Courtney Meppen-Walter arrested

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Can I point out that you owe us 50 names of working class footballers, and I think to stop you from cut and pasting entire squads, if we find out one name on that 50 is not 'working class' then you should throw that list out and start again.

Good luck.

Not that anyone has so far drawn that list of TEN footballers with middle class backgrounds.

Tomas Brolin
Freddie Ljungberg
Roberto Mancini
Mario Balotelli (post adoption)
James Milner
Oscar
Kaka
Marco van Basten
Jurgen Klinsmann
Ian Rush

I thought Brolin was from Swedish countryside?
Ljungberg definitely counts.
I have no idea about Mancini
Balotelli is complicated. He kept in touch with his biological family. I wouldn't count him.
Milner went to public school so I suppose he counts.
White Brazilian does NOT mean middle class. Oscar came from pretty poor background and his father died when he was three.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... eague.html
Kaka definitely
Don't know about van Basten
Klinnsmann is as working class as they come! Son of a baker who did apprenticeship in bakery before starting his football career.
Ian Rush??? Wasn't he country boy as well???

White foreigner =/= middle class.

First of all, this discussion is absurd.

Brolin is the son of a large potato farmer
Balotelli grew up with a fairly well off northern italian family.

Oscar:
Oscar grew up in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil's most prosperous, but moved to the city of Sao Paulo at the age of 13 to join the club's academy. He is not, like Ronaldo and Romario, from a deprived background. "Playing football and earning money that way was not like an obligation for him," Alliatti says. "It was a choice."

Klinsmanns dad ran his own bakery, thats not "working class" to me.

Ian Rush grew up in a small welsh village on the country side, why is that equal to your definition of "working class"?


again, absurd discussion.

It clearly says Oscar's family was struggling for money and his brothers couldn't keep playing. Middle class kids don't have to make decisions like that.

About Rush, what gave you idea he had middle class background?

And if you think it's an absurd discussion why bother to join? Thousands and thousands of footballers and only couple of handfull have legitimately middle class background. I have always found that fascinating.

[Terry Cookes nose]

This is getting ridiculous. What a freak you are

[BlueinBosnia]

There are NOT plenty. Out of thousands and thousands of footballers people are struggling to make list of ten. Footballer with middle class background are anomaly.

Depends how far down the leagues you want to go. Luke McNally (ex-Telford) went to a well-known public school and Cambridge University.

Ian Rush is from St Asaph. If you are from there, you are automatically middle class, in my opinion.

As regarding a post a few above - I said all WHITE Brazilians pre-1980. Pele doesn't count, but Leonardo and Socrates, for example, most definitely had middle class upbringings.

Also, how are we measuring 'middle class' here? I bet a decent proportion of African players would be considered middle class in their home countries, simply due to the fact that a hell of a lot of kids wouldn't have the free time for a kickabout, and, in some cases, parents with the financial means to influence scouts.

[BlueinBosnia]

Farmers though, can't think of harder work.

My ex-girlfriend's grandparents were pig farmers. Their non-farming assets are worth considerably over €10m. The phrase'owning a large potato farm' makes me think Brolin's family are in 'that' category of farmers.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

This is getting ridiculous. What a freak you are

"Freak"?? Obviously they have weird standards for freaky things in Sweden. I assume you are a Swede because no one else would know that Brolins parents were potato farmers.

[Dameerto]

Maybe he's a fan of potatoes? (and probably gutted to see Platt go if true)