IN VINO VERITAS
When the Sky Sports cameras rocked up at Sunderland Football Club to record their green-screen player ident-thingummies for the rare occasions the Black Cats will appear on any of their channels this season, they were greeted by quite a sight. Before them, already looking stern with their arms tightly folded in the new-fangled team-sheet graphic pose, stood a number of players looming over the prone body of Darron Gibson. Rehearsing? No. They were waiting for their team-mate to come around and explain himself after his Big Night Out on Saturday, when he was filmed in a pub by some Mackem fans in a very tired and emotional state.
A footballer whose career has been on a steady downward trajectory for the past decade, Gibson was speaking in the wake of a 5-0 gubbing in a pre-season match against the Queen’s Celtic and told those duplicitous snakes filming him: “I might be off my face in here, but I still want to play for Sunderland … the rest of them don’t.”
Whatever the truth of what he was saying, it is a measure of how far this once proud club has fallen that many supporters have seized upon Gibson’s comments as the most convincing and long overdue declaration of loyalty heard from a Sunderland player in years. That they were uttered by one who was falling-down drunk shortly after a hiding and shortly before the first game of the season is not ideal, but hey, at least he cares and might even have sobered up for next Friday night’s match against Derby County.
Rather than maintain the tight-lipped silence that has served them so well in the past with matters far more distressing than some under-performing player getting hammered and mouthing off, Sunderland have now released a statement in which – and you really couldn’t make this up – they failed to spell their own player’s name correctly. “Darren [sic] Gibson has not conducted himself in a manner befitting Sunderland Football Club,” it read. “As a consequence, we will initiate our internal disciplinary process to deal with the matter. Darron has apologised this morning.” One Darron out of two ain’t bad, eh?
Now The Fiver’s no expert, but would contend that Gibbo has conducted himself in a manner that couldn’t be more befitting of an operation that has lurched from one calamity to another in recent times, becoming both a laughing stock and a byword for all that is dysfunctional about badly-run football clubs in the process. There was that time they hired a fascist as their manager, the scarcely credible way they managed to spend a decade in the Premier League and somehow record losses of well over £100m, last year’s feeble surrender … and don’t even get us started on the truly shameful way in which they handled that Adam Johnson scandal. While it seems unlikely Gibson will be fired for gross misconduct, he will almost certainly be punished for his indiscretions. A heavy fine and a long spell in the first team ought to be enough to help him see the error of his ways.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re exciting the English public and we’re very proud of that. It’s a very long time since the public felt a genuine sense of belief, and not just hope, that an England team could win a major championship” – having secured a semi-final place at Euro 2017 while regularly sticking it to opposition managers, England boss Mark Sampson also gives Mr Roy, Fabio, Sven, his own FA paymasters and whoever else you care to mention involved in the past two decades of major-tournament failure by the men’s team, some food for thought.
NEW SEASON … NEW HOPE?
“It doesn’t bode well for anybody, how they feel about me, how they feel about the team, or how they feel about the club, getting slapped here, six. It was embarrassing. It was a shambles, completely. It was a really disgraceful performance from us. There was a lack of aggression, lack of spirit, lack of cohesion. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. They’ve scored some wonder goals. I’m going to have 20 quid on them getting beat next week and 20 quid on us winning because we will play better, that’s for sure. We’ve had an unnatural disaster today. Do you know what? Maybe a kick up the @rse isn’t the worst thing to get. I’d like to think they’ll be running around like blue-@rse flies next week and making tackles and competing far better … I’d have been booing as well if I’d have watched that” – as pre-season friendly press conferences go, Mick McCarthy’s was a pearler following Ipswich’s 6-1 shellacking by Charlton.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Your story on Alexis Sánchez being poorly (Friday’s Fiver), and the old work sick-call classic of ‘croaking pathetically for effect’ reminded me of the time I managed HMV stores for a living. We would have a torrid time with the weekend part-timers, invariably hungover students, phoning in ‘sick’. We’d often successfully head off these calls at the first sound of the ‘He-ee-e-ll-oo?’ with a swift interjection of ‘Uh oh! You’ve got your poorly voice on! Is it real?’ The poor lambs would often crumble and eventually come in to man the tills in a stupor of self pity. One Saturday, having successfully beaten such a call and got the ‘poorly’ lad in, I returned from my lunch walk around the grim shopping centre to find an ambulance parked outside work. Said ‘poorly’ lad had passed out behind the counter and couldn’t be roused. They rushed him to hospital. Turns out he had glandular fever, causing severe swelling of the spleen. The guilt never left me, so I now work in IT where the only thing I’m mean to is computers, and politicians on social media. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere” – The Unknown Stuntman.
“While the Fiver letters continue to play out this name game theme (Fiver letters passim), I have a friend called Paul Oakey, who works as (wait for it) a sports journalist. His long-time partner, would you believe it, is called Kerry. Do the math(s) on the basis they tie the knot at some time. I’ve sent this message into The Fiver before and it hasn’t been printed. Then again, Friday letters are notoriously poor and infrequent since all Fiver readers and writers prefer to race off to the pub” – Marc Meldrum.
“Now that the loan signing of Merino to Newcastle has been confirmed, let’s hope – for Rafa’s sake – that he hasn’t been fleeced by Dortmund” – Richard Fernandez.
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 prizeless letter o’the day is … The Unknown Stuntman.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Nemanja Matic will ensure the handbrake stays firmly on in Old Trafford’s centre-circle after joining from Chelsea.
Arsenal majority shareholder Stan Kroenke has been criticised after his company launched an outdoor sports TV platform in the UK which includes bloodsports and hunting shows. “Mr Kroenke could do the world a great favour by stopping peddling this kind of sickening TV and turning his focus on helping animals,” sniffed Philippa King, from the League Against Cruel Sports.
Phil Jones has been banned for two matches for verbally abusing a Uefa doping official, who is understood to have prevented him from taking part in a tribute to victims of the Manchester Arena terror attack.
Liverpool fans have given further impetus to the campaign for safe standing in English football by voting overwhelmingly in favour of rail seating.
He has appeared in a Madrid court on charges of tax-knack totalling €19m. He hasn’t actually said anything about the case, though.
QPR boss Ian Holloway has said that Steven Caulker is in a “fantastic place” after returning to training with his squad following the defender’s struggles with mental illness.
And Antonio Cassano, who has retired, unretired and retired again in the past fortnight, has screeched into another U-turn after saying he may carry on playing because the problem was with Hellas Verona, not football. “The spark simply did not ignite with Hellas and I realised that straight away,” he sighed. “It’s like being with a woman and realising you don’t want to spend time with her. It’s a question of feeling, of something in the air.”
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?
Enjoying summer? Good, because here comes winter in the form of our first two Premier League previews. First up: Arsenal. Brrrrrr. Second up: Bournemouth. Achoo!
“My life has changed – I don’t need to justify myself to anybody.” Charlton assistant boss Lee Bowyer chews the fat with Nick Ames.
“An electrifying jolt”: how Manchester City’s 2012 title-winning goal sealed the English top-flight’s global rise. Paul MacInnes rounds off our Premier League at 25 series with a piece on the impact of Agüerooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Let’s ban transfer speculation and resist the Premier League summer frenzy, roars Barry Glendenning.
Or let’s not, because here’s Barry’s Rumour Mill.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
