‘BLADES STUNNER’ GETS A DUSTING OFF
The play-offs, eh? Sometimes it’s as if the entire eight-month trudge of actual league football is but a bizarrely bloated amuse-bouche for the post-season feasting to come. It’s like a supposedly humorous tea-timely email in which the actually interesting bit – in the unlikely event of there actually being one – is preceded by a bizarre and only occasionally relevant, rambling introductory paragraph, which might start brightly in a spirit of blind optimism – much as most teams commence their own league campaigns – only to get bogged down in a senseless, spirit-sapping avalanche of words and clearly unnecessary and totally irrelevant perambulations involving, perhaps, the Sette Colli di Roma or the bespectacled Greek singer Nana Mouskouri or the blatant holes in the plotting that for many ruin Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, leading to a great number of readers at some point developing an all-consuming feeling of hopelessness that may or may not result in them throwing their imaginary Fiver season tickets at the notional Fiver bench and stomping prematurely from the screen, even though the action they came here to find – inasmuch as there will be any action whatsoever – might be about to happen any moment now. But, we digress.
Sometimes it’s all in the name. Swine. Dun. Swindon. A town whose name amounts to little more than a simple description of its original purpose, as a dun – or hill, as non-Saxons might have it – full of swine. Glad. Win. Gladwin. A player whose name amounts to little more than a simple football sentence after all verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and indeed spaces have been removed. A man who would fit in perfectly playing in the hole behind Delightedscored, in front of a defence marshalled by Overmooncleansheet and Guttedlateequaliser. And a player whose late-season goal-spurt is propelling the Robins out of League One.
Just a month ago Ben Gladwin could look back at a Swindon career of 28 starts and 13 substitute appearances over two seasons to which he had contributed just three goals. In six games since he has scored eight. Six remarkable games in which his side have ended matches having collectively bagged one, one, two, three, four and now five goals.
Two games ago, after Jacob Murphy’s 43rd-second strike put Colchester United ahead against Swindon in the final game of the standard season, Gladwin promised his side would henceforth “start games a lot sharper”. He wasn’t kidding: last night he scored after four and 10 minutes of an absolute humdinger against Sheffield (a field by the river Sheaf, since you ask) United. It was a game in which the action zipped from one end to the other in a madcap manner and that ended with the improbable scoreline of 5-5 – five-a-side-football in more ways than one.
Having led 3-0, 4-2 and finally 5-3 with two minutes of normal time to play, Swindon snatched a draw from the clutches of victory, and only after clinging on through nine uncomfortable minutes of stoppage time. Happily, with a 3-3 and a 1-1 also in their last four games – they also earned themselves a final chance to prove that they’re more than a 22-legged pools bonanza with a 7-6 aggregate win and a place in the play-off final. Their opponents at Wembley, Preston, will be praying that Gladwin’s nominative-determinism days are behind him. But then they should be good at that, what with originally being a town full of priests.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This is a world where lots of people talk … and sometimes they speak too much. “[He] spoke but he has never come to see a training session, he doesn’t know our atmosphere, he speaks from the outside … He could have kept quiet; that would have been better” – Carlo Ancelotti as good as takes his belt and threatens to wrap Gareth Bale’s Mr 15% across the laughing gear should he keep on speaking publicly about the Welshman’s supposed on-field problems.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: Ann W Hall’s husband and the ‘Bobcat’ (yesterday’s Fiver letters). The company’s full name is Huskisson Bobcat, based in Liverpool. I once visited their premises for a job in the early 80s and asked where the ‘Huskisson’ bit came from. ‘He was the first person killed on the railway – run over by Stephenson’s Rocket,’ I was told. ‘Unlucky for him. Still, at least he’s famous,’ I joked. ‘He was my great grandfather,’ came the reply. I left” – Leo Roberts.
“If it’s not too early to be doling out prizes, can I offer a nomination for football’s least mercenary, bullish, crass or grasping event of the year? It must go to Ajax players’ mothers accompanying their sons out on to the pitch for Mothers’ Day. A moment of pure, life-affirming love and pride. Wonderful” – Charles Antaki.
• 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: Leo Roberts.
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BITS AND BOBS
If you are driving through Ireland and wondering why the people are spontaneously sobbing, it’s because walking tub of hair gel Jack Grealish would rather be a whack-a-mole at a local arcade than play in green against England and Scotland. “I think Jack just didn’t want to make his mind up at this stage,” sobbed Martin O’Neill, kidding no one.
Speaking of rejection, Japan striker Yoshinori Muto would rather keep his posterior warm using a heated toilet seat than sit on the Chelsea bench. Hence why he’s doing one to Mainz.
Two days after his Chesterfield side was knocked out of the League One play-offs, manager Paul Cook has hot-footed down – both the country and the divisions – to take over at Portsmouth. “Being able to manage a massive club like this is something I’m very excited about,” he cheered.
Meanwhile in Honduras, Marlon Peña, the Real España right-back, decided that the best way to deal with an unruly pitch invader was to fly-kick him in the temple.
It’s nothing but F.U.N at Brisbane Road right now, where Leyton Orient are still making their players train despite being relegated to League Two nine days ago. “Really looking forward to double training sessions this week,” sniped defender Mathieu Baudry, turning the sarcasm up to 11.
Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal is ready to consider offers for Robin van Persie. Bidding is understood to currently stand at two boxes of country chicken Wheat Crunchies and a thumbed copy of No Cigar magazine.
Finally, the football writers of the land got together and decided two things. One: Sufjan Stevens’ latest album is not his best. Picky lot, those football writers. And two: Eden Hazard is their player of the year.
STILL WANT MORE?
David Squires gets his teeth stuck into the fight to avoid Big Vase.
Goals! Goals! Goals! If you’re looking for a good time.
Nick Ames prefers to watch re-runs of Ipswich’s 1972–73 Texaco Cup victory but he stopped long enough to write about the top-scoring Premier League defenders and where they are now.
Scott Murray looks at the correlation between a well-designed kit and well-functioning team.
Big in Japan. No, not the punk band, but Chelsea. Ben Mabley explains it all, albeit without our tenuous and, admittedly shoddy, musical link.
If you followed the general election like The Fiver did, then you’ll struggle with this quiz. If not, it’ll be a breeze and you can boast to your friends about being a brain box.
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