‘Aerobatic joyriders’: The chairman was heavily critical of the Red Arrows today when they turned down a Kenna flypast request (photo courtesy of Crustyfur)
THE Kenna League chairman launched an astonishing attack on the Red Arrows today after they turned down a flypast request for this summer’s 10th anniversary auction.
The Kenna announced on Tuesday the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team would be part of the league’s landmark celebrations on Saturday 9 August this year, when they would perform a flypast over the City of London pub where the auction is to be held.
The chairman was forced into an embarrassing u-turn today when a leaked email from the Ministry of Defence revealed 25 blokes on an all-dayer did not meet the strict event criteria demanded for Red Arrows flypasts.
“Red Arrows? Don’t talk to me about the Red f***ing Arrows!” roared the chairman at a press conference called to discuss next Wednesday’s Kenna transfer window deadline.
“Football and pubs. That’s what British society is and that’s exactly what the Kenna stands for: football and pubs. Those aerobatic joyriders wouldn’t know a cornerstone of the British institution if it pinched one off in their cockpit.
“They say flypasts over London by military aircraft are restricted to Royal, state or exceptionally high-profile events. What do those showboaters think the Kenna is? We’ve got nearly 200 followers on Twitter.”
With flypast plans scrapped, the chairman admitted the league was thin on the ground for ideas of how best to mark the 10th anniversary of London’s leading pub-based fantasy football league.
“If Sepp Blatter turns down his invite, it’s squeaky bum time,” he said.
Day to remember: An artist’s impression of crowds gathered for the 10th anniversary Kenna auction this August (photo courtesy of the Ministry of Defence)
THE Red Arrows will join this summer’s 10th anniversary Kenna auction celebrations.
In their famous diamond formation, the RAF aerobatic team will stage a flypast outside the pub where the auction is due to take place on Saturday 9 August.
“We’re delighted to announce the Red Arrows will be part of the celebrations for our landmark 10th Kenna football auction,” confirmed the chairman today at a press conference in the saloon bar of the King’s Arms, Waterloo.
“The motto of the Red Arrows is ‘eclat’ or excellence, and this mutual aspiration for the highest standards between our organisations is surely the reason why they’ll agree to mark this culmination of two cornerstones of British society: football and pubs.
“The league is the envy of football and pub fans the world over. With membership growing in the league each year, we can be certain this summer’s event will see up to 25 managers competing for the prize.”
Confident: The chairman waved a copy of the flypast request to the media
Initial respect from assembled journalists was quickly overtaken by scepticism when it emerged the chairman had only just faxed off the Red Arrows flypast request to the Ministry of Defence in the last 10 minutes.
“Of course, we haven’t heard back from the RAF yet. They’re busy playing cricket on an airfield or getting their batman to lay out formal evening wear, but we’ve made a watertight request well ahead of the 31 March deadline.
“There’s not a doubt in my mind the squadron leader or bomber command, or whoever the handlebar moustache is in charge of these things, will rubber stamp the request and give our 10th Kenna auction the sense of occasion it deserves.”
The chairman refused to confirm the exact location of the auction since it was ‘now a matter of national security’.
Next week will see this season’s second transfer window, where managers release their unwanted players and then head to the pub to buy replacements at auction.
Samurai: Dani Osvaldo in a Newington Reds training session last week
NEWINGTON Reds have suspended their striker Dani Osvaldo for two weeks following an unspecified training-ground incident, the Kenna League club have announced.
Newington Reds have said that the striker’s behaviour fell below the standards they expect of their players but have said that they will make no further comment on the matter.
“Newington Reds Football Club has today suspended striker Dani Osvaldo for two weeks, following an incident at the club’s Mildmay Grove training ground,” read a statement.
“The club has taken swift and proper action for what it considers a breach of the conduct expected of its players. Southampton will be making no further comment on this matter.”
Osvaldo was suspended for three matches in January and hit with a £40,000 fine for his part in a touchline confrontation in December during Newington Reds’ Canesten Combi Cup match with Sporting Lesbian.
The striker has a reputation for causing trouble and has twice been in trouble for punching team-mates. At Bologna he hit Nicola Mingazzini in a pre-season training session and, three years ago, he was fined and suspended for punching his then Roma colleague Erik Lamela, now at Pikey Scum, reportedly for refusing to pass to him.
“He has a reputation, a beard and a samurai topknot so I think these rumours about bringing a sword to training are true, or I at least I hope they are,” speculated the Kenna League chairman.
With just two goals since being signed by the Reds manager for £1.5m in the Kenna October transfer window, Osvaldo looks likely to be released by the club at the season’s second and final window on 7 February.
Finding a replacement may be tricky for the Reds. The record number of teams in the Kenna this season means a shortage of striking talent – Gary Hooper, Marouane Chamakh and Jozy Altidore head the list of available front men.
Former glories: A Jenna Jameson film is at the centre of a Kenna controversy involving former league winner the Young Boys manager and the phone-hacking trial (photo courtesy of worldstreetphotos.com)
SECRET videos belonging to football clubs in the Kenna League have turned up into the phone-hacking trial at the Old Bailey, it has been claimed.
The manager of Kenna League club Young Boys of Vauxhall says the film contains through-the-keyhole recordings of his side’s top secret training sessions.
The Welshman claims the illicit content has compromised his team’s competitiveness this season.
Disgruntled supporters’ groups have pointed out the Young Boys manager’s outburst is merely a smokescreen to deflect attention away from the club’s appalling league form and failure to progress from the Canesten Combi Cup group stages this week.
They also claim the film has nothing to do with Young Boys and is actually a romp starring ‘The Queen of Porn’ Jenna Jameson on a plane full of lesbians.
The Sporting Lesbian manager, another Canesten Combi Cup group C side eliminated from the tournament, is also said to have mobilised club lawyers after two other lesbian films were found in Charlie Brooks’s bag: Lesbian Psychodrama Volume 2 and Lesbian Psychodrama Volume 3.
Media commentators maintain such a link between the high-profile criminal case and London’s leading pub-based fantasy football league is whimsical at best.
Meanwhile, the PSV Mornington renaissance continued this week under their maverick new manager, a cardboard cut out of Pep Guardiola.
Santi Cazorla scored two goals for PSV to both ensure their progress out of group D of the Canesten Combi Cup and cut the gap on fellow relegation strugglers Spartak Mogadishu and the aforementioned Young Boys.
Known as Pep ‘Cardiola’ to wags at the club, the caretaker manager was given the job permanently last week after turning around their fortunes in the league and cup.
The former PSV manager was sacked before Christmas for overseeing five of the worst months of performances in Kenna history.
The last 16 draw for the Canesten Combi Cup will take place at the season’s second transfer window two weeks on Friday.
Managers have until noon on Wednesday 5 February to submit their unwanted players to Kenna HQ. Two days later an auction will be held at The Enterprise in Holborn where managers can fill the gaps in their team with available players and the gaps in their stomach by several glasses of premium lager.
Stiff competition: PSV Mornington beat off interest from other clubs to sign Guardiola on a permanent basis today (photo courtesy of Paddy Power)
A CARDBOARD cut out of Pep Guardiola has been made the permanent manager of Kenna strugglers PSV Mornington.
Since taking the helm as caretaker just before Christmas, the former assistant – known as Pep ‘Cardiola’ by more wacky fans – has overseen two goals from Fernando Torres and one from Santi Cazorla, almost doubling the team’s five-month goal tally in just three weeks.
There were raised eyebrows at a PSV Mornington press conference this morning, when the club unveiled the new manager by placing the cardboard cut out in front of assembled journalists.
Cardiola remained tight lipped about his plans to escape relegation. The PSV press officer assured everyone the manager was playing his cards close to his chest ahead of the upcoming Kenna transfer window, due to take place in the pub after work on Friday 7 February.
Sacked in December after the most dismal start to a campaign in Kenna history, the full extent of the former PSV Mornington manager’s ineptitude was laid bare today when the league published it’s traditional mid-season review: Alan Hansen’s coloured performance chart.
For the first time since that season three years ago, the manager of the month awards have been shared by five different managers, reflecting the fierce competition for the top spot this term.
‘Welease Bwyan’: Ruiz has scored just once this season (photo courtesy of Spiderpudel)
FOWARD Bryan Ruiz has been told he can leave Klub Sportowy West Green.
The Costa Rica international, 28, was signed by the club for £14m in the Kenna pre-season auction in August 2013.
But Ruiz has scored only once this season and has started only eight games for the mid-table side.
“We have allowed Bryan Ruiz to talk to a number of clubs to see if something can come out of that,” said the KS West Green manager, who’s also chairman of the Kenna League .
“I wouldn’t call his signing a mistake, well actually it was a mistake because I’d signed Brede Hangeland for £15m earlier in the auction and under the Titus Bramble ruling I had to forfeit the most expensive of the two for a bogey player, leaving me with Ruiz and some unknown youth teamer called Jordi Spence.
“Don’t get me wrong, Ruiz is a very good player. He has a World Cup coming up and he obviously needs to play, but at this point in our campaign I must release Bryan.”
Ruiz’s Costa Rica will face England in the group stages in Brazil this summer. The prospect of soft goals will make him a likely target for managers competing in the Kenna’s World Cup auction.
JUST Put Carles defender Chris Smalling has apologised for an “insensitive decision” after appearing to attend a fancy dress party as a suicide bomber.
A photograph of Smalling in his fancy dress, which his management company said was taken at a private party in his home, was on the front page of Thursday’s editions of the Sun.
It shows the Just Put Carles player with items looking like a mock circuit board and mobile phone around his chest, and cables leading up his body. Also on his body are bottles of Jagermeister and cans of Red Bull, while he is also wearing an Arab kaffiyeh head dress.
Smalling’s management group, who gave the story even more legs in the media by releasing a statement, said the outfit was an elaborate pun on the popular ‘Jagerbomb’ which is a blend of those two drinks, and a popular tipple at Kenna League transfer windows.
“Chris and his girlfriend hosted a fancy dress party to celebrate Christmas and their belated birthdays with close friends in the assumed privacy of his own home,” Wasserman Media Group said in a statement. “He dressed in a costume consisting of empty bottles of Jagermesiter and cans of Red Bull strapped to his chest in an attempted comedy play on the popular ‘Jagerbomb drink’.
“Although he fully accepts in hindsight it was an ill-thought out and insensitive decision, absolutely no harm was intended whatsoever and he apologises for any offence caused.”
The Just Put Carles manager said: “The photo has come as a bombshell to our preparations for the final Canesten Combi Cup group stage fixture next weekend, but I would say the media coverage has the whole incident blown up out of all proportion.”
Costing Just Put Carles £1m at the Kenna auction in August, Smalling is having a below-average season at the club, who dangle just one place above the relegation zone.
Speaking to assembled journalists outside Kenna HQ at lunchtime, the league chairman said: “Jagerbomb? Well it’s a bit early in the day but I suppose you only live once.”
On the beach: Dynamo Charlton’s Theo Walcott looks set to miss the rest of the season and the World Cup (photo courtesy of Oliver Sparrow)
DYNAMO Charlton look set for a third season of trophyless woe after star midfielder Theo Walcott was ruled out with injury for six months.
Walcott scored in the weekend’s Canesten Combi Cup group stage before being stretchered off with an ‘anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee’, according to club quacks.
The Dynamo Charlton manager took to Twitter yesterday to vent his frustrations. He can only look forward to next month’s Kenna transfer window to freshen up the side, although his decision to sign Scott Sinclair and Peter Odemwingie in the October window has become the cause of some unrest among fans.
The lone Walcott goal wasn’t enough for Dynamo as they lost by two to in-form St Reatham FC, Gaston Ramirez and Mohamed Diame finding the net.
Outside the club’s Caravan Park training facility, a downcast Pikey Scum manager said yesterday: “One point from four games is shameful. I think the most I can hope for is sneaking a Manager of the Month award and getting reduced entry to the World Cup. I think even that is hopeful.”
Piedmonte, who have to beat PSV Mornington by at least eight goals in the last game to go through, are likely to follow Pikey Scum out of the cup.
It’s been a tough week for the Piedmonte manager. Having topped the table before Christmas, the club slipped to fourth place in the league. Can he stem the decline?
