In 1820, C.C. Colton coined the expression “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. And now, dear readers, FootballCynic wishes to warn you of the need to be more careful. There are at least three other football cynics claiming to be the real thing out there in cyberspace, so don’t be fooled by these impostors.

The first to discount is our American friend, FootballCynic, who would probably assume that “offside” referred to the ball going off the side of the pitch. He briefly blogged in 2007 about American Football and probably thinks this website should be called “SoccerCynic”. He didn’t reply to our email when we first started back in 2007.

Next, we come to a BBC website poster, who had rather a lot to say during the last General Election campaign. Why he stole the name “FootballCynic” when commenting on boring political arguments is anyone’s guess. Perhaps, he felt he was a political football.

And now, we have the latest blog called FootballCynic, which is anything about cynical and has one article on Harry Redknapp. The website is not connected with footballcynic.com in any way. Its dubious content is littered with misuse of the apostrophe. It will not be long before there will be ampersands littered through the blog, we suspect – and look what good ampersands were to Rushden & Diamonds.

Still, FootballCynic has recruited some new journalists, who will, in the interests of cynical football journalism, be hacking the phones of the above impostors.

Below, the first picture you find that has not appeared on this blog if you type in “Football Cynic” and Google images. No sign of any of Harry Redknapps’ players’ though.