IT WAS ALL YELLOW
Viewers of last night’s transfer deadline programme on Sky Sports will have considered the decision to splash the colour yellow everywhere for the purposes of branding most apt. A modernist, avant-garde, abstract take on what happens when you mix p1ss and wind. Yes, the whole shebang was a noisy waste of time, promising much and delivering little, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Jim White Day, some people call it. Yes, that’s it, Jim White Day. The tale signifying nothing told by an idiot is named after Jim White.
As nearly always, the event was a mammoth letdown, albeit only to the few folk remaining in this world who are over six years old and still genuinely excited about the prospect of something actually happening. And they all work in television or newspapers. Or go by the name of The Fiver; hey, we never claimed to be above all this. But weirdly enough, the minute the window slammed shut and everyone in the media began asking themselves questions about where their lives are heading and how much longer they can keep kidding themselves like this, or at least should have started along that particular journey of spiritual cleansing, things suddenly became a little more interesting.
First it was revealed that Manchester United
had agreed a loan deal for Andy Kellett of Bolton Wanderers, who by the looks of the snaps we’ve seen is either the lead singer of a Haircut One Hundred tribute act, or a right-back last seen in action while on loan with Plymouth Argyle. That refreshing lower-league snatch was followed by
a series of pioneering photographs featuring new Everton winger Aaron Lennon, who arrived at Goodison with a right gob on, and subsequently made no effort whatsoever to feign the slightest smidgen of happiness or excitement, a deadpan look on his coupon as he held up the famous blue shirt just high enough to obscure his slumped shoulders. And then Liverpool announced an extension to Philippe Coutinho’s contract, which means
he’ll be at the Anfield club until 2020 rather than 2018, an extra 24 months in which to learn how to shoot, and perhaps even do a good shot during a match one day.
But it was all swept aside this afternoon, on a great yellow tide, by the news that ‘Arry Redknapp, star of many a transfer deadline day broadcast,
has informed QPR that he is doing one. “I need immediate surgery on my knee which is going to stop me from doing my job in the coming weeks,” is the best that he’s come up with. “It means I won’t be able to be out on the training pitch every day, and if I can’t give 100% I feel it’s better for someone else to take over the reins.” Speculation that Redknapp, that famous deadline-day junkie, has quit in a fit of pique after failing to land the aforementioned Lennon, Emmanuel Adebayor or Matt Jarvis is rife. But in fairness the knee excuse seems perfectly plausible. Holding the clutch at its biting point while conducting all those lengthy kerbside interviews over the years must have taken a terrible toll on his leg, after all.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“All [the] goals that went in were very hard for me to take. I’m from a club that play big derbies all the times, St Pauli in Hamburg, so I know how wrong it is to lose a derby and concede six goals. I kept telling myself: ‘[Eff – Fiver Bad Word Ed]! Just don’t concede another goal.’ For every goal that went in I thought about the club and the supporters that were losing a derby. That’s rubbish and I did really feel for them” –
Arvid Schenk tells Emanuele Giulianelli his tale of playing one game in three months at Dundee – a 6-2 derby defeat to United – before leaving.
A NEW SERIES OF MUNDANE ENCOUNTERS WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE, STARRING YOU, THE READER …
“The rolling of the ball of ‘Mundane Meetings with Famous People’ (yesterday’s Fiver letters) put me in mind of attending a Stiff Little Fingers gig at Kentish Town Forum (formerly and more properly appended with ‘… & Country Club’). As I was exiting the gents, in came Stuart Pearce in a plaster cast and on crutches (he’d broken his leg playing for West Ham). I didn’t say anything and certainly didn’t offer to help” – Kevin Denham.
“I once saw Anton Ferdinand in the Sutton (Greater London) B&Q at the height of his QPR heyday. What? Oh. The elderly B&Q welcome man told me that Anton was a regular there, one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard” – Tom Dyson.
“At Ikea Warrington I was in the queue to buy my tea-lights and so forth, when I noticed that erstwhile Liverpool reserve keeper Pegguy Arphexad was in front of me. The assistant passed him a pen to sign his credit card thing, and to my great delight he dropped it” – Tim Jones.
“My friend and I crossed a road off Lord Street in Southport aged around 15. Who let us cross in safety, but none other than Gary Lineker sitting supremely in a white 3-litre Toyota Supra. We waved at him as we crossed and then, on reaching the other side, he gave us a courteous and friendly nod, to which we responded with V-signs. Our career paths have taken very different directions since” – Patrick Wilkinson.
… AND THE REST OF THE FIVER LETTERS
“Surely Sky are missing a trick? To guarantee transfer froth, they should keep £15m aside per club that can only be spent on the final day of a transfer window, a use-it-or-lose-it trolley dash. Come on Sky, don’t let the tail wag the dog, make it happen. Let us end the dispiriting spectacle of Transfer Deadline Day frothlessness” – Paul Reaney.
“This season, every half-time at the Emirates Stadium features three Junior Gunners trying to score a penalty. Every time, Gunnersaurus is in goal and he hasn’t saved a single one. Sometimes he seems to dive out of the way. How many more chances is he going to be given? Surely Wojciech Szczesny could do with the practice?” – Paul Harris.
“Now that Manchester United have added a much-needed defender, can I ask any Bolton fans out there: what’s he like at taking corners?” – James Ellis.
“If I may call back to two letters at once, one from John Boyd regarding the Rich Hall/Diego Costa looky-likey situation and the Darren Hilton request for a new ‘Mundane Encounters With Famous People’ section (yesterday’s Fiver letters), I met Rich Hall in an elevator. We talked about fly fishing. I didn’t see much of a similarity between him and Diego Costa since he did not use my leg as a footstool to leave the elevator” – Todd Van Allen.
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BITS AND BOBS
Farewell, sweet prince!
Anderson has finally found his way out of Old Trafforddown to a nearby dock, where he’s ascended the cruiseliner Do One’s gangplank on a one-way ticket to Internacional. “He signs a four-year contract,” parped a club statement, which was all about business.
Hatem Ben Arfa has got the funk on after being refused international clearance to play for Nice. “The solution may be to go abroad,”
he sighed. “Would I go to Russia? I’m ready to go to the north pole just to play football again. But for now I can’t really speculate – I just have to think.”
West Ham face potential expulsion from the FA Cup after fielding Diafra Sakho in the win at Bristol City, even though they’d declared him unavailable to play for Senegal in the Africa Cup of Nations due to knack. “Diafra Sakho and West Ham United vigorously deny that they have acted in breach of Fifa regulations,” sniffed a club statement.
A national court judge has accepted the request of a state prosecutor to investigate Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu
in a case of alleged tax fraud over the signing of Neymar.
And England Women’s all-time top scorer, Kelly Smith,
has called it a day after a 20-year career. “I consider Kelly Smith to be England’s best-ever player and feel honoured to have had her as a team-mate,” said skipper Steph Houghton.
STILL WANT MORE?
The Pope’s Newc O’Rangers signed five Newcastle players just before the transfer deadline, you say?
Hmmm, hmmms Louise Taylor.
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