You find me this week, as is traditional following the excesses of yuletide over consumption, undertaking what is known as a ‘diet’. Breakfast in Gentleman Towers normally consists of eight rashers of back bacon, four eggs four ways (a poacher, a boiler, one fried and one deep-fried), black pudding, white pudding, two fried slices of bread, some bone marrow, four sausages, sautéed mushrooms some boiled liver and a few potato farl. This version of breakfast is of course known worldwide as The Full Charlie Adam.
Mrs. Gentleman, in her infinite wisdom, has instructed cook to restrict the jentacular meal to communist-looking brown toast and just a pair of scrambled eggs, cooked a la Shawcross – that is cracked and then scrambled. Sadly, and all gentlemen reading this will empathise, I merely pop off to the local restaurant and have them prepare exactly what I wanted in the first place. So it seems dieting is not as hard as the world would make out. If I were serious about shifting some weight I would simply lop off an arm.
And so to Ashburton Grove for the visit of Shawcross and his ruffian army of the mentally needy and the criminally vicious. They bring with them the most offensive looking support; falling into two breeds. Either short and round, like little wolves that someone has pumped up on a garage forecourt, or long and gangly, with thick hairy chins and front teeth that poke o’er the bottom lip and rest, like broken piano keys on the flesh below. The men are pretty awful, too.
The stench is horrendous and the railways have long since insisted that Stoke fans only use special carriages and keep the windows open. The rolling stock for Stoke away-days is very old and soft seating has been replaced long ago with wooden benches. I shall spare you the details but without indoor sanitation anywhere in Stoke City the beasts simply defecate wherever they are, such as a train carriage, like rats, and the only way to clean up after a group of Stokies is with a firehose and one hundred gallons of Jeyes Fluid.
I knew a chap who once tried to domesticate a Stoke fan, or at least attempt to get one to walk upright, with the aim of taking the specimen around the world for public exhibition. The process was very slow and gruelling. They are vicious beasts and do not take kindly to being offered cooked food or regular showers and when in captivity will sling their faeces at any humans who may be passing and attempt to snap the limbs of even their own kind. The violent impulse is deep-rooted in the Stokie and will only be eradicated by selective interbreeding with humans, and who would wish to do that? There seems to be a market for just about every peccadillo in this day and age but that particular predilection is surely beyond what can be expected of any man. The experiment was unsuccessful and the Stokies had to be returned to their clay hovels within the month.
Since Woolwich’s visit to the slum village stadium just last month when we lost 3-2 to their underhand violence we had been waiting for a chance to avenge. It was staunch sentinel Mr. Costerley who first found the onion bag with a wonderful noggin-bobbler, notable for the fact that this was the first time Stoke’s players had ever shown any politeness at all and they waved young Larry into the box like a butler inviting an honoured guest to dinner. One nil to The Arsenal.
The second goal, courtesy of – who else – Mr. Whizzbang Saunders – was a thing of wonder. In union with Mr. Robinson, he pinged then ponged his way to the Stoke box before psychologically destroying the oaf Shawcross by not just sending him the wrong way, but buying him a ticket for a city break in Prague. Perite. Pedicabo ego vos et irrumbo, uttered Saunders as Poor Ryan looked like he was about to cry. Two nil. Mr. Hughes, chief miscreant and immoral leader of Stoke’s violent footballing criminals, known to the world as the Argos Fagin, looked like he was about to vomit bile.
The icing on the Saunders cake came as he sent a stationary Whizzbang right through Stoke’s smokers’ corner. I simply will not have anyone suggesting that he did not mean it. He meant it. He is the complete forward; swink, swagger and cunning. I love him dearly.
We now know that ‘Lucky’ Matthews, our pleasantly psychopathic right-back, is out for three months following his violent and snide assault by Marko Arnautovic for which he should be birched and then dipped in boiling vinegar. Time to recall the Corporal or do we stick with Lightning Harry Bell? And will the signing of Christopher Bollock mean that we are not signing an actual grown up footballer this January? We pray not. And even if we do, it shall not be in time for Sunday’s ominous looking visit to Manchester.
I’m orf for a fry up. We shall converse again next week.
