UNION JACK
Saturday was a dark day for $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver, even though it started well enough. He spent much of the evening loudly braying in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Fiver’s ear about the threat Jeremy Corbyn poses to national security and why it’s really just a trifling matter if you happen to find yourself in a compromising position with a farm animal and why the Welsh rugby union team really should just pack it in and eff off home, this is really getting quite embarrassing now, no need to prolong the agony, they’ve given it a bloody good go but they’ve come up against a team of true class and … OH GOD! OH GOD! BLOODY HELL! BLOODY HELL, CHRIS ROBSHAW! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! Poor $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver, his Jack Wills gilet ruined by his hot tears of shame and self-loathing.
It was a national disgrace, make no mistake about that, and he spent Sunday locked in his room, sitting in the dark, cursing Robshaw, that foolish man, that silly man, ignoring Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Fiver’s gloating texts. The natural order of things had been rocked and shaken to its very core. Up was down, black was white, the sky was green, grown men were walking round in public with their trousers rolled halfway up their shins, England had somehow come up second best in a sporting activity. Just what was the world coming to?
But when he woke up on Monday morning, $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver felt strangely positive. Something good was going to happen, something wonderful, and sure enough by midday street parties were taking place up and down the country following the news that Jack Grealish had pledged his allegiance to a lifetime of soggy disappointment and burdensome expectations at international level by changing his name to Union Jack Grealish, cocking a snook towards the Republic of Ireland and allowing $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver to laugh in Theme Pub O’Fiver’s disgruntled face.
“I’ve decided to give my allegiance to England,” Union Jack tweeted, earning himself a day of abuse from keyboard warriors. “It was not an easy decision as Ireland has a special place with me through my family. However, I have decided to represent my country of birth.” And what a dilemma it was: the chance to be the main man for a side that routinely almost qualifies for international tournaments or to play for Mr Roy. Ultimately it was a no-brainer, so it’s all settled, Union Jack will be ruining $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver’s summer by missing the decisive penalty in England’s shootout defeat to Wales in the second round of the World Cup in 2018.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
June 2015: “We wanted someone who could share our vision for the future. We want to be an innovative club in everything we do and having a head coach who thinks in that way was very important” – Matthew Benham welcomes Marinus Dijkhuizen to Brentford after hiring him when play-off reaching former coach Mark Warburton left the club following a disagreement over Benham’s stats-based vision.
September 2015: “Completely shocked by our resignation already! Too short but I enjoyed working at Brentford” – after recording stats of two wins in eight, Dijkhuizen is surprised to discover he has been resigned.
FIVER LETTERS
“I sometimes feel that The Fiver is unfairly tough in its coverage of Liverpool FC. However, in the week that the Reds managed to draw at home to Norwich, take cup kings, Carlisle, to extra-time and penalties and then tried hard to give form team Villa every opportunity to leave Anfield with a point or three, I find Brendan Rodgers’ comment on the hysteria of ‘external’ plotters agitating for his replacement to be well, hysterical. Actually Rodgers missed his vocation as a spin doctor. Alastair Campbell could teach him nothing. Never has someone trumpeted so much and glowed such self-satisfaction, having achieved so little. What Rodgers fails to realise is that supporters do not subscribe to the view that one match is a long time in football. Sadly, end-of-season surrenders to Stoke and abject defeats to Manchester United (twice), Arsenal, Hull, Palace and the Hammers in relatively recent history leave much longer lasting scars, as well as doubts about the manager’s bona fides, to those who carry the club’s genes in their own DNA” – Ian Tasker.
“Re: Ross Wilson wondering how The Fiver chooses the letters it decides to publish (Friday’s Fiver letters). I’m fairly certain they select those most likely to goad the pendants into responding, and thus achieve a self-perpetuating Fiver letters section” – Craig Hills.
• 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: Rollover.
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BITS AND BOBS
Liverpool, Tottenham and Stoke target Yevhen Konoplyanka has put down his copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People and revealed his reasons for moving to Sevilla instead. “If I was two-and-a-half metres tall and didn’t know how to control a ball then I may have gone to England, but here the football’s more technical. It’s the best,” he cheered.
Rotherham’s Steve Evans has booked in for a stay at Hotel Du One. The club thanked him for his “huge” contribution.
Sepp Blatter has returned to the hollowed out volcano that serves as Fifa HQ to resume cat-stroking duties and has insisted he will not stand down.
Arsène Wenger has said that there is no margin for error in the Big Cup group match against Olympiakos if his side are to progress to the Round of Arsenal before being knocked out of the competition. “We cannot afford to drop points,” he sniffed.
After overseeing the departure of Gareth Bale and the captures of Roberto Soldado and Vlad Chiriches in a £110.5m spree, Franco Baldini has been officially marched down to the job centre by Tottenham Hotspur.
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STILL WANT MORE?
Fans of conversations about beer and the measures in which it is served will be disappointed to discover our weekly blog is called Talking Points, rather than pints, and is about the weekend’s Premier League action.
Paolo Bandini slipped off his tassled, leather loafers, took a thoughtful pull on his tiny coffee and then rattled out 1,600 words on the hunchback of Fiorentina in his weekly Serie A review.
Raphael Honigstein took an hour off from being relentlessly organised and failing to have a sense of humour to point out that Bayer Leverkusen’s pressing game could give Barcelona something to think about in his Bundesliga blög.
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