RAMS AND BULLDOZERS
Bank holidays are all good and well, but the return to the world of work after an extra day of freedom is always psychologically taxing. And so it was that last night The Fiver suffered an anxiety dream, in which it held a big whip in one hand and the steering wheel of a bulldozer in the other. Wheeling around the country at noteworthy velocity and with a glazed look in the eye, The Fiver systematically drove each and every member of Great Britain’s managerial class, whether inert, ineffective or simply inept, into the cold, choppy sea. Britain was thus left with a working population of 173, and a very efficient country it became too. GDP went through the roof. The Fiver then awoke with a jolt, just as it was being led to a show-trial in The Hague. Not sure what our subconscious was trying to say there, but the Fiver won’t wolf down a dozen Dairylea fritters before bedtime ever again, and that’s a piece of processed triangular information you can have for free.
Imagine The Fiver’s horror, then, upon finding out that a similar managerial cull looks like occurring in the real world! Because it appears many distinguished football managers are currently under attack, left, right and centre. There’s Carlo Ancelotti, the current champion manager of All Europe and yet one stroke of Andrea Pirlo’s genius away from losing his job at Real Madrid. Brendan Rodgers meanwhile is under bombardment, the subject of an aerial campaign launched by erstwhile LWT executives, if that gauche World of Sport pastiche flying over Anfield on Saturday was anything to go by. And then there’s the travails of poor old John Carver. Ah, the travails of poor old John Carver.
Carver has been in charge of Newcastle United since the tail-end of January, since when he’s led the team to 835 straight defeats. A couple more of those, and that’ll be the club record gone. And it’d probably mean relegation, too, which might explain Carver’s spectacular unravelling at the weekend after the Leicester debacle, when he accused Mike Williamson of being deliberately bad at football, it being preferable that rank ineptitude flowers quite organically. Such seemingly minor semantic distinctions actually matter a great deal in the honour-bound environment of the dressing room, and so Carver’s unconscionable salvo needlessly ratcheted up a situation of common-or-garden struggle, turning it into a full-blown, unmanageable farce. Which, if nothing else, shows Carver fully understands what Newcastle United is all about.
Usually this sort of incompetent carry-on would get a manager driven into the Tyne by someone atop a runaway heavy-duty construction vehicle – The Fiver’s also available for weddings and bar mitzvahs – or at the very least sacked. However Carver has somehow managed to get away with it, being given a third vote of confidence by the Newcastle board, who issued a pre-relegation statement which set out how “John, his staff and players are focused on the three fixtures that remain this season”. Mind you, it transpires that this announcement was only released after Steve McClaren turned the job down, Newcastle having witnessed Derby County’s astonishing promotion bottle job in the Championship, two wins from their last 13, and deciding the former England manager fitted their profile like a glove. But Carver lives to fight another day, and even if he achieves nothing else, will give all the other under-fire managers out there, from Madrid to Liverpool, some much-needed hope. After all, if Carver is able to survive the cull, pretty much anyone can.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If you spend your hard-earned money on a match ticket, it’s an insult to witness passionless, mercenary football. Our family is Newcastle. Give us what we want. But, if he is not prepared to change, Heavenly Father, give him the insight to know it’s time to go. Give us a new owner (or a new mentality for the present owner) who will take our spirit and not crush it but revive it. Give us someone who will not rename our stadium from St James’ Park, not change the colour of our strip. Not rebrand us into something we are not” – Newcastle-supporting priest Stephen Foster’s prayer, calling on God to oust Mike Ashley. Amen and good luck with that one.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around the latest Football Weekly podcast, with AC Jimbo, Raf Honigstein, John Ashdown and Ian McCourt.
FIVER LETTERS
“I was amused to note the contents of my five-year-old son’s Fisher Price travel football set. The set includes one ball, two players (wearing different kits, indicating that they are on opposing teams), one goal (with an optional piece of cardboard if you want to make things a bit tricky) and three officials – a ref and two assistants. Both linesmen have a flag (although quite how anyone could be offside in this set up is beyond me) and the ref has both red and yellow cards. I got to wondering what sort of child would revel in such heavy-handed officialdom? Perhaps this is a kit for the 1,057 instead?” – Steve Hill.
“So the Football League appears to have made a smart move in leaving the Blackpool v Huddersfield game unplayed, stating that it would have no impact on the relegation/promotion battles. The last time Championship Manager ‘lost’ a game like that, it wouldn’t allow me to progress to the next season, thus STOPPING me from playing FOOTBALL. Clearly the Football League is onboard with The Fiver’s STOP FOOTBALL campaign” – Laoi Primorac Ó Murchú.
“I’d just like to be one of 666 pedants to point out that, just because it’s German death metal, doesn’t mean it’s extreme (Friday’s Bits and Bobs). Of the many death metal sub-genres, there are many like p0rnogrind which are musically far from extreme. Although, given p0rnogrind’s chief exponent – Germany’s Gut – released work on the Malodorous Mangled Innards and Regurgitated Semen imprints, on second thoughts you may have a point” – Tom Bryant, Big Website (and no others).
“Perhaps Martyn Wilson (Friday’s Fiver letters), as a Leicester City supporter, has a less-than-objective view on his team’s manager? In fact, it’s not just the press which perceives Nigel Pearson as a paranoid bully in need of anger management, it’s the majority of football fans outside of Leicester. In fact, that opinion is not just limited to football fans. My wife, who has no idea who he is, watched one of his monosyllabic, and rather intimidating, interviews on MOTD recently and commented: ‘That man is a bully if ever I saw one.’ She is a very good judge of character, which is why she married me” – Chris Draper.
• 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: Steve Hill.
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BITS AND BOBS
Former England striker Jimmy Greaves faces a “long, slow road to recovery” after suffering a severe stroke on Sunday. “Jimmy is having to do what he is told, and understands the seriousness of what has happened to him,” said his wife Irene.
Chelsea are to hold talks with José Mourinho’s Mr 15% over extending the his second spell at Stamford Bridge until 2019. “I stay here until Mr Abramovich wants me,” cheered Mourinho. “The day he tells me to go, I go. If he has replicas made [of all the trophies the side have won], he will need a big house.”
Fortuna Düsseldorf fans have marked the club’s 120-year anniversary, deciding to ‘set fire’ to the Rhine. Pity Adele beat them to it.
Saturday night, Channel 5 will no longer just be the home to bobbins fancy US cop shows that had nowhere to go once they reached the Caruso apogee, after the Football League agreed a deal to screen weekly highlights in the 9pm slot. “It will take our games to a wider, younger audience by giving us the chance to be first in front of fans,” whooped League suit Shaun Harvey. Reports of EhJohnEhBarnes pimping his ride are, as yet, unconfirmed.
Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker admits their charge for second is leaving him a trifle perplexed. “It’s so unpredictable what we are doing. Even for me at the back, it sometimes looks a bit weird what we are doing,” he lumbered after the 3-1 win at Hull.
Oxford United have revealed there was no serious damage caused by a fire at the Kassam Stadium on Monday night. “The incident is currently under police investigation,” read a club statement.
And goat-loving FC Köln striker Anthony Ujah has told the club he’s off and agreed to join Werder Bremen.
STILL WANT MORE?
David Squires on … Chelsea winning the Premier League. Guest-starring Jamie Redknapp, Nigel Pearson and Gideon Osborne.
Is being addicted to Football Manager a medical condition? Iain Macintosh investigates.
This week’s Gallery stars John Carver in a kitchen, as a cat-herder and Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
Bayern Munich’s Spanish contingent keen to show they made the right move, reports Sid Lowe.
Win! Win! Win! We’ve got home tickets to Everton v Sunderland and Stoke City v Spurs up for grabs.
Koa Bosco keep looking for hope in Italy despite poverty and social exclusion, writes Peter Georgiev.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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CONGRATULATIONS ON THE BIG WEEKEND SECOND BABY NEWS. WELCOME, CECILE IRIS BAKOWSKI
