What's That All About, 'A'?

Football has always seen weird, wonderful and wacky goal celebrations. That feeling of excitement when the ball hits the back of the net can get people to do the craziest things.

Others are more reflective and like to use their goals to make dedications. We've all seen the dated 'baby' celebration - made famous by Bebeto during USA '94 - repeated over and over again prompting the sarcastic among us to opine "Let me guess, someones just had a baby, right?". What I want to know is who really cradles a baby like that???

Carlos Tevez got a little bit more creative this week as he sucked on a dummy after securing the points for Man Utd against Birmingham on New Years Day.

However, there are some celebrations that just boggle the mind....



Titus Bramble after his screamer salvaged a point for Wigan against at Anfield last night. And he's not the only one...




Rumours that the players are pointing to wedding bands, throwing up gang-signs (word!), warding off Vampires or learning the first letter of the alphabet have all been quashed.

In actual fact, what the above players are doing is actually signaling the letter 'A' which represents the brand new A-Star project many of them are getting behind.

The project, co-founded by the likes of Fitz Hall and Andy Johnson and is aimed at encouraging young people to steer clear of trouble by getting involved with projects where they can express themselves and have role-models who do not glamorise, guns drugs and violence.

Personally, from someone who has seem who easily it is for youths to fall into that trap, I think the A-star (as in "every child is A STAR") project is great idea and I wish them all the best.

The scheme looks to highlight things like knife crime figures as a way of deterring children from getting involved in that lifestyle and "opening pathways into employment".

For more information, check out the website.

Aside from Johnson and Hall, players like Emile Heskey and Leigthon Baines are also involved but I very much doubt we'll see Joey Barton's name attached to something so noble.

A quick word on Barton. It's sad to see an undoubtedly talented player throw his career away because he cant seem to keep out of trouble. For his sake, you kind of hope he can pull his finger out and turn his life around before it's too late for him. From England reckoning not so long ago to a jail cell. A sad decline for the boy.