Match of the Day

A New Year and a new dawn!

Is it bollocks.

Sorry to have been so uncommunicative: a couple of weeks working nights at Santa's Warehouse has taken me from my usual pattern.  Santa was as joyful as last year, but not so munificent, thus his remuneration was less spectacular.  Basically, a thin Cratchett-like Christmas was enjoyed by your correspondent.

And Old Saint Nick's exit ushered in yet another wet, windy and mild January to corroborate those dimwits who claim global warming is responsible for our sun-spotted, cyclical world's venture into hydro-devastation.  Has anyone ever thought, by the way, that newsworthy numbers of deaths are due to the significant over-population of the Earth?  And that keeping everyone alive until the Queen can send them a telegram is not the best way to aid natural selection?

Old Brize with his miserable head on behaves like a Tory back-bencher.

Yet, unlike the aforementioned politician, your correspondent actually likes and plays the national game, rather than buys a season ticket to Chelsea, or the Mancy Cheats. (Are there now two Mancy Cheat teams given the input from the Gulf?  Answers on a postcard to the usual address...)

A glance at the fixture list for this weekend shows some classy fixtures.  Number One Son is at home to Chelmsford City A, a match that is likely to cause some anguish; Number Two has had his Cup game changed to a home fixture, a match that is likely to cause the cricket scorers a chance to practice mid-winter.  In our favour.  Unfortunately, I shall be able to see neither, hampered as I am by shifting work patterns.

Back in the Real World, I see the fixture computer (sponsored by Sky and ESPN) has thrown together some delightful derbies ON THE SAME WEEKEND!!  Trebles all round, as Private Eye would have it.  I really wish that the world was not becoming so sneering of human good, cynical as I am, but I am afraid that football is reaching its bitter end in the professional age.  And that is not just because the Scousers have self-imploded since the first coming of King Kenny, and are unlikely to perform an immediate imitation of the Phoenix when the visitors from Stanley Park come calling on Sunday.

Still, the Irons look to have made a steal (steel?!!) if they get O'Neill.  Pity the Scousers didn't turn to him when Mourinho turned his back in search of the Spanish Real.

In  more positive sporting news, I am pleased to report that my side of the warehouse beat the other side - as usual - by a significant score in mid-week.  Your correspondent being old enough to have fathered all but one of the participants is a source of constant jest during the games.  The fact that he bagged a hat-trick whilst playing sweeper must be a source of heart-wringing and soul-searching in the pubs of The Levels!  What fun!  Looking forward to the scores in the Bedford League this weekend so that remedial amusement maybe had with some of its player members next week at work.

It's not all bad! They think I am ten years younger than my actual age: surely some premise for self-aggrandisement there?  I used to be really good at that.  Altogether now:

De de de durrrr dede de dede de durrrrr dede de dooo.............X