A PUNCHY MILD CHEDDAR
The Fiver is generally forbidden from speaking to the people who work on the fashion desk at Big Paper. Ever since it tried to launch its own rival fashion blog, Fashion Fun With The Fiver, it has been given the silent treatment, apart from the times when its COMPLETELY DELIBERATE decision to turn up to work wearing no trousers was greeted with vicious pointing and hoots of laughter. Even worse, it was wearing odd socks. With sandals. It was unacceptable. The Fiver was ostracised, a social pariah, a hapless figure of fun rather than the loaded and loved editor of Fashion Fun With The Fiver.
But then The Fiver read that socks and sandals are so in right now. So, actually, despite what all the haters claimed, you’re actually reading the thoughts of a fashion icon. A fashion icon with its ear pressed firmly to the ground, which is why this is the place to find out that the world’s leading gilet manufacturers have all announced plans to move their main offices to Birmingham, in light of the news that Aston Villa have brought in Tactics Tim as Paul Lambert’s replacement. Tactics Tim loves a gilet. Hopefully he’s going to get a tiger-printed one soon.
But that’s enough about fashion for now, especially as Sherwood saw the gilet gags coming. “Effing hell, I thought it would be two seconds before I heard a gilet joke,” he said at his unveiling today. “It was one!” Who knew that he was so familiar with The Fiver’s work?
So we move on to the football. Ambitious Paul is out and the man
who lists mild cheddar as his favourite cheese is tasked with leading Villa away from the relegation mire. In an ironic twist of fate, of course, Villa’s football has been about as interesting as mild cheddar in the past three years, but Tactics Tim is convinced that he can make them more punchy, like a mature cheddar, say, or even an extra mature cheddar. He had a watching brief as Villa beat Leicester City in the FA Cup yesterday and he saw room for improvement. “There’s a bit of apprehension about the place obviously, which comes with losing matches, so we need to play with a bit more freedom, get the shackles off,” Tactics said. They looked a bit tentative. Let’s have a go fighting and start throwing a few punches ourselves.”
Naturally some people have been wondering out loud if Sherwood knows what he’s talking about. They’re not convinced by the man whose CV boasts the highest win percentage ratio of any Tottenham Hotspur manager, suggesting that he’s busily pulling off a magnificent con trick and that he hasn’t got the first clue about management. But Tactics isn’t having any of it. “I think experience is overrated, to be honest,” he said. “There are a lot of poor, experienced managers and there are a lot of good ones.” And as The Fiver has proved today with the launch of its award-snaffling fashion blog, you don’t necessarily need to know what you’re doing in order to succeed in life. Good old-fashioned honest ignorance of our chosen subject is the way forward.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I sent myself off. It’s impossible to be more embarrassed than that. There was nothing more I could do so I went to the dressing room” – For a man who stuck out Brazil’s 7-1 thumping by Germany until the bitter end, The Fiver can only imagine the horror show Gremio put on for Big Phil to decide he couldn’t stay to watch his new side lose their third match in four.
AND YET STILL MORE OF YOUR MUNDANE ENCOUNTERS WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE
“Back in 2006 I worked in a bar in Wimbledon Village. One night I managed to spill a beer all over Jody Morris. I defended myself with a rather honest ‘sorry … I’m just really crap at my job.’ He responded with ‘don’t worry mate … So am I.’ I’ve had nothing but respect for him ever since” – Andrew Penpraze.
“One gloriously sunny Dublin day when I was a wee sprite, I was playing football in the grounds of the Eden pub. There were several people drinking at the tables outside when one elderly gentleman called me over to his table and told me that another fella at his table played for Ireland, and that I should let him sign my ball. I looked down at my bright orange ‘Cup Champions’ ball and back at the lanky fella being pointed at. ‘No he doesn’t,’ I said, instantly spotting their ruse. They tried to convince me but I wasn’t having any of it. I went back to playing ball before retiring into the pub where I asked my dad, ‘Does Niall Quinn play for Ireland?’. ‘Yes,’ my dad replied, ‘why?’, ‘because he’s outside and wants to sign my ball’. Under the encouragement of my dad and several other drinkers within earshot, I ran back outside to get my ball signed, but alas they were gone. I later learned the elderly gentleman who beckoned me over was Maurice Setters” – Alan Belton.
“My encounter with a famous footballer happened several years ago in the Tradeston area of Glasgow. After a Friday night on the sauce, a mate and I ventured out the next morning in search of a fry-up to mitigate the hangover that was already starting to loom large on the horizon. I decided to stop at a wee newsagents en route to the local greasy spoon. In the shop, I noticed that none other than the former Celtic and St Mirren striker, Frank McGarvey was in front of me in the queue buying a newspaper. As he went to pay, he dropped his £1 coin then watched in horror as it slowly rolled under an ancient photocopier in the corner. McGarvey insisted we help retrieve the shiny nugget from under the weighty beast. Cue us, like two burst couches, straining to lift the machine while the ex-Celt tried to retrieve the coin from the gap with the chocolate slide-rule a.k.a a Curly Wurly” – Chris Collins.
“I once bought a car from Sven Habermann, car salesman and third-choice keeper for Canada at the 1986 World Cup. It was a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire. The basic model in blue. Surely that makes me the king of mundane? Both for the player I met and the choice of vehicle” – Mark Ireland.
FIVER LETTERS
“If Jon Gerrard (Friday’s Fiver letters) is going to put together a solid team, he could do worse than adding O’Ronald, Hernan O’Cresp, and perhaps even Luis O’Fig. I briefly considered O’Din O’Baggi, but I think he’s already declared for Norway” – Liam McGuigan.
“I can’t believe Harry Markham didn’t win letter o’the day (Friday’s mundane encounters). It reminds me of the time M People inexplicably beat Blur’s Parklife to the Mercury Music Prize” – Stephen Yoxall (three-time letter o’the day winner).
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BITS AND BOBS
Should PSG’s players spot an eye-gouging, pundit-baiting, referee-infuriating, opposition-jabbing presence on the touchline when Chelsea visit for their Big Cup match, Laurent Blanc has advised his men to merely raise their eyebrows in the Gallic style. “I know José Mourinho a bit … so my players need to be cold, they need to be calm, and they mustn’t react,”
Blanc shrugged.
Meanwhile, in perspective news, Blanc has criticised striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic for taking off his shirt to reveal tattoos drawn on him to raise awareness of world famine. “It worked because it made the front page of every website in the world, so in that sense it was very successful for him and for the foundation. But it cost us a yellow card,”
grumbled the charitable Frenchman.
In news that has all the hallmarks of a cheap Bond movie knock-off, Thai businessman Bee Taechaubol has reportedly offered Silvio Berlusconi
€1bn for half of Meeeeelan.
And the Colombian side Deportivo Cali were forced to cadge a lift to their match against Deportes Tolima with the police after local El Bill pulled over the team coach and discovered the driver had been a bit busy on the Tin. “Our squad had to get to the stadium in a police bus after a routine stop on the road detected that the bus driver was over the legal limit of alcohol,”
sniffed a sober club suit.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING!
STILL WANT MORE?
PSG are hobbled by injuries and attitude-knack before the Big Cup tie with Chelsea,
tootles Paul Doyle.
It was carnival weekend at the Rhine derby, but men in boiler suits storming the pitch kind of spoiled the jovial atmosphere,
sulks Andy Brassell.
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RIP TONY HART
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