Here are a few earlier attempts at this commentary-type behaviour, transferred from a defunct blog . . .
I Don’t Wish To Gloat, But. . . (02/02/2005)
Last night at Highbury, in an unusual occurrence at an Arsenal/Man Utd meeting, a football match broke out sporadically. . .
The Battle of the Buffet has clearly not been forgotten. Working on the flawed assumption that the problem with the Old Trafford bust up was that it happened after the game, Patrick Vieira decides to do things by the book and wind up Gary Neville in the tunnel before play has actually started, and then makes the mistake of going toe-to-toe with Roy Keane. When will he learn? Patrick Vieira, at his best, is a world class box-to-box midfielder, capable of turning defence into attack in a split second. Roy Keane, at his best, is a force of nature. Do not attempt to f*** with him, you WILL lose.
Abjuring violence for the thespian’s’ art, Ljundberg decides to fall over whenever Heinze comes within five feet of him (although to be fair to the big Swedish poof he was only anticipating the inevitable – Gabriel Heinze could tackle a Sherman tank and get a yellow card for being too rough) and Heinze goes in the book after about 10 seconds.
With less than a minute on the clock, Ashley Cole is hit by a sniper’s bullet in the United penalty area and goes down like he’s been. . . er, shot. . . Roy Keane is the closest feasible culprit at six feet away (it is later discovered that the bullet was meant for Keane but that – as with their players – the Highbury sniper was woefully inadequate. Keane expressed sympathy in a post-match interview, saying “To be fair to the lad, it’s very hard to fire a high-powered rifle with six fingers on your trigger hand. Throws the aim something terrible.”). The referee completely ignores Cole, a concept that Cristiano Ronaldo finds appealling and takes up for the remainder of the game.
In an effort to distract us from the notion that some football might actually be played, Rooney hilariously taunts Pires about his facial hair – or whatever it is that Pires has. Graham Poll (in an unfamiliar role as a responsible referee) has a word. Rooney, having spent the previous weeks watching DVDs of Goodfellas, Casino, Richard Prior Live & the complete works of Roy “Chubby” Brown spends the rest of the match unleashing a volley of foul-mouthed obscenity that should have seen him sent off, to the showers and to bed without any supper. Poll, apparently suffering sporadic deafness, lets him off with a yellow card, but bans him from watching Blue Peter for a month. Rooney takes solace in his formidable collection of Danish Erotica videos.
More uncharacteristic restraint follows as Rooney pulls out of a challenge on Patrick “I should have gone to Real Madrid before they realised Gerrard is better than me, now I’m stuck at this sinking ship” Vieira in the middle of the park. Crucially, however, Rooney forgets to tell Vieira that he hasn’t, in fact, tackled him and the whining Gallic beanpole goes down in a writhing heap. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is greatly impressed, but reluctantly informs Vieira that they have already given the Oscar for Best Simulation in a Sporting Encounter to Ashley Cole for his one man show “Not Nearly As Good As I Think I Am”.
Thierry Henry, so often the scourge of teams that were never going to beat Arsenal anyway, yet again fails to do the business in a big game. Displays numerous instances of petulance, rather than the outright dissent of his team-mates, sulking and throwing the ball away, as he once more mistakes bad luck and injustice for not playing very well and having a heart the size of a pea. Va-va-vo. . . oh, I can’t be bothered. . .
The normally passive Ryan Giggs decides that Ashley Cole’s attempt to do just one thing right during the 98 (!) minutes of the match must be stopped, and launches into a tackle so late it could be a Connex train. When Graham Poll quite reasonably reaches for the yellow card, Giggs protests that it’s only Cole and anyway he’s clearly a c***. Poll shrugs his agreement, but tells Giggs that “them’s the rules”.
United seem to be cruising to victory when the self-destruct button is pushed. In one of those wonderful “snowballing” moments, Silvestre and Bergkamp tangle in the box; Bergkamp (who recently admitted to “having a dark side” in a revelation only slightly more shocking than the news that George Best “likes a drink”) gets upset and swings a hand in Silvestre’s face; Silvestre naturally takes exception to this and pushes Bergkamp over; Ljundberg sees a bloke on the ground and runs over to bum him; unfortunately he decides to kiss Silvestre on the way and the Frenchman nuts him, blighting a sterling performance in the centre of defence and causing Ronaldo, who deserved the chance to grab a hat trick against the Champions (use by date: about the beginning of March), to be withdrawn for a replacement central defender.
Down to ten men but crucially a goal to the good, Manchester United absorb the, by now desultory, Arsenal forays into the attacking third and hit them on the break with a goal of breathtaking quality that could only have been scored by. . . er. . . John O’Shea. . . ? Making light of the fact that he isn’t Dennis Bergkamp, Ryan Giggs, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, Robert Pires or any of the other galaxy of stars on the pitch, who might reasonably be expected to pull off a goal of such aplomb, the big Irish defender-cum-utility player runs onto a wonderful Paul Scholes through ball, waits for Almunia (what is Spanish for “hapless”?) to commit himself, and deftly chips the ball into the far corner with his wrong foot. Arsenal heads now drop so low that the team physio has to treat a number of cases of “grass burn” on the players’ scalps.
The conclusion? Game over, season over. Arsenal are out, with their already fragile self-confidence well and truly shattered. Manchester United may have won a famous victory last night but the real winners from the game are Chelsea, who look unassailable at the top of the table, and Bayern Munich, who must now fancy adding to Arsenal’s customary European woes.
For United, it’s a sign that, despite all the doubters (some people never learn) Sir Alex Ferguson is well on his way to building his third great Manchester United team. Van Nistelrooy, Rooney, Saha, Smith: if anybody can find me a better roster of strikers anywhere in the world, I’ll slap them and call them liars. Chelsea will still win the title (which will be small comfort for Peter Kenyon, who will languish in prison regretting his foolhardy attempt to convince an ailing Pope to transfer God to the Stamford Bridge side for an undisclosed but obviously massive contribution to one of the secret bank accounts the Vatican insists they don’t have), but United will make it uncomfortable all the way. The mighty reds, meanwhile look good to retain the FA Cup and have as much chance as anyone of winning the Champions League – especially as all of their recent success has come without one of the most lethal strikers of the last five years.
Funny old game, innit?
Hhmmm . . . (28/10/04)
Adrian Mutu found guilty of taking drugs. Sepp Blatter oddly silent. How strange. Still, I’m sure he’d be just as happy to sit in the background counting his brown envelopes if this were, say, Rio Ferdinand . . .
Blame It On Rio? (19/09/04)
Well. It ends tomorrow.
Rio Ferdinand’s 8 month ban for missing a drug test attracted the attention of Sepp Twatter: crap ideas machine, world record holder for commenting on things he knows f*ck all about and part-time president of FIFA (when such duties do not conflict with his first and second roles) and Dick Pound: head of WADA, guardian of all that is pure in sport, and lucky owner of a name that also describes his hobby.
Doubtless they’ll both feel that Rio has not served nearly enough time for not being found guilty of using performance enhancing substances. Doubtless they’ll both feel that Manchester United should have been docked every point they won for the last twelve years for having the temerity to defend one of their employees, and that England should start the next world cup with a ten point handicap for representing the country Rio was born in. Doubtless they’ll both continue to prosecute the war against drugs in sport with the same zeal with which they spoke out against that Russian midfielder who actually did fail a drugs test just after helping dump Wales out of the Euro 2004 play-offs.
You remember, surely? Twatter & Pound were all over the press denouncing wotsisname. The fact that Rio Ferdinand is a high profile player for one of the biggest clubs in the world and that Russian bloke (what was his name?) is an obscure player of limited newsworthiness certainly wasn’t reflected in the official lines of FIFA & WADA. Was it…?
Anyway. Rio can now get back to football, and the Sepptic One can get back to protecting the beautiful game from such horrors as footballers pulling their shirts over their heads when they’ve scored. Just like that bad Tim Cahill – lucky he wasn’t shot, if you ask me…
