England News
Following an impressive 9-0 victory against Belarus, during which the Belarus goalkeeper committed suicide, it became clear that Fabio Capello sees his role as part-managerial, part Situationist art installation. Much of his behaviour on the bench - at one point appearing to climb out of an invisible box, at other times holding up a selection of cards with seemingly random words written on them - went down well with the fans, who sang "We love our Fabio, he's a little bit mad you know" throughout.
Capello finished the game doing a handstand apparently designed to reveal the words 'Darfur' and 'badger' written on the soles of his shoes.
There was a brief stoppage in play when Brian Barwick suddenly stormed onto the pitch, shrieking and riding a donkey. The generously-proportioned FA bigwig appeared to spontaneously combust, galloping up into the VIP area and exploding in a fireball. His condition is as yet unknown.
Big Sam And Reidy In Belarus
As me and Reidy are the most important football men in Thailand they've laid on some special transport for us to get around like. It's a top-class motorbike and sidecar, built in 1938 but as good as new. We've hooked up a proper Seventies drinks trolley so we can have a bit of refreshment on the move like and shout quotations from Abigail's Party at each other.
I checked Opta stats and discovered it's only 4757.83 miles from Bangkok to Minsk so we got an early start. Things had gone well, we'd gone through Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakista, and up through all the Stans and in to Russia with no problems at all, with me crammed into the sidecar like a spacehopper stuffed in a milk bottle. Reidy had the full dungarees and rollerblades outfit on as it was an international game and he likes to look his best. We were just crossing the border from Russia into Belarus when we saw something incredible coming toward us.
It was Brian Barwick! And he was driving a tanker! He was just coming out of a big goose farm and had a funny look in his eye.
We flagged him down. He was shocked to see us and had clearly had a few like as his eyes were rotating in his head and his moustache kept bursting into flames, which as me and Reidy know better than anyone alive, is a sure sign of a man who's been having a nip or ten of the old lighter fluid.
Anyway as luck would have it he had some tickets for the England game, which was handy as we were just going to try and tunnel in and had brought a spade and everything like. So we flung the bike in a ditch and jumped in Barwick's tanker which as we suspected was full of Eastern Europe's best goose fat. He's stockpiling it as he thinks it'll be worth more than hard cash in the credit crunch. Brian's got strange ideas, Reidy reckons he did that iffy ITV TV deal while on a Toilet Duck bender.
So we get to the stadium in Minsk and park up - after a couple of gallons of Bri's fat we need a proper drink so we nip into the first garage we see and buy up all the sump oil, Swarfeger and turps they've got and take it into the stadium. Brian was knocking back the turps big style. We applauded him as he drained bottle after bottle. And it was proper turps, not that watery white spirit business that's so fashionable amongst the so-called homeless like.
They wouldn't let us in the FA's section with Brian as there was a 'no monkeys allowed' policy so we went for a bit of a tour round the ground as the game went on. Reidy had just mugged a Russian peasant girl for a loaf of rye bread as he had a terrible hunger on him and had caught some crows that he fancied making into a nice sarnie, when I spies this donkey. Fresh meat!
Donkey beats crow any day, as Michel Roux will tell you, but we didn't want to slaughter it right there like as it would probably be illegal or something stupid like that. So anyway I goes up to it and gives it a nice stroke but right then Barwick falls out of the stand above - he was must have been too greasy to sit in one place for long - and he lands on the donkey.
Well they're tough animals donkeys 'cos it didn't flinch - instead it just ran off with Barwick on its back. Things took a turn for the worse when after a big turps burp, he set himself alight. His fat-drenched clothes went up a treat and me and Reidy looked on like it was fireworks night. Lovely. Anyway he's heading right for Lampard who looks like he's seen a ghost or something, the big Jessie. It was only a flaming fat man! On a donkey! Then the donkey takes a detour around Lamps - which to be fair took a while, like - and runs off into the stands with Bri still on board.
The fourth official was looking a bit moody so we legged it as they'd only think it was all our fault. We consulted Reidy's exit route map and made it out just as a big boom erupted. We didn't look back and jumped into the tanker and there we were, away free, like a pair of young gazelles.
We thought we'd done good as we'd not been arrested or lost any clothing, which is unusual for us, and we'd clearly inspired the England lads to a big win. Proof once again of my class. I checked Prozone and was delighted to discover that I'm in an elite top 2% of Spacehopper look-a-like unemployed managers in the world whose FA's Chief Executive is currently on fire. It's that kind of worldy performance that has put me where I am today; driving a tanker of goose fat, across the Urals, watching Peter Reid eat a crow.
Poll
We asked: What's your reaction to the 9-0 win over Belarus?
32 % said brilliant, nine goals, what more can you ask for?
31 % said boooooooooooooo
28 % said what a disgrace, I'd play for free me, these players don't got no passion
8 % said No Surrender to the IRA
1 % said Frank Lampard
By John Nicholson and Alan Tyers
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