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?
Tactical Brambling’s the FC Testiculadew manager was beaten to the Kenna’s biggest nemesis in 2013 award. But by who?
The next 24 hours will see New Year celebrations from everyone in the world, except perhaps the Schumachers.
Therefore – as Hairy Fadjeetas become the fourth team this season to sit on top of the table – it’s time to look back on the last 12 months in the Kenna to recognise the best, worst, biggest, most inappropriate and most mediocre of the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football competition.
“What a year it’s been,” said the chairman, more focused on visiting the Polish mountain town of Żywiec today.
…but Sporting Lesbian’s domineering league success was not enough to overshadow the previous season’s record set by FC Testiculadew. It was the Pirates’ 7-1 walloping of Just Put Carles in the Canesten Combi Cup final – including hat tricks from Kevin Nolan and Romeleu Lukaku – that was the stand out effort.
Worst performance of the year – the PSV Mornington manager
The opportunity to rectify a dire situation at October’s transfer window was shunned, and the Catalan was out on his ear by Christmas, setting the record for the worst ever start to a campaign and the earliest ever Kenna sacking.
The Wally with the Brolly award for most hapless tournament campaign – Bala Rinas
Despite worrying the top three places this term, success comes rarely to the league treasurer. Never was this is in so much evidence as January when yet another disastrous trophy attempt came to a sorry end. Played four, lost four is the worst Canesten Combi Cup group stage performance ever. And he had Gareth Bale.
Captain Mainwaring leadership award – the Still Don’t Know Yet manager
Many will claim his task of whipping a bunch of misfits into into some sort of shape should sew this one up for the Kenna League chairman. But when questioned in February on his decision not to release absentees Drusille Ngako and Anton Ferndinand ahead of the transfer window, the Still Don’t Know Yet manager came out with this corker: “Do you think Napoleon focused on every individual soldier? No, he was looking at the big picture, and so am I.”
Biggest dilemma ahead of a transfer window award – Juan Mata or Demba Ba?
How the outcast PSV Mornington manager must have wished for this doozy in the recent October window? Back in January his side were flying high, but Demba Ba’s move to London meant he either had to jettison the goal hungry Senagalese or the mercurial Juan Mata. His decision to keep Mata was vindicated when the Spaniard went onto be widely lauded as the player of last season, while Ba lost his way. All three of them must look back fondly from their current slumps.
The Dr Evil award for the Kenna’s biggest nemesis – the Catholic Church
Despite his obvious talents at administrating a group of men whose names should be on some sort of police register, the chairman was cruelly overlooked by the Vatican when the big job came up in February. To add insult to injury the chairman was again thwarted by those fools in Rome in October when the farcical timing of his even more farcical marriage lessons meant the transfer window schedule had to rearranged.
The Kevin Keegan ‘I would LOVE it’ award for coping with April pressure – the Woking manager
Natalie Sawyer, Chobham Common, a socket wrench and a Genesis classic. Cue darkness.
The Jack Wilshere xenophobe award – Mo Farrah’s pirate accent
The Notorious BIG Life After Death award for best post-Kenna career – the former manager of The Dan Terry Seduction
From boardroom dressing downs to unsuccessfully slipping a roofy to a young, female journalist, The Dan Terry Seduction’s former boss had all the qualities of a Kenna manager off the pitch. When inevitable relegation and P45 collection came, he picked himself up, dusted himself off and turned his particular talents to terrorising a middle England golf club. Rumour has it he still parks in the club pro’s reserved space.
The Men from the Ministry Bureaucratic Balls Up award – Kenna HQ
The Two Chairmen in Trafalgar Square followed by a casino visit at the February window and the nine-hour session in the Pakenham Arms at the end of season awards in May were both eclipsed by August’s marathon event. Eight hours of bidding for players in the upstairs bar The Roebuck, followed by another six surrounded by intrepid young Spanish women on a disco boat moored at Temple Pier, left many managers reeling for several days.
The Operation Yewtree award for best youth set up – the Young Boys manager
Fail from the chair: The fifth most popular Kenna post of 2013
NEXT Wednesday marks the eighth full calendar year of the Kenna League.
As Christmas turns from work parties to family meals to the creeping burn of stomach acid, it’s time to look back on the last 12 months in the Kenna – the world’s leading London-pub based fantasy football competition.
It’s also time to reveal the top five most popular posts of 2013 on the Kenna site.
“It’s been a roller coaster year,” cliched the chairman, too full of his future mother-in-law’s cabbage surprise to care any more.
The Woking manager faced serious questions from authorities at the February transfer window, held in the upstairs bar of The Two Chairmen in Trafalgar Square. The league leadership is still adamant that after a trip to the casino following the window, he did not fall asleep on the night bus and wake up miles from Kenna HQ in Enfield.
May: Pirates 7-1 Catalans
In April, some managers were seen on the banks of the River Thames lamenting their failure to capture league form on the first of three Kenna-organised London pub crawls in 2013. As Sporting took the league a month later, the Spartak Mogadishu manager celebrated his team’s first ever Kenna silverware when his side walloped Just Put Carles 7-1 in the Canesten Combi Cup final.
In August, 23 managers convened for a record-breaking auction event at The Roebuck in Borough that saw a clutch of them hitting Club Duvet way past dawn to found The 7.08 Club.
While February’s transfer window enjoyed record attendance, October’s was a reminder of the disappointing turnouts of the late noughties. Just eight were seated around the table in the upstairs room of The Three Stags in Lambeth, and it led to calls for a managerial cull and unsavoury reprisals.
Soon after the October window closed and the heavy cogs of the Canesten Combi Cup group stage ground into action, early-season pretenders Headless Chickens lost their place at the top of the table to perennial underachiever the Piedmonte manager.
There was still time for two more pub crawls – one at the start of November, and one at the end – before the PSV Mornington manager became the first ever Kenna manager to get the sack by Christmas when the club’s board lost patience with the poorest start to a season ever recorded.
The Kenna blog’s top five posts in 2013 (that weren’t about pub crawls)
Not for footballing reasons: The most popular post of 2013
Lezzers lose libido late on – It’s highly likely that not everyone looking for this page expected to find details of Sporting Lesbian’s wobble towards the end of the 2012/13 season.
In too deep – The Woking manager’s brutal murder of an attractive Sky Sports News anchor to the music of Genesis was a firm favourite all around.
A Tale of Two Cissés – Kenna revisit of the Charles Dickens classic to compare the fates of Papiss and Djibrial after joining the league in February.
No Sporting chance – Difficult to see why news of an administrative debacle over which team really progressed from a cup semi final was so popular, unless the accompanying photo is taken into account.
What a bunch of can’ts – The chairman’s failed attempt at skiing captured on camera was an instant hit.
Cup specialist: Rapids de Cullons CF unveiled Andre Villas-Boas as their new assistant coach this morning.
ANDRÉ Villas-Boas is to take up a post in the Kenna League as assistant manager at Rapids de Cullons CF.
The Portuguese, who many were surprised to see sacked by Tottenham last week, was snapped up by Rapids de Cullons primarily to help in their bid for the Canesten Combi Cup, the Kenna’s knockout tournament.
“We’re delighted to get André on board to lend his expertise in pursuit of our first piece of Kenna silverware,” said the Rapids manager at a press conference that appears to have been held on public transport.
Despite leading Porto to Europa League glory and leaving Spurs with a 100 per cent record in that competition this season, Villas-Boas was forced to dismiss concerns he will find it difficult to step up to the additional pressure of the Kenna.
“This is definitely the best Christmas ever,” began the former Tottenham boss, who forfeits a considerable payout from Spurs for accepting a new role so soon.
“Managing dressing room egos and boardroom expectations to date pale into insignificance compared to the Kenna. Standing in a London pub while drinking several pints of premium lager on an empty stomach as you buy players without Brambling yourself is the biggest ask of my life.
“It’s a real badge of honour for foreign managers to adapt to this nuance of British life. On the Continent we always sit down in bars and drink halves of shandy. Very slowly.”
A London nightlife veteran, the Rapids manager was quick to point out that as assistant coach AVB would not making any transfer decisions until the end of a probation period. The Catalan confirmed that for now his new recruit’s brief at the February Kenna transfer window would be restricted to buying the beers, crashing the chairman cigarettes and, when the last orders bell sounds, encouraging managers to move on to the Rapids manager’s boat bar on the River Thames.
The Catalan manager failed to make an impact in his only other season in the Kenna League, finishing mid table at the helm of Atletico Temple, but he did manage to reach the latter stages of the Canesten Combi Cup. The team lie second in group B with two games to go.
The latest Kenna table will be published as soon as the chairman tracks down the chaps from charts and graphs.
Explosive: Luis Suarez has earned a place in the archives
DEEP in the bowls of Kenna HQ lies a vast underground record of all the notable, notorious and mediocre football management achievements in the league.
Chronicled for posterity in those dark annals are such guilded histories as FC Testiculadew’s Kenna in the bag season, the time Fat Ladies ended the most dismal of campaigns more than 200 points adrift and perhaps most importantly of all the 2009/10 Judean Peoples’ Front side becoming the most average team ever to compete in the league.
Whispers in the corridors and smoking areas of Kenna HQ maintain that hidden in these depths, amongst dusty artefacts like the March 2007 third transfer window and the mysterious soundproofed door to which only the chairman has the key, is a list of the highest individual weekly scores written in virgin’s blood on a beermat preserved from the first ever auction.
Statisticians are praying this sacred parchment is found soon, as Luis Suarez is believed to have had the best ever seven days in the Kenna.
The Uruguayan’s manager at This is Sparta…Prague is so delighted with the striker’s five goals and four assists he’s had T-shirts made bearing the slogan ‘He’ll miss the first eight games though’.
The jibe is a reference to a popular remark made by Kenna managers at August’s pre-season auction dismissing the player as a poor investment, and which allowed the Sparta manager to cheerfully pick Luis up for just £0.5m.
Suarez’ exploits now see him overtaking £38m KS West Green striker Sergio Aguero as the top performing player in the league. The Still Don’t Know Yet manager can only rue his decision to make Robin van Persie the most expensive Kenna player ever. The glass Dutchman does not warrant his £46m price tag.
Unfortunately for Sparta, the unprecedented individual display of Suarez was only enough to lift them one place in the relegation zone.
At the business end of the league, two goals from Yaya Toure were not enough to stop Headless Chickens relinquishing their nine-week spell at the top of the table to Piedmonte.
Mental Oriental: As Piedmonte flourish thousands of miles away the team’s manager enjoys more unorthodox pastimes
SAMIR Nasri has urged his manager not to come back from Australia in case a return ruins the club’s fantastic run of form.
The French midfielder scored twice for Piedmonte on the weekend which, added to goals from Shane Long and Steven Gerrard, helped fire the club second in the Kenna League.
It is the Piedmonte manager’s best league position since he came second in the Kenna eight years ago, and all while the Englishman tours a former penal colony in the southern hemisphere.
Now his players have demanded their manager stays away from the club, claiming they can do a better job without him.
“The way we’re playing, we hope the boss never comes back. It’s no secret that the boss is a bit of a xenophobe, and I think certainly for me and some of the lads in the dressing room have got a renewed focus from not having to sing Jerusalem before games or being forced to drink a popular brand of weak English lager on Friday nights,” said Nasri, who’s enjoying his best run of form since joining the Kenna in 2008.
It’s not the first time the Piedmonte manager’s British bulldog mentality has been called into question. Overseeing years of steady decline at former club Thieving Magpies, his decision to pick English-only players was thought to have been vindicated just over a year ago. Lasting legacy was short-lived.
If the Piedmonte manager can tear himself away from hostilities in Adelaide for a few moments this weekend, he’ll be hoping his side can get something out of their Canesten Combi Cup group stage match with Hairy Fadjeetas.
Despite goals from Aaron Ramsey and Yoan Gouffran on the weekend, the Fadges slipped to third in the table.
Both managers are yet to win any Kenna league or cup silverware.
Red mist: Afterwards the mood changed dramatically when he realised the player he’d just bought was out injured for the rest of the season
IT HAS never been remarked upon that any team won a top-level football league because they ‘transfer windowed well’.
In the brief hiatus between the end of the season in May and the start of the World Cup in June, whoever the winners are will be noted for their long-term strategy, the conviction instilled into the team by the manager and most of all their luck.
They may have signed a useful player in January who immediately gels with his teammates, but that will only be a footnote in the side’s chronicle of success.
The Kenna League takes pride in reflecting this particular nuance of modern football. In every Kenna season to date, the winning manager’s preparations in the summer, his approach to the auction, the core of team purchased therein and good fortune, has decided the campaign.
That’s not to say that transfer windows are obsolete, despite the Pikey Scum manager’s claim today that his Senderos/Jenkinson swap in the last window was like ‘rearranging the deckchairs the Titanic’. To remain competitive Kenna managers must ensure their peripheral players are making appearances – it’s little surprise that three of the bottom four managers didn’t attend the October window.
Transfer windows are as integral to the Kenna League manager as they are to the Premier League manager, but for the most part of the season they must both rely on the finite resources at their disposal.
Which is why other, much less exclusive fantasy football competitions have got it wrong.
If any manager wants to remind himself of the superiority of the Kenna all he needs to do is enter the ‘official’ Fantasy Premier League.
At this point it would easy to list the many faults of this contest, that everyone ends up with pretty much the same players in their team, the ridiculousness of picking a captain and vice captain each week, the folly and oversight of not giving prominence to manager darts entrance music, but the argument will be kept to one strain – transfers.
The season is one long transfer window. The manager is essentially picking his team from one squad of every player in the Premier League. No player is off limits. How does that mirror the game?
Of course, the banner advertising on each page hints at why the FPL wants ‘managers’ to keeping checking back on their selections for the upcoming week. The Kenna suffers from no such obstacle to improving manager experience, as the trifling amount of visits to these pages testify.
But satisfying sponsors at the expense of sophistication is nothing compared to FPL’s single biggest foible.
The crucial period of the FPL manager’s week is time between Friday morning and Saturday lunchtime, between squads being announced for the weekend’s fixtures and the cut off point for making changes to your team.
So why does the chairman kick himself every week five minutes into the Saturday early game on the Kenna HQ kitchen radio? Because for any self-respecting Kenna manager this 36-hour ‘transfer window’ is dedicated to planning, executing and recovering from a Friday evening’s entertainment after the working week.
Almost exactly a third of the way through the season it’s a welcome reminder of why the Kenna was founded, and why the preferred time for the next Kenna transfer window is a Friday night.
It’s also the best way to explain why the chairman is bottom of every FPL league he’s entered.
Canesten Combi Cup – group stage standings after two match weeks
