Football but underground...

A very kind and generous friend gave me an early Birthday present on Friday. After a disastrous cooking incident at lunch I spent some time looking at this beauty. I would put it up there with my quality World map.

The Football Association and Transport for London have created this football tube map. It's plotted identically to the original & shows the 367 stations across the 14 lines renamed as football's greats.

Footballers past and present have been used with a number of players having special relevance to their particular station. In the map, Leytonstone is David Beckham to mark the place of his birth & Upton Park becomes 1966 World Cup winning captain, Bobby Moore.

The lines themselves also hold significance, with the Docklands Light Railway using names of pre-war players such as Everton’s Dixie Dean. The Metropolitan line has become the Managers line with Wembley Park named after the 1966 World Cup winning manager Alf Ramsey. Other famous names include Sir Alex Ferguson, Roy Hodgson and Graham Taylor. The Goalscorers line (Central line) recognises poachers, target men and cultured number 10s, with Holborn, Tottenham Court Road and Lancaster Gate becoming Geoff Hurst, Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton respectively. The District line is now represented by central defenders with midfielders replacing stations on the Piccadilly line.

The Circle line has become ‘Giants of the Wold Cup’ featuring the likes of Pele and Maradona.

Truly brilliant and will be on a wall tomorrow but I'll need to find some gloves to we when nailing it in.