Salutations to you, my fine gentlemen and suffragents.
It is the end of a somewhat mixed week for Woolwich. We are certainly not at the three (opium) pipe levels of dismay of last season, not even at 69% export rum levels, but we are certainly in the postcode of two-or-perhaps-three-large-gins-might-take-the-edge-off. We of course remain five points clear at the summit of the English League. Our players are still the handsomest of them all. We still have Melvin Orwell at Number Eleven. We still aspire to rarefied levels of tickety-tackety. And yet.
A draw with Everton, a proper club I should add, who have now been freed of the terrifying spectre that was David Moyes (I’m sure he’ll pop back up somewhere, his type always do, like a floating turd after a night on the Drambuie). No, this Everton are foes to be wary of. Mr. Martinez sets up his chaps with some vigour, and although Mrs. Baines (I’m guessing it’s a lady, due to the excessive hair) was unavailable, they made life very difficult for us and posed a constant threat. Not threatening like a big cat, but perhaps like a large psychotic dog at the house of a friend, of whom you pretend to not to be scared, but is actually terrifying.
There was a time at Everton, under Mr. Moyes, that they would have just rolled over at one nil. But Mr. Martinez, to give him his due, he made the changes and Mr. Deulofeu popped in the equaliser having come straight from the toffees family pew. Indeed, since we are concerned with substitutionals, I cannot recall another recent instance when Mr. Windsor has performed the Try Hard Triumvirate, whereby three players are substituted. Quite the statement of intent, and pleasing that we had players of the quality of Fenton, Robinson and Flame to come on to try and turn the game.
And so to Naples, wondrous city of art, music, architecture and legions of tiny-penised psychopaths in padded waterproof jackets. Here Mr. Windsor revealed his sneaky side, brilliantly playing for a two-nil loss, ensuring that we escaped mortality in the group of death. I did enjoy watching Mr. Flame cover the pitch with intensity. It was a mistake, of course. Mr. Flame, as we all know is our Multifarious Defensive Destructor, whose specialty is the tackle known as ‘The Tibia Troubler’. This is made much worse when opposition players touch Peter, the parrot he always carries upon his shoulder during matches.
And so it was that Mr. Higginbotham, who so nearly came to Arsenal over the summer, made the mistake of touching Peter during the early exchanges. Do not ever touch his parrot. The spectacular loss also ensures that we face one of Europe’s minnows, probably Bayern Munich, over whom we hold the Indian sign. Or perhaps one of the Madrid sides, A or B. Or Barcelona, a side on the wane, or Paris St Disgraceful, who are a France’s ghastly hybrid of Manchester City and Chelsea, more of whom later.
Personally I hope it’s Barcebloodylona. Bring on the Catalan Cads. Another advantage of losing in such a manner was that at two nil, thousands of those violent trolls in the stands felt that there was a chance they might progress. I laughed liked the laughing policeman on laughing gas watching Messrs Laurel and Hardy when the televisual cameras alighted on their hopeful and anxious faces. Honestly ‘Ultras’. I ask you. I always thought that ‘Ultras’ were what the housekeeper went to the chemist’s for Mrs. Gent once a month.
And so to City, vile boil on the face of English football. A team so vulgar and nouveau riche they make The Beckhams look like the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. I do so bloody well hope we smash them all the way back to Abu Dhabi. They do have a distinct advantage over us in that our chaps only got off the aeroplane from Naples at four AM on Thursday, whereas the rapscallions, cudgel-bearers and footpads of the middle east have had almost a fortnight to repair their bodies.
Their souls of course are a different matter, for none of the squad actually has one. This was a condition of signing a contract with them. Incidentally, I believe I once went to a bar called ‘Man City’, in Amsterdam. The chaps wore the leather ‘chaps’ of the Old West and were splendidly friendly.
So, to a stadium which I genuinely believe was called ‘The Shitty Hat’ until last year. Shall we prevail? It is a stern test.
But we are Woolwich.
