NO HO HO
Christmas is always a big event at Fiver Towers. The festivities usually begin sometime in mid-June, when the John Lewis advert comes out and turns the Fiver into such a blubbering, incoherent, sentimental mess that a comprehensive course of sedatives is administered by concerned medical professionals. The Fiver comes down from its woozy high in mid-November, at which point Granny Fiver puts the sprouts on. Then it’s the big day: presents; exchange of receipts for presents; morning pints of Board Game Argument Instigator; Queen’s speech; complaints about consistency of sprouts; Doctor Who; visit of police and confiscation of Cluedo board; and finally bed, or blackout, whichever comes first. Then it’s turkey sandwiches until May. Ho ho ho! It’s the same every year, always has been, always will be.
Or so we thought. For this grand tradition looks like coming to an enforced end in 2022. That’s because a Fifa taskforce has come to the conclusion that the World Cup in Qatar should take place in November and December, when players and fans are much less likely to become fatally paggered by heat, with the final played two days before Christmas. “Blah blah blah careful consideration of the various options blah blah blah best solution blah drone blah thank all members of the football community for their productive input,”
chuntered taskforce chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, who doesn’t much care what you think, but to be fair which football administrator has ever done that. “Blah blether drone blah.”
Sheikh Salman has hatched this little scheme with a view to not only avoiding Qatar’s stupefying 40-degree May-to-September sun, but also bodyswerving the Winter Olympics in January and February, and Ramadan in April. Not a thought on how or when to find the time for England’s traditional festive programme, Granny Fiver’s tender sprouts, or the Fiver’s thundering prescription drug habit, but admittedly those concerns are perhaps slightly parochial. Still, there were plenty of other countries also hoping that Qatar would be stripped of the tournament in favour of someone who could stage it in the summer as usual, without everyone keeling over from Temperature Pagger. But since Sheikh Salman’s recommendations will almost certainly be ratified next month by the Fifa executive committee, and backed by Uefa if not necessarily all of its members, the deal looks sealed. The 2022 World Cup is finally on, while Christmas (June 2022 to May 2023) is off! Though it should be noted that the anti-Qatar lobby has one last hope: that Fifa bigwig and bon vivant Sepp Blatter realises there’s no such thing as halal foie gras, and panics accordingly.
LIVE BIG CUP ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’ll be looking to get back in next season. The off-season comes and then I’ll be looking to work somewhere because I love it. I’ve got nothing else in my life really. I’m useless around the house” – Harry Redknapp warns risk-taking chairmen of aspirational mid-budget teams that he still has much more damage to do.
FIVER LETTERS
“Peter Snowden’s reminiscing about Ian Ormondroyd’s in yesterday’s Fiver made me recall a moment from my youth. Whilst playing for Harborough Town Juniors (a Leicestershire-based team, and probably around the under-10s, or so) we were visited by a team touring from Chernobyl, as part of a charity offering after the disaster there. As part of the day, proceedings were graced by the presence of Mr Ormondroyd, who was accompanied by Kevin Poole – then the Leicester City No9 and No1, respectively. Short shorts, short goalkeepers, and lanky strikers … cue warm, fuzzy memories of the early-90s, and the hysteria of a kit made by Fox Leisure” – Kyle Barber.
“I noticed in Friday’s Fiver that Mr McCourt referenced his ‘friend and family’. I was heartened to read that there is someone else out there who only has one person that they can call a friend. When I read of his love for Ocean Colour Scene and his penchant for elephant trampling, I was left in no doubt that we would be great together (as friends). Please pass on my offer of friendship and will be glad to see Mr McCourt refer to his amigos in plural next time around. P.S. Non-response will be taken as acceptance” – Barry Gilley (and no others).
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BITS AND BOBS
And The Ronaldo has announced he will make a return, aged 38, for USA! USA!! USA!!! NASL soccerballers The Fort Lauderdale Strikers. “It’s going to happen,” burped the big-boned Brazilian. “I have already said so. But it’s going to be a bit later, in the playoffs. For now, we are organising it all, but I am going to have a [weight] goal.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Hartlepool’s Adam Boyd in 2006. ‘I didn’t think he was a League One Bergkamp or an East Durham Van Basten, I knew he was the Frank Worthington of the 21st century.’ Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images
“Six Feet two, with long, black hair, a sunbed tan and a twinkle in his eye, Hartlepool’s Adam Boyd was devastating in possession with a keen eye for goal. If only he’d been able to run he’d have become very famous indeed.”
The Fiver’s SWMs section has missed Harry Pearson.
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‘WHY DOES THE SUN COME UP, OR ARE THE STARS JUST PINHOLES IN THE CURTAIN OF THE NIGHT?’
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