Wednesday 2 May 2012

An open letter to The Sun from a football fan

Dear ‘The Sun’,

From time to time, the nation needs an organisation or publication to stand up and speak for the little guy – the man (or woman) whose voice is never heard and who, if left to their own devices, would never be able to impress their true feelings upon the powers-that-be. It can be a hugely important part of the democratic process, and one capable of significant and powerful change.

However, that ‘voice of the people’ isn’t you, pal. Having been appalled by your jingoistic, poorly-written, ill-researched and transparently-manipulated nonsense for many years now, I would just like to clarify to you that The Sun does NOT actually speak for the nation. Don’t you DARE to assume that you understand what I think or feel about any particular situation, because you and I have about as much in common as Linda McCartney and Bernard Matthews.

Your coverage of the England management role is the latest example of your work that leads me to the inevitable conclusion that it can only be produced by a finely-trained team of chimpanzees mashing away at spittle-flecked keyboards. Some breaking news for you, guys - it just so happens that not only do those with more understanding of the subject (ie the FA) think differently; so do large swathes of the population.

Here’s the truth. Virtually nobody I know wanted Harry Redknapp as England manager. In fact, we’ve watched aghast as the man that you think is perfectly suited for the biggest job in English football has revealed some of the following flaws (all actual quotes):

From Harry himself:

“I've a big problem - I can't write. I write like a two-year-old and I can't spell. I can't work a computer, I don't know what an email is, I have never sent a fax and I've never even sent a text message.”

At this stage, it isn’t hard for any of us to see why you employ him as a columnist. The main shock is that he hasn’t risen to editor yet. But amazingly, things manage to get worse.

According to Harry: “Benoit Assou-Ekotto probably doesn't even know we are playing Chelsea.” Well, he might have a clue if you’d spent the WEEK before the game running through the complex stuff that defenders might need to know, like who he should be marking and other amazing insights that might help his performance, Harry.

In the words of Rafael van der Vaart: “There are no long and boring speeches about tactics, like I was used to at Real Madrid. There is a board in our dressing room but Harry doesn’t write anything on it. It’s not that we do nothing – but it’s close to that.”

From the mouth of Gareth Bale: “Van der Vaart took the corner and I headed it in but it was a total fluke – we don’t practice corners or have routines or anything.” (this would be less worrying if Spurs didn’t have one of the worst records for scoring from corners in the country – at one point this season they went 133 corners without one leading to a goal)

But hey, BOLLOCKS to all that – we don’t like Roy cos he SPEAKS FUNNY! HE CAN’T PRONOUNCE HIS ‘R’S! THAT’S HILARIOUS! And as for the fact that he has had the sheer TEMERITY to learn FIVE foreign languages? Well, in your own words ‘nobody likes a smart-arse’.

You really are an odious, reprehensible, grotty little rag. You gleefully contribute to a culture that promotes and rewards ignorance and obnoxious behavior, while belittling anyone who appears to present an intellectual challenge to the average knuckle-dragging white van man.

Before a ball has been kicked, you have taken it upon yourselves to suggest that the country is furious at Hodgson’s appointment when, quite simply, we aren’t. You are. You are furious because Redknapp plays your game and allows you to perpetuate the pompous myth that what you do is in some way important to the running of the game, you are furious because you pay him as a columnist, and you are furious because you’ve spent the last three months screaming EXCLUSIVE every time you mentioned his ‘inevitable’ appointment.

I’m not furious. I’m quite pleased. I’d rather we still had Fabio or Sven, to be honest, but you did a cracking job of convincing the world that we all wanted rid of them too (we didn’t, just to clarify.)

Today, your headline speaks everything of the boorish playground bully. Jealous of the quiet, studious academic with plenty of success behind them, you’ve resorted to hateful, personal insults that any right-minded individual would find disgusting. It’s nasty, unnecessary, unfair bullying – don’t dare try to dress it up as informed comment.

To claim that such language and sentiments speak for us all is tantamount to libel. I don’t think like you. I don’t act like you. In fact, I plain just don’t like you.

I don’t expect a response, because I’ve a feeling you’ll only use it to laugh at me for wearing glasses or not having cool trainers on. Now fuck off and free up some jobs for proper journalists.

Thursday 29 March 2012

Fat women with butterfly tattoos

Yeah, because absolutely nothing sums up your inner pixie like the most delicate of nature's creatures you massive fat fucking troglodyte. 'I know I may look like a swamp donkey, but I'm a dainty little thing on the inside'.

Are you fucking bollocks, you fat ugly heffalump. Extra hatred accrued for having the tattoo on the small of your back, the top of your neck or the top of your tit.

Now fuck off back to your burger.

Thursday 9 February 2012

Why our football team is going to the dogs

Taking a look at the players currently available to whomever the new England manager will be, it could conceivably consist of the following XI – all of whom had to be relied on by Capello at some time or other during his time in charge:


1) David James – had an affair behind wife’s back with a Hollyoaks star.
2) Glen Johnson – stole a toilet seat from B&Q
3) Ashley Cole – cheats on his wife and sends naked images to other woman
4) Steven Gerrard – caught on CCTV twatting a DJ
5) John Terry – escaped jail after assault and affray in 2002, mocked grieving American tourists in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, had an affair with his team-mate’s wife and has been filmed shouting racist abuse at a fellow professional
6) Rio Ferdinand – consoled himself on missing out for Euro 2000 by going on holiday and filming an orgy with his team mates
7) Jermaine Pennant – jailed for drink driving and has actually had to play while wearing an electronic tag.
8) Frank Lampard – a co-performer in Rio’s sex tape.
9) Peter Crouch – uses teenage whores behind his girlfriend’s back.
10) Wayne Rooney- uses granny whores behind his wife’s back
11) Jermaine Defoe – had sex in his car in broad daylight just yards from a full playground

And apparently, Fabio Capello has ‘failed to motivate them’. What utterly shameful, embarrassing bollocks. The man has won titles in Italy and Spain, as well as the Champion’s League. Are we to assume that he does not know how to motivate? Or is it fairer to say he is used to working with committed professionals capable of concentrating on the roles he asks them to fill, meaning he can concentrate on tactical gameplans to maximize his team’s strengths and minimize the opposition’s?

To succeed as England manager, it would seem the most important things you can do is to get up first and make the players their Coco Pops, telling them that they are mummy’s special soldier and only playing a formation that suits them and lets them run around and kick the ball as much as they want in the way that they want to do it. Team briefings should not interrupt anyone texting their mistress/arranging a visit from a whore and there is no need to concentrate on the finer points of tactical play. Training should be focused 100% around RUNNING THROUGH BRICK WALLS and nothing else because that, ultimately, is how they will be judged.

Because the manager is foreign, he could have absolutely no pride in the shirt whatsoever, unlike the squad of English born, English-bred Neanderthals who would never leave these glorious shores if it wasn’t for the inconvenience of away games. They demonstrate their pride by adhering to no moral code whatsoever and placing themselves and their egos at the very centre of the universe.

When they inevitably are found wanting when coming up against disciplined, intelligent professionals who are able to work with their coach to identify and execute a gameplan, the will stare around in bewildered buffoonery looking for someone else to blame for this seemingly inexplicable glitch in the matrix. Sometimes it is the fault of the officials, but as long as it is someone foreign that doesn’t understand just how important the bulldog spirit is then the world is back on an even keel and we can all look forward to repeating the entire fuckshow at the next available opportunity.

Fabio Capello is not to blame for this disgusting state of affairs any more than Sven was (indeed, the two most successful managers in England’s history when judged on number of wins and tournaments qualified for, as opposed to the percentage of brick walls run through, pints of blood spilled and decibels achieved while singing our national anthem/booing the enemy’s opposition’s.

Nope, the reason English football is in the shit is because we’ve engineered a system where they earn too much money to worry or care about anything. Ever. Lacking the discipline or intelligence of European footballers, we hoik them out of school aged about 6 and create monstrous personalities that are doomed to end in inevitable Shakespearean tragedy.

Imagine doing your job safe in the knowledge that if you and your colleagues are absolutely shit, your boss will be the one that gets fired. That you don’t actually need to justify your salary through your performance, because you can’t be sacked. That even if somehow your boss does look like succeeding in forcing you out, another company doing exactly the same thing will probably pay you even more money than the sum you already fail to justify.

Do you think you’d thrive and excel, or become lazy, arrogant and un-motivated? I think a whole lot of people would fall into the latter category – and every single professional footballer would be there with you.

There are, of course, English footballers out there who are committed to improving themselves and show the passion and motivation that are needed for success. What they need is for those who lack those characteristics to stop taking up valuable squad space that could be given to someone who actually gives a shit.

Poor old Fabio tried to treat the bunch of miscreants currently disgracing the Three Lions like adults, in the belief that they could change. If he made a major mistake during his tenure, that was it. But had he summarily dismissed them all and started from scratch with a new squad, he’d have been slaughtered by the media and such inexperience would also have been laid painfully bare for all to see when put to the sword by world football’s finest.

What we need to do is give the obnoxious twats that currently infest our team one final hurrah (or boo) and then rebuild. Write off the next world cup because we don’t have the kind of experienced leaders left for the new generation to look up to. Behaviourally, we are two generations of footballer away from having any kind of chance at a major tournament because we simply cannot conduct ourselves in a manner that enables a solid infrastructure to be built around the team upon which success can be built.

I just hope the Tom Cleverleys, the Jack Wilshires and the Daniel Sturridges are watching and learning from just how wrong the ‘golden generation’ that preceded them got it. If they can be part of a new England environment that rewards intelligence, teamwork and commitment rather than massaging egos and referee personality battles on the covers of the nation’s tabloids then we just MIGHT have a chance.

But don’t for one second think that Fabio Cappello’s departure will change any of this. It makes it much, much worse. Fabio, you’re best off out of it – you deserve to work with much, much better than what England had to offer you.