HULL OF A TIME TO DO ONE
Sport has seen a good number of dream teams. There was the USA! USA!! USA!!! basketball team at the 1992 Big Sports Day. There was Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona of the early 1990s. There was Harchester United, circa 1998. Are we about to see another? Could England be led by the ultimate dream team of the proper football man? Could this be the age of Big Sam and Still Bernard Cribbins? Sam Allardyce is the new England manager, confirmed just as the Fiver types these words, but earlier in the day we were perhaps given a glimpse of who could be at his side. For Cribbins has bought himself a ticket for the Do One Express, having left Hull just three weeks before the start of the season. Cribbins has been talking about leaving Humberside for some time now, so to do so now is ostensibly the work of a scoundrel, but it’s been in the post.
Bruce, who’s had a slightly testy relationship with Hull of late, seems to have scarpered because his employers won’t buy him any players, which is a setback and no mistake, particularly as most of his current ones are broken. Michael Dawson (knee-knack), Alex Bruce (sniffles, but you’ll be all right when you get to school son, don’t be soft), Allan McGregor (nits-gah!), Tom Huddlestone (after-effects of a vicious Chinese burn from Jake Livermore) and Harry Maguire (pins and needles-ouch!) are all out for varying lengths of time, meaning Cribbins only had 12 fit, proper players available to him at the time he departed. And you do sort of need football players who can stand up to put out a proper team. So you can understand why he’s off.
But the timing! Oh the timing! The timing set The Fiver’s heart a flutter: could it be … could Cribbins be Big Sam’s right-hand man? Could he be the yin to Sam’s yang, the horse to his carriage, the mayo to his chips (if you’re Dutch)? Will the national team be guided by two men who drink gravy by the pint and hark back to a time when men were men? Who won’t be caught sheltering themselves from the rain with an umbrella or allow their players to listen to music on those big headphones the kids are wearing? Is this the England managerial dream team?
Well, no, probably not. It’s almost certainly just a coincidence that Cribbins quit on the day Big Sam was given the big chair, and Cribbins will be off on his own hustle. But in a world of awfulness and uncertainty, we have to grab at these moments of hope. So with Sam gone, there’s an opening at Sunderland, and the word is they couldn’t possibly have chose a more perfect replacement. Sunderland has often found itself to be a refuge for those considered not quite good enough for Manchester United: Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Liam Miller, David Bellion, and what have you. So it seems rather perfect and enormously appropriate that their new manager is the absolute pinnacle of the genre. David Moyes is the new man there, apparently, fulfilling not just his own destiny but the world in general. It fits so perfectly that it simply couldn’t not happen.
Which is what you could also have said about a team of Sam and Cribbins. But it is not to be. In a year of such relentless bad news, this is just another kick in the teeth.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I hope the fans really enjoy the kit as much as we have enjoyed designing it” – Norwich City’s head of retail Steve Balmer-Walters will be glad to hear that there has been universal enjoyment for anyone setting eyes on the club’s new third kit that was released today.
FIVER LETTERS
“Daniel Agger’s experiences at Liverpool are pretty much the standard for any work place. A couple of people actually doing any real graft and everyone else just faffing about. Reading the Fiver demonstrates the lengths some people will go to faff about instead of working” – Mick Ward.
“My favourite cereal story (Fiver letters passim) is from a police report in the local paper in the Cayman Islands a few years ago. A chap was pulled over for DUI at 9am and his excuse was that he ran out of milk so put white rum on his cornflakes! A distant relative of the Fiver no doubt” – William Jones.
“Leicester City don’t do pedants, so I am probably the only person who will point out that Steve Walsh was our director of recruitment, not our director of football (yesterday’s Fiver). Our director of football is Jon Rudkin, and along with most other City fans, I would be perfectly happy for him to be poached by Everton. Or anyone else come to that. But I shall miss Steve Walsh, who is talented, modest, and can spot talent at a distance of several hundred miles. Lucky Everton” – Martyn Wilson .
“Hurray! It’s the annual Raising of Arsenal Fans’ Expectations and a month earlier than usual. Does this mean that the usual March collapse in the league and BNig Cup happens a month early or do we get four extra weeks? Am just trying to plan my diary for 2017” – Noble Francis.
• 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 … Noble Francis, who receives a copy of The Unbelievables, by David Bevan. We’ve got more to give away all week, so get typing.
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BITS AND BOBS
Perhaps while out looking for fossils, Liverpool have unearthed Alex Manninger, 87, and given him a one-year contract as a back-up goalkeeper.
Stop us if you think you’ve heard this one before: Arsenal chief suit Ivan Gazidis reckons the club can win the league without throwing loads of dosh about. You stopped us, didn’t you?
Paul Pogba’s Mr 15%, Mino Raiola, has said he is focused solely on his client’s interests and not trousering bucketloads of cash. “I don’t care about record-breaking transfers … I want what’s best for my players,” he trilled, as a ding! ding! ding! sound accompanied three golden treasure chests lining up next to each other on a fruit machine behind him.
Everton will not be able to nab any Leicester players due to an agreement signed in the contract that allowed them to nab new director of football Steve Walsh from the King Power Stadium.
And the mayor of Padova has apologised to Lazio striker Keita Baldé after he was racially abused by some absolute pieces of work in attendance at a pre-season friendly. “Some people last night embarrassed the whole city,” said Massimo Bitonci.
STILL WANT MORE?
Unlike José Holebas’s unfinished tattoo and Chesterfield’s raffle shambles, Portugal star and new hotelier, Him, shows success demands total commitment, writes Simon Burnton.
Like goals? Like Roberto Baggio? Ah good. Rob Smyth recalls a golden one scored by the brilliant Italian against Inter for Juve in 1992.
And Big Sam won’t copy Spain or France. His message is: stay true to yourself, writes Phil Brown. Yes, that Phil Brown.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.AND INSTACHAT TOO!
