MAN SCORES PENALTY
The Fiver loves a list. Especially top-five lists. Top-five shopping-centres lists. Top-five people-who-have-screwed-the-Fiver-over-and-will-live-to-regret-it lists. Top- five things-to-do-on-a-Thursday-night-instead-of-watching-Big-Vase lists. The latest one of the last one is a good one. It goes: 5) Rewatch Spice World; 4) Get trampled on by an elephant; 3) Look at Twitter; 2) Listen to Ocean Colour Scene; 1) Spend time with friend and family. With all of those tasks undertaken and Big Vase duly avoided, the Fiver was pretty pooped and ready for some solid sack time. But with all the bleating going on in the background, it lay there, more awake than a kid’s programme hosted by Timmy Mallett, mentally updating that second list.
When morning finally came and a red-eyed Fiver investigated the cause of the noise, it seemed Mario Balotelli was to blame. You see the striker struck a late penalty, Liverpool won a game because of that late penalty and that’s what everyone was getting so animated about. Except it wasn’t. You see, dear reader, there was a bit of a donnybrook before the penalty could be taken. Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge were determined to grab the glory and so ensued the sort of tug-of-war with a ball generally reserved for the type of special videos Weird Uncle Fiver watches alone on a Saturday night. The problem with this – the penalty, not the videos, each to his own and all that – is that Henderson has never actually scored one in his entire career and Sturridge’s last effort against Everton has just passed Neptune and shows no signs of letting up. Balotelli, though, is cooler than a fish’s fart when it comes to them and 93% of the time, he scores. So instead of being praised for taking responsibility and pushing one inexperienced taker and one no-hoper out of the way before giving his side a chance of going further in a European competition, people are droning on about disrespect.
Well it was probably just some jumped-up tweeter looking to generate controversy and more followers, right? It’s not like his own captain was doing it on live, prime-time TV in front of a shedload of viewers, right? Oh! “I think Mario has been a bit mischievous by stepping in front of him [Henderson] and going against what the manager’s planned before the game” hung-out-to-dry $tevie MBE. “Credit to him, he’s scored. But it would be very interesting in that dressing room if he’d have missed that penalty. It’s not nice to see when players are taking it off each other and stuff, for me, rules are rules and codes are codes inside a dressing room and when a manager selects a penalty-taker that player should take it. Jordan is the captain and Mario showed Jordan a bit of disrespect there.”
Afterwards, Brendan took to the mic and joked “[$tevie MBE] should’ve taken it” and he smiled and it was all a bit awkward because it was a bad joke and no one laughed and it was late and everyone just wanted to go home. Balotelli, meanwhile, took to that site designed to let people make it look like they’re having a good time by putting a filter on a poorly-taken photo when inside they are screaming for any sort of human contact to help ease the pain of loneliness, to say “Thank you hendo for let me take the penalty. Stop drama now.” That seems like some pretty good advice. Let’s stop the drama. Now.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
THE LAST (WE PROMISE) OF YOUR MUNDANE ENCOUNTERS WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE
“Some years ago I was drinking alone in a pub on Tottenham Court Road when I fell into conversation with a Swedish bloke. The subject soon turned to football and, being a Leicester fan, I immediately asked him if he knew of Pontus Kamark, at the time enjoying a highly successful spell at Filbert Street under Martin O’Neill. To my befuddled delight and amazement he pulled out his phone, called a contact and passed the handset to me. ‘Who is speaking please?’ I heard on the other end. ‘Er … Steve … who is this please?’ I stuttered. ‘It’s Pontus Kamark’ came the reply ‘but isn’t this (Swedish bloke’s) phone?’ There followed a couple of minutes of very pleasant chit-chat where he seemed genuinely pleased to hear from a supporter and I gently chastised him for a shocking miss against Spurs the week earlier. I hung up the phone and handed it back, and to be honest remember nothing of the afternoon beyond that point” – Steve Smith.
“Wandering down a busy London street the day after another disappointing England performance, my co-Liverpool supporting mate Pete and I were wondering whether Emile Heskey had been subbed the night before due to injury, or just because he was a bit crap. Luckily, David Davies of the FA was walking towards us. He was happy to confirm that Emile wasn’t injured at all, and that he would be available to be crap for the Reds at the weekend. Phew!” – Ian Martindale.
“As a seven-year-old back in the mid-eighties, I was given the opportunity to hone my football skills at Newcastle’s summer soccer school, the highlight of which would be the appearance of a couple of players at the end of the week to join in a game. The anticipation was high as Friday approached and the two players that would be joining us were revealed as jinking fan favourite Peter Beardsley along with the ‘Peter Crouch of the small shorts era’ George Reilly. As the coaches revealed who would be playing on each team, there was an audible groan from the team that had been awarded Reilly. As Beardsley stood there openly laughing at this reaction, poor old George looked crestfallen. Even as a seven-year-old I felt bad for him” – Ben Graham.
FIVER LETTERS
“While nodding in agreement to Fiver readers’ descriptions of agricultural and industrial tackles, I leap in to suggest that the progression to ‘technological’ tackling is misunderstood. Technology today is centered on virtual reality and in football we have progressed to the ‘virtual tackle’, as demonstrated by Wayne Rooney against Preston. The virtual tackle has all the outcomes of a real tackle (yellow card, free kick, crunching to the turf, etc) but does not actually take place” – John Daykin.
“I’m in full agreement with Todd Van Allen. This series of mundane meetings has got too far. At least Fiver can say it has more than two readers. But how many of these mundane meetings are true? And can anything be more mundane than my having attended the same school (Fatima College) in Trinidad with cricket great Brian Lara? Even being in detention together?” – Nigel Assam.
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BITS AND BOBS
Chelsea have unreservedly apologised to Souleymane S, the man who was racially abused by Chelsea fans on the Paris Métro, and have invited him to a match at Stamford Bridge. “We feel ashamed but maybe we shouldn’t because I refuse to be connected with these people,” said José Mourinho.
Roman Abramovich is so happy that Chelsea are going to win the league by 434 points and get knocked out of Big Cup at the semi-final stage in controversial circumstances that he has presented
a shiny new contract for José Mourinho to sign.
Thierry Henry has taken up a coaching role with the Arsenal youth team. Could he be in line to replace Arsène Wenger? In a word: no.
And in heartwarming story of the day, Jay Beatty, an 11-year-old Queen’s Celtic fan who has Down’s syndrome, has won Scotland’s goal of the month award!
Huzzah!
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