Shelvey gets England debut

Former Addick Jonjo Shelvey got his England debut last year when he came on in the 66th minute for Michael Carrick in the match against international pub team San Marino. Roy Hodgson had clearly disregarded the advice of goal.com readers who thought he was the least deserving of the players called up: Shelvey

The Times this morning thought that had done well: 'Added directness to England's play. Looked a livewire in a match played at a slow pace.' He is unlikely to feature against Poland, however.

One report suggests that his appearance will trigger a 250k payment to Charlton, but I cannot confirm this. It has also been claimed that we have already received two payments of 250k based on appearances with Liverpool, but again I cannot verify this as the contract is not in the public domain.

No Championship football today, but a chance to support your local non-league team in National Non-League Day. If that is, it hasn't gone out of business this week as happened to Kettering Town and Truro City. The attraction for locally based Addicks is Bromley v. Welling

Personally I would favour a pre-qualification tournament for the European 'minnows'. It would be more meaningful for them, although clearly there would be an argument about who counts as a minnow: the likes of Andorra, San Marino and Liechtenstein clearly do, but what about Luxembourg or Malta?

Addick author Charlie Connelly wrote a fascinating book (really) about Liechtenstein's international football called Stamping Grounds which has come out in a second edition. Apparently some of the locals who turned up only came because of the opposition, regarding their own team as rubbish. I'm happy to promote Charlie as he was friends with one of our children at uni.

Fortunately the Pope appears to have dropped plans for a Vatican City side, although there is an annual competition between seminaries which is known for some tough tackling.