England Expectorates

Another chocker weekend of sport and there's so much good stuff you could be talking about.

I could bang on about plucky Brum and their team of attractive and rational individuals like Barry Sneaky V-Sign Ferguson and Lee 'Leave Your Foot In' Bowyer. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of lads.

What do them initials stand for I wonder...

This was one of them finals when I didn't want the outsiders to nick it. Trouble was Birmingham never really looked like outsiders, did they?

They have a lot of big lads. Arsenal have a couple of centre-backs with all the permanence of a sandcastle at high tide. I got a cool fifty quid putting not much on Zigic to score the first (and only, I hoped) goal.

You could stereotype the game as Beauty v The Beast. Except on this occasion you wouldn't have Penelope Cruz playing Arsenal, you'd have Kate Hudson or some other cute dimwit lightweight who's not as good as she thinks she is.

I still think Gooners could back off Wenger. Christ knows they get more entertainment at the Emirates Library in ninety minutes than most of us get in a season. But Arsene needs a bloody solid centre-back or three and, like it or not, a midfielder who treats tippy-tappers like so many kit-kat fingers. A Yaya Toure without the flagrant self-interest.

Still, well done Brum, you ugly buggers, you earned it... and bad luck Sczeszensczennyyyeny or whatever your name is. Twas a howler of such note that your UK passport must be a matter of days away.

One might also want to praise the tie between India and England. It was edge of your toilet seat stuff. And a great fillip for a tournament that has so far resembled a contest between a runaway Eurostar and an IKEA bookshelf.

Good stuff from Steve Davis, too, who has boldly announced his homosexuality to the cricketing world. Stand by for snorts of euphemistic guffawing next time someone catches him in the gully, pulls him over the boundary, or swings it both ways.

Seriously though, it's pretty close to not being much of a big deal which shows you how far we've come. (Steady innuendo-ists).

We might also congratulate European Golf on having the top four players in the world at the mo. Except that golf is not a sport but rather, as my mate Andy Smart insists, a paid holiday in Pringle.

We might also want to praise the continentally unpopular concrete-poured-into-pillow-cases that is the England Rugby Union Team. Apparently they beat France.

I didn't follow much of it. Since they brought in them tight-fitting T-shirts and God-knows what sort of dietary enhancements most of them rugby lads look like the sort of sun-lamped brawny tossers who twenty years back used to waddle into your local bar with muscles like a rockslide and a face like a jar of sultanas.

The rugby players I grew up watching - your Phil Bennetts and Gareth Edwards - well these blokes'd use them as ear-plugs.

But instead we're left to ponder that Regurgitatable Sign Of Our Times, the Errant England Footballer. If they're not elbowing you in the face, they're bringing an air rifle to work and shooting you. Allegedly.

First Rooney. He ran past James McCarthy and elbowed him in the face. The ball was somewhere in the next postal district at the time. God knows why. Has McCarthy been sneaking round to Colleen while Wazza's down the tobacconists?

Even John Hartson says it was indefensible. That's John Hartson, a man who had to go and find Eyal Berkovic's head in the nettles after a training-ground bust-up.

Let's look at what Sir Alex Ferfuckssakuson said about the incident: 'There was nothing in it'. Gaddafi-esque in its neglect of the truth.

'I don't think the boy touched McCarthy. They are all on drugs and working for Al Qaeda if you ask me'

The Govan Beetroot added: 'The press will raise a campaign to get him hung by Tuesday or electrocuted or something like that.' Erm, that's just a twat's thing to say. Maybe the country would've liked to see the recommended dose of three games off for the petulant hairy toddler. At the very least some calpol for the stroppy little bugger.

And this is what stirs up the ABU brigade. Clattenburg's said he's happy about what happened at the DW. Rooney gets clean away with it. No fine. No ban. No nowt. Just carry on as usual. Heck he could be a frigging merchant banker, couldn't he?

Carlo Ancelotti claims there's nowt wrong with discipline at Chelsea either after Ashley Cole SHOT someone. It's been dealt with apparently. Cole has apologised. For SHOOTING someone. Given their goal-shy form of late it's to see someone's bothering to shoot.

But can you believe it?! Really?! Well yes, it's Ashley Cole. Letting of an air-rifle is as pathetically schoolboy an error he could still be defending at Arsenal. What next, Cashley? Flicking gobs of chewed-up paper at John Obi-Mikel?

I expect Cole is the first on the team bus to shout 'The one who denied it supplied it.'

'Keep smiling darlin' I've got an air-rifle pointed at your back...'
What all this leads you to is two conclusions:

1. If you play for United you could rob a train in broad daylight without a mask on and Fergie would say it was nowt and the FA would agree.

2. There's not an England player in this country who has the remotest concept of reality. I mean we could take a fiver a week out of their pockets and build an NHS hospital in every town - and that way we'd have an A&E on standby should Rooney come drop in with a munk on.

The Seeds of Destruction

Another mish-mashed FA Cup weekend which seems only to fuel the mean-spirited bleeders who reckon that the tournament is a busted flush and should be replaced by summat even more likely to allow some cash-wielding mercenaries to canter cheerily up the Wembley steps.

Well one set of greedy buggers were dumped out courtesy of the most unsympathetic of football weapons, the Boot of a Neville. Phil gathered himself, visualised the ball on the spot as the shinbone of Cristiano Ronaldo and smacked it home.

But there’ll still be those that argue in favour of the seeded draw. This they say would avoid the travesty of finals like Millwall-ManU (the only time when the New Den cries of ‘No one likes us, we don’t care’ must have rung pretty hollow to their opposition’s fans).

Well, I’ve seen more disappointing finals to be frank.

The Spice Boys circa 1996. The Old Spice Boys now, I suppose.

I seem to remember Liverpool v Man Utd in ’96 when Cantona saved the nation from extra time and spared us any more cack from Merseyside’s brigade of wanky white-suit wearing wallies. Apparently both sides were pretty major teams at the time.

Arsenal v United in 2005 wasn’t the best two and a half hours of my life either. Mind you them hours were spent in the back of a Ford Transit van on my 26th birthday. No, I won’t elaborate. I also remember Sunderland beating the Damned United, and Southampton – a ragtag of wandering veteran minstrels – somehow taking out Tommy Doc’s crop of vibrant men-in-waiting. Both these clubs were so unlikely to win that they were underbunnies – the ones the underdogs have for breakfast.

The idea persists amongst the pro-seeding lobby that what the FA Cup requires is a final between the two best clubs in the country. Why? Chances are that ManU will play the Arse in the last eight. Good. We might get the less than usual suspects at the final.

You might also want to bear in mind that the top (or tell you waht. let's make that the richest) use the Cup as a run-out for the sulky subs get to have a run-out, and that the manager spends the next ninety minutes with his fingers crossed hoping that the squad makeweights might muster a performance. Of course if it’s Arsenal you’re up against then you counter the meaningless tippy-tap with a big scary substitute and you’re laughing – though maybe not quite as much as Barry Hearn thinks.

"Lawks love a duck innit marvellous, etc!"

I mean I know that’s a cash cow and a half for Barry Hearn but the Matchroom Maestro has been milking it like an engorged wet nurse ever since. And the boys are off to Vegas. Been there – it’s shite. One night and I wanted to stick a neon bulb up the backside of every ivory-toothed croupier in the whole of the Goddamn city.

But any road, to me the whole point of the FA Cup is its randomness. You can have Chelsea-Arsenal in the third round. You can sneak a win at a Premier League ground and get rewarded with an away trip to Peterborough or somewhere a bit crap like that. It’s luck, is all it is.

Seeding would guarantee a Premier League club for some and yet by and large it would also prevent a club like Crawley from getting to Round 5. The hardheads’ll tell you that the minnows can then get a guaranteed pay-day. Them that value the Cup above its ability to pay the bills – like me – will tell you that every FA Cup year needs its story and if by the time of the last 32, there’s no collection of no-marks with a dream in their hearts and a Ronnie Radford rasper in their boots then you might as well consign the competition to the potty days of footy history.

‘Do you remember the Football Association Cup, Bert?’
‘Yes, ha ha! Laughable wasn’t it? D’you know back then people used to play football for the love of it?’
‘Ha Ha! The soft-minded paupers!’
‘Apart from Manchester City of course –‘
‘'Course!'

Now my only regrets about expressing this view is that (a) I’ve depicted meself as some sort of moist-eyed moron who’s bought into the romance of the Cup without applying his poor sentimental brain to the harsh realities of modern sport (partly because that is 80% true) and (b) I find myself agreeing with BBC Radio 5Live’s new Voice of Football Reason Robbie Savage.

"I speak my mind, I do - which should take about 23 seconds max"

Now there was a time when no one had a good word to say about Savage – although I always thought tosspot was a very good word to say about him. What can you say about him? He gave 110%? He wasn’t completely shite? He’s got very shiny hair?

That’s about it. Other than that he was a needly little bleeder who used incitement and niggling as compensation for his lack of pace and talent. A kind of honorary Neville in a way.

So how come people keep telling him he’s a legend on phone-ins? I mean he’s not the worst pundit I’ve heard. He’s not the ironically named Mark Bright. Or Garth ‘just cos I use the occasional long word doesn’t mean I’m not talking shite’ Crooks. Or Andy ‘decent bloke but as empty as Space’ Townsend.

He can string a few words together I suppose although whether them words have owt to do with each other is anyone’s guess.

The only thing about Savage which I can sort of understand is that he’s one of them players that you loathe unless he’s wearing your team’s colours. That suddenly legitimises him. A bit of ankle-tapping – well, football’s a man’s game, eh Robbie? In the ear of the ref for ninety minutes – well he’s just using his experience...

It’s just that a bit of an attitude doesn’t make you an insightful pundit does it now? I mean you only have to listen to that arrogant plank Brian Moore on the rugby to realise that.

And if that’s the pot calling the kettle an ethnic minority then so be it.

Loony for Rooney?

St. Valentines Day. Bloody hate it.

It's one of them Christian-Capitalist conspiracies that blackmails you into chucking your wallet at naff poetry and furry fluffballs with embroidered hearts dotted all over them.

I once went out with a lass who was dead narked that I hadn't got her any make-up for Lovers Day. The poor mare had read somewhere about the St. Valentine's Day Mascara, she said. Any man foolish enough to fall for such a load of cods deserves to have his bank account reappropriated (unless he's a customer at Allied Irish in which case that's probably already happened).

If you've bought owt like this in the last couple of days you are a twat. Fact.

I mean if I want to be romantic with the missus then I'll do it on me own time not when Clintons Cards tells me to. She'll tell me it's nice to be presented with a thing of beauty on the 14th Feb so I took her down to the lounge and let her watch Rooney's winner v Man City over and over.

Although I have to confess, Wazza's moment of acrobatical wonder was his only contribution to the game. And it can't disguise the fact that the rampaging ogre-boy of 2004 is a distant memory for most of us.

United continue to blunder on to the title without ever looking convincing. One thing's happened in the Blue Bell, mind. For a few years now we've referred to a needless snippet of greenery on your food as a 'Nani'.

Sprig of parsley on your fish pie? That's a Nani. Mint leaf on your vanilla ice cream? A Nani. If Man United were a tasty dish, Nani was the unnecessary garnish. Not any more.

When they go forward, Portugal's Wacko Jacko Looky-Likey (during the Billie Jean years, before Michael started to want to look like a waxwork of Diana Ross) is now very much the chunky beef in the steak and ale pie. (With Vidic the hardy topcrust pastry you have to struggle hard to get through).

Nani's finish for United's first goal had the lazy ease of a Greaves. Indeed Wazza can count himself well bleeding lucky to be on the pitch given that The Languid Bulgar is in tiptop nick and Speedy Gonzales can't wait to get off the bench.

Javier Hernandez - another of them feckless fat Sombrero tossers for the Top Gear team to get their lazy hands on.

I'm not doing down the goal Rooney scored. My cliche accumulator tells me that it was: a Derby game. A Six-pointer. It deserved to win any game. But his every other touch was that of a man with kapok-covered boots.

So why the Sunday paper gush? (Apart from the opportunity to use 'Roo' in a dozen headlines. And that overhead kick saved his bacon otherwise I'm sure one of them would've come up with 'Roo-matic'.)

Could it be that the Man-Child that led England's Euro 2004 bid cannot be forgotten. That we're so desperate to revive that a kid so hirsute that he must be a genetic hair's breadth away from Richard Keys, we'll grab on to the first sign of that resurrection to prove that England's only world-class forward is back?

It's uncomfortably reminiscent of your Lawros and Hansens purring every time the creaking Michael Owen taps in a three-yarder. "'E's a goalscorer, Gary." Er, yeah. He's also got hamstrings with all the robustness of cheese straws thanks to the likes of Houllier running his little calves into the ground before he'd all growed up.

Owen of course was a 17-year-old wunderkind too when he, for the first and last time, scored a goal having picked it up over ten yards away from goal. (It may sound like I'm sniping but that's still six yards further out than Lineker.)

But that golden boy is so far off the teenage terror that he's now a Fool's Golden Boy. And despite Rooney's latest terrific tonk I'm thinking he's in the same tarnished boat.

The Jesus pose by the corner-flag can't disguise the fact that not that long ago the Old Trafford saviour was more than shuffling his avaricious little pegs across Manchester with all the speed and grace of an Egyptian dictator skipping town.

WR: "At least we don't play for them no-marks across town." CT: "Yet!"

Given the aforementioned Chicharito and Berbatov, Fergie might well see the close season as his big chance to get shot of the Scouser and cash in. He doesn't normally faff about, does he?

Certainly Rooney's a long way off joining the really big names. Like Ronaldo. I mean the retired Brazilian one. (Although let's face it, the idea that the lardbucket only just retired is as laughable a notion as the idea that the Big Society has been thought through.)

Such is the preponderance of flesh about Ronaldo in recent times it's difficult to recall how lethal he was when on song. The two goals in the 2002 final when the bloke had his haircut the wrong way round will live in the memory for a while. (Not least cos a piss-poor German team somehow stumbled to the final to face them.)

Wearing that merkin on his scalp was said to prove how confident the lad was feeling during the tournament. Maybe. Nevertheless, history will not instantly recall the fleet-footed assassin of that final, nor will it trumpet his record of 16 goals in World Cup Finals (unsurpassable unless Blatter's ugly reign leads to a year-long tournament that involves 128 countries - and it coyld happen). Instead history may remember a truly great footballer as the fat bloke with the bad barnet who cried off in 1998.

Too much Ronaldo at McDonaldo's methinks

I pray that Rooney is remembered more fondly.