‘IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT’
At the start of John Wyndham’s post-apocalyptic science fiction novel the Day of the Triffids the narrator, Bill Masen, lies in a city-centre hospital, his eyes bandaged. A combination of circumstances too complicated to report here leads to him climbing from his bed, removing his bandages and – following an urge familiar to many Fiver readers – heading fairly directly to the nearest public house, where he meets a blind man who informs him that more or less everyone else is suddenly also blind.
“‘S that bloody comet, thash what done it,” the man slurs (he is a little the worse for wear). “Green shootin’ shtarsh – an’ ow everyone’s blind as a bat. D’ju shee green shootin’ shtarsh?” Masen had not seen green shooting stars, because of all the bandages and stuff. “There you are. Proves it. You didn’t see ‘em: you aren’t blind. Everyone else saw ‘em, all’s blind’s bats.”
But how, Masen wonders, does the drunkard know that absolutely everybody is blind? The man instructs him simply to listen. “We stood side by side leaning on the bar of the dingy pub, and I listened,” Masen continues. “There was nothing to be heard – nothing but the rustle of a dirty newspaper blown down an empty street. Such a quietness held everything as cannot have been known in those parts for a thousand years and more.”
Masen had actually noticed this eerie phenomenon earlier, lying in his hospital bed being ignored by the nurses who weren’t there. “No wheels rumbled, no buses roared, no sound of a car of any kind, in fact, was to be heard,” he narrated. “No brakes, no horns, not even the clopping of the few rare horses that still occasionally passed. Nor, as there should be at such an hour, the composite tramp of work-bound feet. The more I listened, the queerer it seemed. There was not the cooing of a pigeon, not the chirp of a sparrow. Nothing but the humming of wires in the wind.”
At top-flight football training grounds across the country this morning a handful of miraculously able-bodied footballers experienced their own Masen moments. Where normally there is action there was stillness, where there is noise there was only silence. Not a soul was to be seen, not a whisper to be heard, because everyone had been struck down by a bizarre Wyndhamesque overnight knack.
Over at the FA’s Wembley HQ, the telephone started to ring. First it was Harry Kane, whose knee had given way, and Harry Winks, whose ankle had failed, the severity of both injuries becoming clear just hours after Dele Alli had started to struggle with debilitating hamstring-twang. Gareth Southgate hurriedly called up Jake Livermore, but still the calls kept coming. Fabian Delph began clutching his calf, while Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson were both blighted with back-to-back back-bother. The FA, scrabbling desperately for fit footballers, announced that “a further squad update will be issued in due course”.
Perhaps the hour that Wyndham dreamed of has now arrived. The timing cannot be simple coincidence: just as in his novel bright, colourful lights were seen in the night sky across Britain over the weekend, reaching an explosive pinnacle on Sunday 5 November. Across the nation millions of people congregated together to ooh and aah at their spellbinding magnificence. “Everybody’s out watching them,” Masen remembers a nurse telling him, “and sometimes it’s almost as light as day – only all the wrong colour. Every now and then there’s a big one so bright that it hurts to look at it. It’s a marvellous sight.” Ring a bell, firework fans? Then on 6 November Winks, Alli and Kane suddenly found they could scarcely walk, and footballers have been falling ever since. This may well be, The Fiver is sad to report, the end of the world.
Either that or England are playing some friendlies.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Within days of taking over [at Manchester City, Sven] took us to Sweden, brought us all down for dinner, and said ‘Right, Richard you’re the captain, here’s tokens, go and take the lads out for a couple of beers, be back at 12am. We got a bit … er … delayed and got back at 1am, and as we came back in the door we’re all trying to sneak around corners, and Tord Grip was playing the accordion. I thought ‘these are gonna be all right, these’. They got sacked at the end of the season but the night before the first game of the following season, he rang me, to wish me and the team all the best. He goes: ‘Yeah, I’m just in Panama with my new girlfriend.’ So it worked out well for him” – Richard Dunne there, proving that Sven should never stop Sven-ing.”
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around the latest edition of Football Weekly!
SUPPORT THE GUARDIAN
Producing the Guardian’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism – the stuff not normally found in this email, obviously – is expensive, but supporting us isn’t. If you value our journalism, please support us by making a one-off or recurring contribution.
FIVER LETTERS
“So Michael Emenalo has resigned from Chelsea. Is that it? Surely the club should have sent their technical director on loan to Vitesse Arnhem for a season, then perhaps Hamburg, before being sold to Bournemouth and then signed back on at Chelsea at great expense” – James Atkinson.
“Tony Pulis haiku? [Fivers passim] Well, why not:
The team ahead, but
Take care in post-game ruckus
For Tony’s headbutt” – Mike Wilner.
“Tony Pulis makes
Great material for the
Writing of haikus” – Joe Lowry.
“The blatant collusion betwixt Mr Crawford and Ms Ford in Monday’s Fiver Letters, namely one predicting a Tony Pulis Haiku, and the other obliging with said haiku, suggests they must have previously worked at the Fiver or Fifa, or both … now how do they share their spoils?” – Tony Purcell.
“While scrawling lower and lower through the Guardian football webpage during a particularly long bus journey to work on Monday, (extended due to the torrential Sydney rains), I chanced upon a reference to The Fiver. Being a subscriber for many years prior, I realised I had not been receiving the daily missive for well over a year, maybe two. For something that had been such a major part of my life for the 10 years prior, I felt extreme guilt at not having had the remotest thought of the Fiver over this period, but also it made me wonder why had The Fiver ceased coming into my inbox to provide the daily fix of intelligent insight and comedy gold? It was not of my doing so do you routinely knock people off the distribution list one by one and see if they notice? But that is by the by, no hard feelings at this end, the Fiver is now back in my life, and my world now seems that little bit brighter because of it. However, I’d hate to think I missed something important, so can someone briefly tell me what I have missed over the last one or two years?” – Steve Birnie.
“It arrives most days
Sometimes I receive it twice
Always banal though” – Lee Gardner (was that helpful Steve? – Fiver Ed).
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … James Atkinson, who wins a copy of the excellent new David Squires book, The Illustrated History of Football: Hall of Fame. We’ve more to give away, so keep typing.
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Big Paper, Football Weekly, David Squires and Jonathan Wilson are all up for gongs at the upcoming FSF Awards and you can vote for them here, should you wish.
NOTIFICATIONS AND QUERIES
Big Web App has launched its new and improved Premier League notifications. Get more details and sign up here.
BITS AND BOBS
Having been named West Ham manager, David Moyes prompted immediate concerns that his memory has blended the three jobs he has had since he left Everton into one long, howling nightmare. “It’s only been the last job where I feel it wasn’t a good move and I didn’t enjoy the experience. So I’m hungry to make sure I get things right now,” he honked.
After last week saying he would consider the Everton job, Sam Allardyce is so unconcerned as to whether the Toffees come calling for him or not, he got on the blower to tell SHOUTSport just how completely relaxed and, honestly, absolutely unbothered he is that they’ve not been in touch. “No, no, no. Nothing, at the minute. It’s like everything else, if someone comes calling there is the opportunity to speak, there’s no doubt about that,” he pleaded.
Kevin Mirallas says the reason he was dropped for Everton’s victory at Watford on Sunday was not because Duncan Ferguson growled at him and he scarpered to the changing rooms with Morgan Schneiderlin but because it was “a manager decision”. “I apologise to the president and owner, my team-mates and the manager for not being able to cope at that moment with my frustration,” he wailed on social media disgrace Instachat.
The former Belgium defender Denis Dasoul has died after being struck by lightning while learning to surf in Bali aged 34. Former clubs Royal Antwerp and Italy’s Torres Sassari paid tribute, with the latter saying: “A tragic accident took away a loved one. To his family we send our most heartfelt condolences.”
Atalanta’s trousers have been lightened to the tune of €20,000 after shrapnel from a firecracker lobbed from the crowd injured a photographer.
Despite slipping a transfer request under his manager’s door a couple of months ago, Virgil van Dijk is absolutely committed to Southampton. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment on anything that happened before,” he sniffed.
And Spain’s new shirt has waded bravely into the constitutional row in the country after having been dubbed “republican” by the country’s football fans, some of whom are calling for a boycott. “Adidas has paid tribute to the USA 1994 World Cup shirt, which sums up the red courage and fury,” parped a Spanish Football Federation suit in response.
THE RECAP
Sign up and receive the best of Big Website’s coverage, every Friday, it says here. Seems to be a curious lack of mentions for The Fiver …
STILL WANT MORE?
David Moyes as the answer to Taxpayer FC’s problems? Golivan might want to run that one by people at Sunderland, reckons Louise Taylor.
The retiring Andrea Pirlo, dreamy creative schemer and general Guardianista model footballer, was a rare talent indeed, coos Paolo Bandini.
Suzanne Wrack’s latest women’s football blog explains how the FA WSL Cup format works. And waxes lyrical over this staggering goal from the kick-off by Fara Williams.
Michael Emenalo was something of a human shield for the Chelsea board, explains Dominic Fifield. Now he’s shuffled through the door marked do one, the top brass are a tad more exposed.
José Mourinho’s tried and trusted big match formula isn’t looking so trusty anymore, says Amy Lawrence, on account of it not actually delivering any goals in away games.
Amid much tumult on and away from the pitch in Catalonia, Erneste Valverde has got Barcelona ticking again, writes Sid Lowe.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
