Inserting Recent Posts into Footer

I’m trying to display the 5 most recent posts of all categories in the footer. I used an existing theme and this is what is currently in the footer:

<div class="left">
			<h2>Previous entries</h2>
			<ul class="block">
<?php
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=4&offset=1');
if ($myposts) :
	foreach ($myposts as $post) :
		setup_postdata($post);
				unset($categories);
		foreach (get_the_category() as $category)
			$categories[] = $category->cat_name;
?>
				<li><a href="<?php the_permalink();?>"><span><?php the_title(); ?></span><em><?php the_date();?> in <?=implode(", ",$categories);?></em></a></li>
<?php endforeach;?>
<?php else : ?>
				<li>no entries</li>
<?php endif;?
			</ul>
</div>

But its alway showing ‘no entries’.

I know the recent posts sidebar widget works, and if better suited, how do I go about putting that into the footer?

Many thanks.