FUTURE-PROOF
You join us on Back To The Future day, just as we’re travelling back to yesterday, when we didn’t know today was Back To The Future day and had no inclination of the largely unfunny and relentless hoverboard-related torment it would bring. David Cameron hadn’t yet been briefed by a minion to crowbar a gag about DeLoreans into PMQs and there was no shame in grown adults feeling compelled to admit that they’d never seen an even more rubbish second part of a Spielberg trilogy than Jaws 2 or Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. They were simpler, happier times.
Ah, here we are now! And look! There’s The Fiver chuckling away as we scoff at Arsenal’s chances of beating Bayern Munich in Big Cup. Careful now, Fiver! Don’t go telling your yesterday selves that Arsenal somehow won, because we all know that having information about the future can be extremely dangerous. Let’s just leave our yesterday selves to peddling their largely unfunny Wenger-related torment and get down the bookies instead.
Of course, while making a movie about time travel in which one of the characters goes back to the past with an almanac of sports results and makes fortunes gambling on their outcome seems far too obvious and predictable to generate much interest at the box office, The Fiver can’t help but wonder what Manchester City fans on the original Back To The Future day – when they were scrabbling around the foot of the table and young Master McFly was heading back to 1955 – would have made of the statistical evidence from the future that proved their team would be among the richest in the world and seen as genuine contenders for Premier League and Big Cup.
Not much, if their current manager’s wet-blanket approach is anything to go by. Indeed, such was Marty McPellegrini’s reluctance to have any truck with Back To The Future day that he point-blank refused to discuss the past. “I know that tomorrow we have to win here at home in [Big Cup] against a difficult team,” he said, upon being asked about his team’s dismally poor record in Big Cup. “All the other things are just statistics or history that will not help us to win or lose. I cannot talk about that!”
Meanwhile in Moscow, where his Manchester United team face CSKA, McPellegrini’s counterpart Doc van Gaal was also focusing on the future, while being careful not to look too far into it lest he and his chums end up covered in a trailer-full of metaphorical manure after being outwitted in Sunday’s derby. “For me, as a manager, the next match is the most important match,” he said. “I don’t think about Manchester City. I only think about CSKA Moscow and I have to focus on this match.” Meanwhile down at Villa Park, Tactics Tim has been spotted furiously entering into the spirit of the occasion by wearing his sleeveless body warmer, although it may require more than a flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to jolt his beleaguered team back to something approaching life.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Football is a sport not a television game show: this latest idea included disruption to the pre-match preparations of club volunteers and the competing teams, interruptions to substitutes warming up and interference with the team managers’ match management. The board gave a resounding no to this request … As a public service broadcaster the BBC should be taking a lead by promoting the game without causing additional disruption to match going supporters instead of trying to ape or outdo some of the worst excesses of their competitors. If BBC viewers would like to understand the fans’ experience at a football game there are numerous real-life games at every level throughout the country and the easiest way for TV viewers to access the real fans’ experience is to go along to a match. For a more in-depth experience they could volunteer like many non-league fans do week in and week out” – FC United of Manchester issue a withering explanation as to why they told the Beeb to do one when asked to rearrange Saturday’s FA Cup qualifying-round tie at Sporting Khalsa so it could be streamed live as part of a “brand new BBC Mobile Match of The Day Live experience”.
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BITS AND BOBS
Uefa is set to investigate an attack on black fans during Dynamo Kyiv’s 0-0 draw against Chelsea after footage emerged of four men being beaten in the stands.
Meanwhile … Chelsea are not awarded penalty. Chelsea draw against team they should beat. José Mourinho has absolutely no problem with the referee. Oh, wait. “The referee was weak and naive,” he huffed.
Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp is quickly acquainting himself with life in England and the FA after Jordan Rossiter got knacked on England U-19 duty. “Rossiter is a special story,” he sighed. “I never heard of an 18-year-old playing three games in five days. That is the problem why he is injured and I don’t think he will be ready until the next international break. I don’t know who I have to talk about this but I will find a way because it is not OK. On my first day I didn’t want to have a call with someone with the FA but for sure this is not OK. These young players are our future. If we handle them like horses we get horses.”
Jermain Defoe is sick of trousering however many tens of thousands of pounds a week it is just to curl up on Sunderland’s heated touchline shed. “I didn’t come here to sit on the bench,” he fumed.
Ole Gunnar Solsjaer is used to being parachuted in at the last minute and coming up with the goods, so his re-appointment at Molde one day before their Big Vase match with the Queen’s Celtic bodes well.
David Ginola fancies another crack at being Fifa president. Good luck with that, David!
And Fifa suits have just confirmed that Franz Beckenbauer, and Ángel María Villar are among individuals being investigated by its Ethics Committee.
STILL WANT MORE?
“Mass incarceration, torture, denial of medical care … Up the reds!” Marina Hyde puts the boot into potential Fifa presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa.
Amy Lawrence went all the way up to Borehamwood and all she’s got to show for it is this insight into the next generation of Arsenal stars, who are being coached by a certain Thierry Henry.
This week’s Knowledge: John Ashdown gets to grips with football’s unbreakable records.
“This is a player who operates on a plane beyond the hackneyed theatre of goals and assists, but who is instead a kind of elite engineer, greasing the component parts, conducting only distantly, above the meaty-pawed fray.” Barney Ronay on Mesut Özil and Arsenal’s win over Bayern.
Meanwhile, David Hytner discusses all things Petr Cech.
“My mam once thumped Graeme Souness” – Arraiga2. Read/add your anecdotes answering the question: have you got a good story to tell about meeting a footballer or manager?
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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