What a goal! What a man! What a name!

The origin of names is always a fascinating business, if my mailbag is anything to go by, so once again I have hired the compendious memory of Dr Vernon Monicker, the expert on names, to explain to you where your name came from - or anyone else's, come to that.

Hello, Dr Monicker.

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Hello. Could I have your question, please?

Well, the other day I was watching "University Challenge" on TV and one of the questions was this: "Which famous Italian footballer playing in England has a name which, in his native Italian, means `radishes'?"

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Is that your question?

No, not yet. Anyway, the woman on University Challenge who had to answer the question obviously didn't know much about football, but she knew a bit about vegetables, so she made a guess and said: "Radicchio". This was a brave try, but it was wrong on two counts. One, there is no footballer called Radicchio. Two, in Italian the word "radicchio" doesn't mean "radish" - it means "chicory"!

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: And you want to know if there are any English footballers called Chicory?

No, no, I haven't come to the question yet. Anyway, the answer to the question about the Italian for "radishes" was Ravanelli, and this got me thinking about the whole business of footballers' names, what they mean and where they come from. For instance, why is it that French footballers who come here quite often have Italian derived names (like Ginola or Cantona) but Italian footballers over here never have names with French origins?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Do I detect a question?

Not yet. The obvious answer to that is that immigration in Europe tends to be in a northerly direction. Poverty drives people northwards away from the sun to look for jobs. Except of course in the rare cases where English footballers go to work in Italy, like Paul Ince, and I often wonder if the Italians see "Ince" as an Italian name and pronounce him "In-chay"?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Shall we treat that as a question?

No. My question is about the Chelsea player, Zola. What does Zola mean in Italian?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Nothing. There is no such word. There is a word "zolla", though, which means "turf, clod, sod". Di Matteo just means "Matthew" of course.

I didn't ask that.

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: I know, but when you've finally got a word in edgeways, you don't like to let go. The name Matthew occurs all round Europe. Mathias is the German form ...

Ah! Another footballer!

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Well, fancy that. And Mateus in Portugal ...

So "Mateus Rose" means "Pink Matthew"?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Exactly.

Of course, Matthew has a distinguished pedigree in football. Our greatest ever footballer was called Matthews ...

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: And our greatest ever manager was called Matthew.

Was he?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Yes. Matt Busby.

Nice one!

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Back in Stanley Matthews's day, of course, there weren't any foreign footballers with foreign names playing in England,which was a terrible thing.

Why?

Dr Vernon Monicker writes: Because it meant that English people never learnt how to pronounce foreign names. The great thing about having people like Cantona and Ginola around is that at last people have learnt that you tend to stress French names on the last syllable. For years people have been pronouncing French names as if they follow English rules. They talked about SIMone de BEAUvoir and EDith PIaf. It was only the ones with monosyllabic names which got away with it, like Gide and Sartre. But the other day I heard the TV commentators calling the French goalkeeper Bernard LaMA, not LAma, as would have happened in Stanley Matthews's day. Wonderful! It made my day.

But the best thing of all is the arrival of Ruud Gullit. To my amazement, the British public have learnt that the G at the start of a name can be pronounced H.

And they have taken to it like lambs. If the English go on at this rate, they will soon start pronouncing Welsh names correctly.

Dr Vernon Monicker will be back soon, so keep those questions rolling in - though preferably not on footballers' names ...!