Inside Track: They don’t like it in England when you call it soccer

If you don’t know already, let me tell you that it’s frowned upon in England if you call it ‘soccer’. They prefer ‘football’.

But, Blighty, what about Gaelic football, American football, and Aussie Rules football? You don’t own the patent.

The latter, admittedly, is best known as just Aussie Rules; but it’s still football, where a ball is caught, passed and sometimes kicked between posts, the targets positioned something like the ones you see in pictures of the earliest Gaelic matches.

Around this time last year Inside Track made a prediction: Everton to make the Top Four. As far out as the lighthouse.

The team based on the other side of Liverpool’s Stanley Park were lucky not to be relegated. In mitigation, we’ll claim that Seamus Coleman wasn’t available for the whole season. Had he been, The Toffees might have done better, and we mightn’t have ended up so red-faced.

So, what’s going to happen between now and next April? For one thing, Harry Kane won’t be there to come up with the goals to help Spurs rediscover the days when Danny Blanchflower, playing alongside the barrel-chested Scotsman, Dave Mackay, led his team to two FA Cup wins.

That was back at the time when you could easily pronounce the names of players on each team. You had Brown, Baker and Banks, Cantwell, Charlton and Callaghan, and so on and so on.

It’s so different now, chaps with strange-sounding names landing at Heathrow and other airports from the four corners of the earth, most of them carrying a price tag that, in the years gone by, would be enough to keep most clubs ticking over. Money, it seems, is no obstacle nowadays, and the figures keep getting higher and higher.

Dundalk & District League Reports: Saints still in control of title race

Late goal sees Dundalk narrowly advance to FAI Cup Quarter Finals

Kevin De Bruyne is not among them. It’s 2017 since Inside Track’s one-to-watch every season made his Premiership debut. I don’t know what he cost, but if it was today, Manchester City, might have to break the bank, or pull a few more strokes.

Or maybe not: Kevin is 32, two years older than Harry K, who, if he didn’t break the 100 million barrier in Sterling with his move to Bayern Munich, had eight euro noughts on his transfer form.

Kev’s team is defending on all quarters, at home as well on the continent, having brought up a treble which was the preserve of their neighbours and keenest of rivals since the dying days of the last century.

His one-time club and international colleague, Vincent Kompany, was on the other side’s sideline when City began the defence of their league title last week, shouting instructions to his newly-promoted Burnley.

If there’s a team to put the brakes on Man City’s defence of their league title, it might be Arsenal. The Gunners were well ahead at one stage last season, but they blew it. Older and wiser, they might fare better this time.

So that’s it, Arsenal to win the league, Dundalk to claim the FAI Cup and Rip Kirby to get his man. (Ask your Dad who Rip was.)