CHED Evans has handed in his transfer request at Hoxton Pirates because he believes playing for the club is damaging his reputation.
Shadowy links to kidnappings, poor observation of Ramadan and militant extremist group Al Shabaab of the club’s Somali manager have been cited by Evans as reasons for the swell of negative public opinion surrounding the striker.
“My conscience is clear, so the only way I can explain how Brand Ched has come to be demonised in the media is through representing a club associated with religious oppression and general pillage on the high seas. I need to find a new club immediately,” said Evans, who has previous for trying to force a move.
Evans joined Hoxton Pirates as a forfeit at the October transfer window under the Titus Bramble ruling, after the manager had overspent his budget.
Outside the club’s Pitfield Street ground this morning, the Pirates manager resfused to be backed into a corner by his Welsh striker: “Yarrrrrr! The scoundrel needs to knuckle down instead o’ tryin’ to win the favours of ladies of the night in Charlie Wright’s International Bar by singing on the karaoke machine. If I be hearing Blurred Lines one more time he be gettin’ himself keelhauled.”
Several clubs are reported to be uninterested in the wantaway centre forward, who has also criticised Hoxton Pirates’ poor form this season for not providing enough of a challenge. The club is rooted to both the bottom of the Kenna League and, with one fixture remaining before the knockout stage, the foot of Canesten Combi Cup group C. The side has not scored a goal since 25 November.
For now the drought looks set to continue. The club’s other forward Mauro Zarate has failed to live up to what little promise brought the Argentine to England. A midfield of Matic, Januzaj, Ramirez and Wright-Phillips hardly screams ‘goals’.
The club will be looking to ring the changes come the February transfer window, and even without his attempts to pin down the manager Evans’ future at the club is doubtful. Perhaps there’s a role for the striker with Gavin Peacock.
Wives: one of the primary ways you are to respect your husband is by gladly submitting to and encouraging his leadership.
NEW Year’s Eve is upon the Kenna once more and it’s time to hand out those gongs.
Another outstanding year for the FC Testiculadew manager finally proved that cheats do prosper, which is reflected in his winning one show-piece award and being short listed for many others.
So who had the easiest job? Who let the pressure get to them most? Who had an excellent place for hiding sex workers? Who didn’t? Who missed every Kenna event this year but still managed to walk away with some silverware*? And just who do the Red Arrows think they are to turn down the Kenna?
Take it away the Kenna 2014 end of year awards!
*Disclaimer: these awards do not count as ‘silverware’
Best newcomer – a cardboard cut out of Pep Guardiola
Performance of the year – the FC Testiculadew manager
An unprecedented second Kenna league and cup double in May followed by Emerson World Cup victory in July – WHEN HE DIDN’T EVEN ATTEND THE AUCTION – all but sealed this accolade for the Kenna’s most controversial manager. The honour was confirmed when the self-confessed Tactical Brambler failed to appear for the August auction and sent six bottles of champagne instead. Some other managers would do well to take note.
Worst performance of the year – the Fat Ladies manager
Any of the Hoxton Pirates manager’s appearances at any league event will always come a close second in this category, but before the Somali had even heard of the Kenna there was the Fat Ladies manager. An early exponent of Albert Luque, the Fat Ladies manger set the precedent for mystifying auction tactics and rake-in-the-face Bramble forfeits. Somehow he won the league in 2008, but after a period of absence he has returned this season to find his managerial talents no longer equal that of the Kenna.
The Fish in a Barrel award for easiest job to do – the Hong Kong police
Best celeb spot – Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the chairman
The Fat Ladies manager may have bumped into Dion Dublin in a London pub and the St Reatham FC manager may have contrived a stalker/stalked relationship with Soccer Saturday consonant-dropper Bianca Westwood, but it was the chairman who in April received a face-to-face apology from the Ox for his poor performances at KS West Green. The look on David Bentley’s face to be recognised by the chairman at an event with so many footballers present was worth attending alone.
The Joe Kinnear award for worst transfer business – Piedmonte
Yes, the Headless Chickens manager bought Kostas Mitroglou at the February transfer window for £14m, but at the same event the Piedmonte manager traded in Samir Nasri for Andros Townsend. That business cost the Wulfrunian his best ever shot at the Kenna league title as Nasri barnstormed the rest of the season while Townsend could have maintained a similar level of form if he’d been on the moon. A special commendation goes to the Judean Peoples’ Front manager, who was doing his business when Nasri was sold rivals Bala Rinas.
The Kevin Keegan ‘I WOULD LOVE IT!’ award for coping with pressure – the Hairy Fadjeetas manager
February was a difficult month for the Hairy Fadjeetas manager. Having led the league for a few weeks earlier in the season, his campaign was beginning to unravel. Fast. Cue expletive-ridden press conference.
The Young Boys manger deserves a commendation for his unusual response to World Cup support in the absence of Wales from Brazil.
The Colt Detective Special revolver award for biggest snub – the Red Arrows
It was supposed to be the icing on the cake. The Kenna’s landmark 10th auction. The cream of fantasy football management celebrated by the cream of aeronautical display teams. Who could have predicted the Red Arrows wouldn’t get out of bed for 25 blokes on an all dayer? Not the chairman.
The America’s Dumbest Criminals award for worst kidnap attempt – the Hoxton Pirates manager
Two days after the October transfer window, the chairman received a phone call from an apoplectic pub landlord. It appeared an ornamental sword in his upstairs bar had been removed from its wall fixings and used to hold to the neck of the Fat Ladies manager by a radical Muslim. Those photos were deleted by the Fat Ladies a few days later, so no evidence remains of an incident which now officially never took place. As such, this award must go to the well-documented plight of Danny Graham. The striker was snatched by the crew of the good ship Hoxton Pirates off England’s north east coast at the February transfer window only to be made to walk the plank a few minutes later.
The Jozef Fritzl award for interior design – Kenna HQ
Despite putting in a ‘tactical no show’ at the Emerson World Cup auction before winning the tournament a month later, the FC Testiculadew could learn a thing or two from one of the Kenna’s Catalan contingent. Sending a second to the February transfer window, the Just Put Carles manager tweeted a picture of himself enjoying cocktails in the Caribbean.
Both fade in comparison with Surrey Police wanted board’s the St Reatham FC manager. Ever since the body of a female Sky Sports News presenter was found battered to death on Chobham Common last April, the manager has led the desperate life of an international fugitive. In February he Skyped into the transfer window from his Alpine hideout, In August, his team abandoned at the start of the season, he was sighted on the Amalfi coast in Italy. In October, the jet-lag appeared to be catching up with him. Holed up in San Francisco for the transfer window, he tried to release a player that wasn’t even in his side.
Most inappropriate use of world affairs to describe a fantasy football scenario – the missing Malaysia Airlines flight
When it comes to expressing the utter forlorn of managers while FC Testiculadew cruise to victory every time, there’s nothing else on the radar.
Flashback of the year – the Still Don’t Know Yet manager remembers Emerson
Knee trembler: The Young Boys manager reacted badly to the cup Christmas fixture list (photo: Kingston99)
THE Young Boys manager was left cursing Kenna HQ ahead of Christmas after Charlie Austin scored a hat trick during a cup week….when his side didn’t have a fixture.
Overwhelmed by such a glut of goals from the striker, the Young Boys manager had immediately taken to social media networking site Twitter on Sunday.
Defender John Terry brought the Young Boys goal tally to four, but the festive cheer dried up at the when the manager realised his side were not playing in group/pool A.
A long-time critic of Kenna HQ’s decision to amend the cup fixtures system from head-to-head points scored in a week to head-to-head goals, the Young Boys manager was quick to vent his spleen.
@jeffkennaleague O goody, JT scored another goal for the Young Boys in cup week, when we don’t have a fixture, you’ve ruined the cup!
Dynamo face Young Boys over the Christmas weekend. Sporting opened up their lead at the top of the Kenna League after chasers Bala Rinas put in a pitiful shift.
Injuries to influential midfielders Dusan Tadic and Aaron Ramsey have seen Bala Rinas lose momentum they could never dream to maintain with a front two of Stefan Jovetic and Marouane Chamakh.
‘Guys. Hey, you guys, I’m over here. Guys?’: Marvin Sordell has been overlooked by the Kenna apparatus (photo: Telegraph)
KENNA League blazers have admitted they didn’t know who Marvin Sordell was after it emerged the striker had not been scoring points for two months.
Until today no one at Kenna HQ noticed Sordell’s one start and three substitute appearances failed to contribute to the title efforts of St Reatham FC.
A leaked email from the charts and graphs department in response to an enquiry about the oversight read: “Sordell was down as a Leicester player, not sure why, probably because I don’t know who he is.”
Murmurs among managers in the league maintain Marvin Sordell was overlooked because his underwhelming performances and suggestive name make him sound less like a footballer and more like an adult film actor. Peter Ndlovu or Rod Fanni are two other such phenomenons.
Despite his lack of goals and perceived inclination to whip it out at the first sniff of innuendo, Sordell’s efforts have still seen St Reatham FC climb up on top of Cowley Casuals to third place in the table.
The St Reatham FC manager was unavailable for comment, but sources at the club say he’s welcomed the Sordell oversight in light of his continued efforts to avoid questioning from Surrey Police.
Sordell wasn’t needed for St Reatham to win their group C – or pool C, depending on who you talk to at Kenna HQ – match in the opening round of the season’s Canesten Combi Cup competition this weekend. A Juan Mata notch was enough to overcome a goalless, and bottom of the table, Fat Ladies.
A typical scene: Bearded barmen, retro clothes, pies – welcome to East London (photo: Sutcliffe)
IT was a bright October lunchtime when a group of regular pub crawlers congregated in south London lowlight New Cross.
The clocks would go back that night so there was still plenty of crisp daylight in which to attack their biggest challenge yet: 13 pubs in nine hours. The trendiest length of train track in the world. The East London line.
More than ever before organisation would need to be sharper than a Rotherhithe Stanley knife, swifter than a Whitechapel pickpocket, tighter than a pair of Dalston jeans.
Under their steady guidance London’s edgiest dives and hangouts would be negotiated with as much aplomb as could be mustered after a pint for each station.
Dazza was ‘on hand’ to take analysis of dryers in the gents to unchartered levels.
Saturday 25 October 2014 at 12.30pm. The itinerary:
Dublin Porter: A pint of flat Coke (photo: Sutcliffe)
Aromas from the previous evening were still partying hard in this single-roomed boozer, giving the impression they were permanent guests. Fortunately, attentions were quickly diverted by tap of Guinness Dublin Porter at the bar, the Russian Premier League preview on the small flatscreen and the fake ‘tweed’ jacket Sutcliffe purchased from a charity shop that morning.
The Amersham was a solid place to start for a crawl of London’s most faddish neighbourhoods. It is also Sutcliffe’s manor. The area is a curious mix of gritty south London and art students from nearby Goldsmith’s College pretending to be gritty south London. Sutcliffe has problems relating to either group, as evidenced by the polyester tweed.
The Amersham’s interior looks like it was gutted by fire before someone stuck up a few posters at jaunty angles. The resulting mood and proximity of a major art college gives the impression that at any moment someone could walk in wearing green hair, a leather trench coat and knitted mittens or another angsty combination.
No doubt the Amersham warms up in the evening. It was definitely not a lunchtime pub. Crawlers left the bearded barman on his lonesome.
The China Hall: All smiles, thankfully no Chelsea smiles (photo: Sutcliffe)
Having made the short Overground ride to Surrey Quays, crawlers met the day’s first setback. The Yellow House was closed! Not to worry, just up Lower Road the welcoming chalk board of The China Hall beckoned the party to enter.
A part of south London in no danger of becoming trendy soon. A gaggle of shaved heads and calf tattoos greets the visitor. Crawlers were quick to order rounds and file into the beer garden. A low brick wall and several wooden picnic tables became their home for enough time to see off a Stella Artois.
It’s best to visit pubs like The China Hall early in the day, before Milwall lose and the local septum duster mixes with a few pints of short-dated wifebeater.
Words and photo: Dazza
3. Canada Water – The Albion (closed)
Silent threat from The China Hall stalked crawlers on the short walk up Lower Road to their next destination. Internet research had shown The Albion, the only pub within sensible distance of Canada Water station, was bedecked in St George’s flag bunting. It was with some relief the establishment was discovered to have closed down.
The Mayflower: Plenty on the pull (photo: Sutcliffe)
Parched everyone dived into The Mayflower. At this stage of the route the party crossed the Greenwich to Tower Bridge crawl from 18 months previously, the first time crawlers would visit the same pub twice. Premonitions of torn dimensions or the day of judgement arriving with a Biblical thunderstorm were swept aside when the chairman announced the crawl would stop for two drinks to make up for the closed pub.
A mandatory pint of Black Maria was also decreed, the drink equivalent of a Caramac. The mixture proved too much for the bar’s resources and left the strange flavour of Guinness and Kahlua on the palate. A poor substitution.
The Mayflower is definitely worth a visit particularly if it’s clement enough to sit on the river terrace. The serious drinker should be warned: the pub’s history, twee architecture and proximity to the Thames make it a priority destination for tourists. Intent on finding hipsters, the East London line crawler is met instead by the rustling din of windjammers ordering coffees or halves of ale.
Balloon dog whisperer: Soon after this photo was taken a parent demanded his son’s balloon dog be returned (photo: Sutcliffe)
There was a time when the warehouses of Wapping teemed with the Victorian activities of cheeky bootblacks, maritime swagger and tubby prostitutes. The streets retain their narrow dimensions and the buildings their towering capacity, but any human interaction is limited to yet more brightly-coloured windjammers as they explore the echoing thoroughfares. The neighbourhood is trendy, but the price per square foot is an investment banker’s weekday squeeze lair.
The Captain Kidd reflected both the area’s architecture and Saturday afternoon street traffic. Exposed brick and an excellent terrace over the River Thames are tempered by the Samuel Smith’s offer at the bar.
Many years of experimentation have demonstrated a Samuel Smiths pub doesn’t quite feel like any other boozer. Everything about Samuel Smith’s drinks tastes like a scientist tried to recreate the heritage and breweries of a normal pub using a Bunsen burner and 1930s laboratory ethics. The cheap beer tastes a few molecules away from the real thing, and has been known to induce a skull-crushing headache the next day.
Captain Kidd provided an excellent example of this lab rat approach. The concept, taste and after taste of ‘Chocolate Stout’ just goes to show what a bunch of chocolate starfish Samuel Smith’s descendants consider their punters to be.
Great piss up: Dazza lays the foundations for another hand dryer test (photo: Sutcliffe)
One of the closest pubs to Shadwell Overground station is still a 10-minute walk away. The trip is worth it. The George has attracted customers from the stratosphere of musical celebrity, but now struggles against the tide of housing development in the area: ‘Save the George Tavern’.
Bowling in four pints to the good at that same hour in the afternoon, crawlers found the snug deserted save for a lone Irishman in a shell suit top at the bar. The cheery fellow proclaimed his colleague was in the cellar, it was not yet his shift but he was in a few hours early to get ‘warmed up’ for work. He decided to take the initiative and help pull a few pints for the unexpected rush. Obviously not a union man.
Like the Amersham Arms, this is certainly an interior best viewed in the evening when it could be politely called ‘heroin chic’. The windows are almost opaque and every single surface in the George is covered in graffiti, like a giant pub toilet. No surprise then that the theme was carried through to the facilities. There was no danger of an hourly cleaning rota, but who cares about hygiene when you’re shooting up with a rockstar?
Right in the boat race: The chairman demonstrates where the Krays would point their shooters should they have met today’s Blind Beggar regular (photo: Sutcliffe)
It’s impossible to mention the Blind Beggar without referring to the infamous murder of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie by Reggie Kray, presumably for having the most unimaginative nickname in the East End. Even though it’s fanciful to think the pub is still a den of mobsters getting rubbed out and fenced goods, it does lend some much-needed charm to the grimy decor.
A sack of coin has been thrown at a beer garden refurb, and on a late Saturday afternoon it was bubbling with people and atmosphere. It’s uncertain which popular Spanish travel and lifestyle publication is to blame but Whitechapel seems to have a growing population of chattering Iberians who were very much in evidence here, sporting white or blaugrana colours. El Clásico was about to kick off on the screens.
As for the rest of the clientele, they’re not the prettiest but an all-female bar team made a not entirely unsuccessful attempt to brighten the place up. Plastic gangsters, down-on-their-luck app developers and, in keeping with the neighbourhood’s ethnicity, a few south Asians outnumber any genuine cockneys. It’s unlikely many people die of their gunshot wounds here anymore, if only because the pub now stands opposite one of the UK’s leading major trauma centres.
Leaving Shoreditch High Street station and passing under the tunnel, the visitor is greeted by Boxpark – shipping containers stacked upon each other, painted bright blue and turned into shopping outlets. An innovative concept or a mocking gesture? The sight of those imposing, windowless, steel boxes can only lead a minority of the local area’s high immigrant population to get painful flashbacks of their entry into UK.
Tucked away on Redchurch Street a couple of minutes walk from the station, the Owl and the Pussycat used to be one of the few remaining boozers in London to have a bar billiards table. This game of poise, skill and other qualities lacking in crawlers now seven rounds to the good is now sadly absent from the premises. What’s left is a pub that retains so much of its traditional character but is packed with the demographic influx of young people from all over the world to the trendiest neighbourhood in the country. The L-shaped snug was rammed early evening with patrons spilling out into the small courtyard beer garden at the back.
Back home: Katie is yet to fully explain this picture (photo: Sutcliffe)
Taking the Overground to Hoxton, it’s a 10-minute walk to Howl at the Moon. A decade ago, when Hoxton was already synonymous with ‘trendy’, this far up Hoxton Street was still Jamaican jerk chicken joints, Nigerian travel agents, Cockney saloons and Turkish members-only clubs. Over time the wave of gentrification has increased its foothold further north and Howl at the Moon is full of young white folk sitting around candled tables drinking craft beer.
There was a time when it’s isolated location halfway up Kingsland Road meant the Fox was an odd place ahead of its time, catering for young professionals who preferred to ride the few stops on the bus to Shoreditch of a Saturday evening. The Fat Ladies manager was once so moved to describe its clientele as ‘yourself, but on a bad day’.
Nowadays it’s rebranded itself into ‘The Fox Craft Beer House’. There was hardly room to move in the high-ceilinged bar as punters selected from an impressive range of pilsners and pale ales.
It was at this point circumstances became too much for Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket. The high volume of people north of the river who had migrated to their capital, tripped over in Beyond Retro and put on the airs of frustrated creativity incensed a genuine south Londoner with verified artistic credentials.
Shrugging marvellous: The Hoxton Pirates manager tells crawlers what appeals to him most about his religious beliefs (photo: Sutcliffe)
Back in the naughties, hipsters began moving north from Shoreditch in search of lebensraum. The migration has seen trendy bars, restaurants and nightclubs spring up among the murky Irish pubs and Caribbean street market. Farr’s School of Dancing is one such ‘vintage chic’ example, full of ‘vintage chic’ people striking ‘vintage chic’ poses. Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket were furious.
Flash jacket: Fox regulars are not too snooty about their hi vis (Sutcliffe)
Leaving behind the stressed furniture, pretension and craft beer of Hackney, the East London line winds on to one of Islington’s quiantest suburbs, Canonbury.
Unlike the venues visited before, the Snooty Fox is not a ‘destination’. Whereas a popular Home Counties teenager spends the week staring out of the classroom window daydreaming about such matters as a forthcoming night out on Kingsland Road and whether the online designer drugs order will be delivered in time, not even Andy from accounts has grand designs for pubs like the Snooty Fox. These residential boozers are instead the backbone of middle class London drinking. A stop gap, a local bar for a midweek catch up or somewhere for a quick one before heading ‘out out’. Of course, white-collar alcoholism being what it is, the ‘quick one’ can easily escalate into a full blown session, and encountering the bustle and honest laughter of the Snooty Fox mid evening crawlers chanced upon the latter phenomenon. It was a welcome change from the posturing of Dalston.
Underground, Overground, bungling free: The rabble reaches its the final stop (photo: Sutcliffe)
The crawl ended in the most traditional pub of the day. A low-ceilinged, carpeted bar on a quiet street near Highbury Corner. The Compton is soon likely to lose the battle to retain its local feel and commitment against the tide of rising house prices and gastropub-itis. A fairy will die when it ends up with the flatpack marketing of The Canonbury nearby.
Everyone was left to enjoy their feat of 13 pints in 12 pubs in around nine hours. Well, everyone except Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket, who had taken themselves outside to cool off.
KENNA HQ has admitted it still doesn’t know whether the first round of this season’s Canesten Combi Cup competition will be known as the ‘group’ or the ‘pool’ stage.
The quandary comes as the four cup groups – or pools – are announced today.
Recovering from the first of a clutch of Christmas smash ups this morning, the chairman said: “We’ve always called the first round the ‘group’ stage, but we thought this year we would call it the ‘pool’ stage. They use the term in rugby’s The Heineken Cup and it sounds quite professional, but then it also leaves us open to jokes about that night at Michael Barrymore’s house, and this kind of inappropriate carry on is really off brand for the league.
“We’ve got through at least a crate of scotch and several types of recreational drugs debating the matter in the Kenna HQ situation room but we’re still drowning in detail. We could even call them ‘draws’, I suppose.”
Further criticism was heaped on league authorities for their controversial new cup seeding process.
Each team has been grouped – or pooled – with every fourth team going down the Kenna League table.
“The new seeding process is an excellent solution to two problems,” said the chairman to the dayshift barman’s exasperation in the saloon bar of the King’s Arms in Waterloo.
“First, it ensures that every group – or pool – is of comparable quality so any team can strike it lucky, and second, we forgot to do the draw at the October transfer window because everyone was too busy drunkenly playing with the display-only cutlasses in the pub.”
Cup fixtures will be played during the following five weeks:
16 December
23 December
30 December
6 January
20 January
Group/Pool A Sporting Lesbian
Young Boys
Headless Chickens
Judean Peoples’ Front
Dynamo Charlton
Group/Pool B Bala Rinas
KS West Green
Piedmonte
Team Panda Rules OK
Just Put Carles
Group/Pool C Cowley Casuals
Pikey Scum
Walthamstow Reds
Still Don’t Know Yet
Hoxton Pirates
Group/Pool D St Reatham FC
Lokomotiv Leeds
Hairy Fadjeetas
FC Testiculadew
Fat Ladies
Gorilla salad: Hairy Fadjeetas have looked ugly up front this season (photo: Elizabeth Halsam)
The Hairy Fadjeetas manager has claimed a ‘striker conspiracy’ is the reason for his side’s poor form.
Having reached the heady heights of fourth place in the third week of the season, Fadges lost form and dropped down the table a little each week since. They now find themselves struggling in 11th place.
Striker problems have characterised the side’s performances. The hopeless partnership of Glenn Murray and David Nugent scored but one goal between them in the first seven competitive weeks.
At October’s transfer window the manager’s only business was to discard the pair in favour of Radamel Falcao and Papiss Cisse, which everyone except the Senegalese viewed as a bit of a gamble. According to official league records both forwards are yet to register a goal.
Fadges have relied on goals from midfield. Eden Hazard is their top scorer.
Through his rolled-down car window outside the club’s Bikini Lane ground the Fadges boss said to journalists this morning: “There’s a striker conspiracy and I won’t rest until I’ve found the missing goals.
“My message to the many fans of Hairy Fadjeetas is: the only way is up. To experience the smooth we sometimes have to the tackle the rough, and that’s what everyone at this club is hell bent on achieving. Tackling the rough.”
Kenna HQ has dismissed the manager’s comments as sour grapes. A smug chairman said: “This is the first we’ve heard of any ‘missing goals’. We would suggest the only thing Hairy Fadjeetas are missing is a decent manager. And some Canesten Com….oh, shit a brick! I’ve forgotten to arrange the cup draw. Interview terminated. No, naff off. Somebody open up the Kenna HQ situation room. Get those little bits of torn up paper. Where’s my drink?”
RETURN to the top flight of fantasy football has been a chastening experience for the Fat Ladies manager.
Crowned Kenna League champions in 2008, their first full season back after a three-year absence has left the Fat Ladies crying into their family-sized buckets of Hagen Daas watching Bridget Jones after a calamitous campaign where they have only managed one goal between them in 11 competitive weeks.
Daniel Sturridge, the manager’s £35m star signing, provided that solitary strike in the first week of proceedings before he succumbed to injury a fortnight later.
The manager has failed to coax even mediocrity out of his band of misfits since, and he finds his side bottom of the Kenna, trailing three managers who didn’t even attend the August auction.
Instead of the springboard to turn around the Fat Ladies’ misfortunes, October’s transfer window only compounded issues on the pitch.
Inexplicably, the manager failed to jettison Qatar-based training ground agitant Chico Flores, opting to wave goodbye to regular starter Fabrizio Coloccini from defence along with unfavoured Vlad Chiriches. In their place perennial Kenna desperation signing Phillipe Senderos arrived beside Central American dice throw Christian Gamboa.
In midfield, the decision was taken to swap Antonio Valencia for Ashley Young, essentially replacing one flakey black minority ethnic Manchester United winger with another. Events on the pitch have done nothing to allay criticism this was little more than an HR tick box exercise.
Nevertheless, it’s up front where the manager suffered his biggest howler. Christian Benteke looked a good August investment for £8m. Laid low with injury for a few weeks, he would surely burst into goalscoring form upon return.
So complete is the inadequacy permeating Fat Ladies Football Club that instead of half-and-half shirts and selfie sticks Asian supporters have begun to arrive at home games wearing surgical masks for fear it’s contagious.
And therein lies one ray of sunshine in the Fat Ladies manager’s whole sorry snafu: at least some cries of terrace dissent will be muffled.
High rise: The imperious form of Alexis Sanchez, Graziano Pelle and Raheem Sterling have put Sporting Lesbian top of the league (photo: Cokedragon)
SIGNING Ahmed Elmohamady at a transfer window can only mean a Kenna manager has run out of one of two things: money or ideas.
The Egyptian winger rarely finds the net but his regular starting berth and intermittent assists can make him the panic buy of choice late in the evening when the pints have ceased to taste.
For the Sporting Lesbian manager the transfer night acquisitions of Elmohamady and Nathan Dyer may have stunted a promising follow up to his 2013 championship, but like that season a South American strikeforce continue to carry the can the club.
While Elmohamady has plodded through the last three weeks for Lesbians exactly like he’s plodded through English football for the last four years, Graziano Pelle and Alexis Sanchez have exploded all over the Kenna campaign just like Sergio Aguero and Luis Suarez did for the Lesbians two years ago.
Fast, ruthless and squat, Sanchez (60 points) in particular looks like he was made for a wet Tuesday night in Stoke. Only Pelle has done more (61 points) to put Lesbians top of the league.
In response, the Bala Rinas manager’s decision not to tinker with his side at the window appears to have backfired.
Like Elmohamady, Bala striker Marouane Chamakh has managed but one assist since the window, and although it came last night it was not enough to stop Sporting Lesbian easing away from the pack.
The rotting corpses of two sex workers, a murder weapon found on the crime scene and a lead suspect calling himself in to authorities meant only the Hong Kong police had an easier time of it this weekend.
Burqa-use I’m happy: Despite his leanings, the Piedmonte manager was overjoyed to find in his absence from the transfer window he automatically signed Abel Hernandez (photo: 4thlion)
THE Kenna League has awarded the lucrative contract to refurbish the committee’s executive bathroom to a Polish builder.
Work many considered to be long overdue began late last week, but critics of the chairman say the project has led to a bureaucratic slowdown at Kenna HQ.
No communication has been published since the season’s first transfer window 10 days ago. Managers desperate for confirmation of which mid-table treadwater bought which form-fiddling flake, who topped last week’s league and exactly what time the chairman woke up the day after transfer night have been disappointed.
The chairman brushed aside concerns he’s losing is grip on the league.
“Do you think Martin Luther King made his famous speech while busting for a jimmy? Did Hannibal trek through the Alps without stopping to pinch one off on a vinegary rock? The Kenna committee is making crucial decisions with far-reaching consequences every single day. You expect us to consider these matters reasonably and equably without serenity to which to retreat when it’s touch and go?”
“Kenna HQ will only be running essential functions during the period of renovation,”he said, returning from the garden while doing up his fly.
The building work may have interrupted normal operations, but is has led to some hilarious moments for followers of the chairman on social media networking site Twitter*.
