time of year when everyone is coming up with their ‘best ofs’, we thought we’d get involved as well and offer a bit of insight into what everyone here at Umbro gets up to, as well as some of our favourite football moments from 2010. Feel free to agree or disagree with us by entering your comments at the bottom of the page!

Music

A real mixed bag of responses from the Umbro team when asked for their albums of the year, but because Tom and I run the blog, our choice is going to get the award: congratulations then to I Am Kloot, whose album ‘The Sky At Night’ is picked as our favourite of 2010. Second place must go to Orphan Boy’s ‘Passion, Pain & Loyalty’, while elsewhere Umbro’s staff picked out Eminem’s ‘Recovery’, Hed Candi Ibiza 2010, LCD Soundsystem’s ‘This Is Happening’, Delorean’s ‘Subiza’, Paul Weller’s ‘Wake Up The Nation’, Beach House’s ‘Teen Dream’, Onra’s ‘Long Distance’, Chromeo’s ‘Business Casual,’ Wooden Shjips’ ‘Vol. 2′, Interpol’s ‘Interpol’, Aloe Blacc’s ‘Good Things’, Take That’s ‘Progress’ and Plan B’s ‘The Defamation Of Strickland Banks’. Quite a mix!

It’s the same with song of the year – no clear winner, but votes for Orphan Boy’s ‘Popsong’, Arcade Fire’s ‘We Used To Wait’, The National’s ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, Aloe Blacc’s ‘I Need A Dollar’, Mark Ronson’s ‘Bang Bang Bang’, Caribou’s ‘Odessa’… plus various songs from the Plan B album, so we’ll give him the award despite the fact three different songs were chosen!

Film of 2010 is a lot easier to work out, with a clear winner being the mindbending mystery thriller Inception starring Leonardo Di Caprio. It didn’t get all the votes though – The Social Network, Iron Man 2, Four Lions, Toy Story 3, Salt, Kick Ass and Shutter Island all got a shout from various people within Umbro Towers.

If you exclude Match Of The Day and other sporting events from the TV show of the year category, there’s some impressive levels of taste with Umbro’s choices. Top of the pile is Mad Men, with other people picking out Peep Show, Psychoville, Luther, Misfits, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Eastbound & Down – which tells you that we either want a laugh or a serious show about zombies, drug dealers or criminals when we get out of work in the evening, not sure what that tells you about us!

Favourite books of the year was a problem last year when we did this survey last year, and you can tell people have struggled again this time around – some of the suggestions included the Panini World Cup sticker album, the TV Guide and my personal favourite, ‘Pro HTML5 Programming’ by Peter Lubbers, Brian Albers, and Frank Salim (thanks Tom). Thankfully, there are some more cultured types here at Umbro, with Keith Richards’ ‘Life’, Colin Bateman’s ‘The Day Of The Jack Russell’, Patrick Neate’s ‘The London Pigeon Wars’, The Travel Diaries Of Karl Pilkington, Tom McCarthy’s ‘C’, Rusty Young’s ‘Marching Powder, Helen Simpson’s ‘Inflight Entertainment’ and Audrey Niffenegger’s ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ getting picked out. Once again abusing my editorial position, I’m going to stick my favourite in as the winner, so the award goes to Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’.

Finally, we returned to our natural home with some questions about football. Easy you’d think, and the winner certainly was: a landslide victory for the Barcelona and Argentina man, Mr. Messi. Elsewhere, Glentoran’s Matty Burrows got a couple of votes for his wonder goal, while big names like Andy Carroll, Gazza, Joe Hart, Iniesta, Xavi and Jon Parkin all got a vote or two. (Best recount those votes for Parkin….)

It was finest footballing moment that really brought out the tribalism amongst the Umbro staff though. Rather than trying to pick out a winner, I’ll just select a few choice highlights to show how cruel some of the people here can be…

“Ghana in the World Cup”

“Barca 5 Real Madrid 0″

“Sam Allardyce getting sacked from Blackburn”

“The Stjarnan toilet celebration”

“Coaching 28 u8′s every Saturday morning”

“Crystal Palace drawing with Sheff Weds. 2nd
May”

“Everytime Germany played Brazilian Football at the World Cup – but especially when Germany beat England” – guess where that particular member of staff hails from!