The major event of this week, aside from gigantic Yankee oompah-loompa Herr Drumpf ushering in the third Great War – was Leicester Fosse winning the English league. There are numerous amusing aspects to this. We shall come to the piquant delight of Tottenham throwing away the best chance they will ever have of winning the league in a moment. First of all, let us consider the following. Wes Morgan now has more Premier League medals than Steven Gerrard. Danny Drinkwater is a more highly decorated player than Steven Gerrard. Andy King can sit upon a throne and ask Steven Gerrard to be his Necessary Woman*.
That grinning savant Signore Ranieri, ousted after the first year of the existence of Chelsea Football Club for Portuguese mountebank Mourinho, can now telephone such managerial greats as Senor Benitez and ask him to produce his Premier League medal. Mr. Vardy, whose own journey from rat-faced, tag-ankled, whippet-thin, jet-heeled cheating ne’er-do-well at Fleetwood Town to rat-faced, tag-ankled, whippet-thin, jet-heeled cheating ne’er-do-well at Leicester City is to be immortalised on film.
Leicester City’s achievement is gargantuan. It is akin to Spurs winning the League Cup in 2008, their last major, erm, ‘honour’, is it? And likely to remain so for some time to come. And when I say ‘some time to come’, I mean until all life on earth (including cockroaches, bacteria and John Terry) ceases to exist, some 2,800,000,000 years into the future.
Tottenham truly are becoming the kingmakers of English football; we all remember how accommodating they were in 1971 and once more in 2004. The manner of Fosse’s win, coming during a predictably unpleasant spectacle at the Fulham slum, was exquisite. This Spurs side is either a robust, highly motivated, highly organised and stoutly physical grouping with a talented if physically deformed striker up front, or a gang of kicking, poking, niggling, tripping, shoving thugs with a physically deformed striker up front, depending on one’s perspective.
They kicked and they gouged. They cruelly went two nil up, pouring petrol on the flames of every Spurs fan’s hopes. Across every damp, substandard hovel, their fans drew closer to their stolen television set in the vain hope of an unlikely last minute surge to the title. Sadly, they Spursed it up. Local business owners in Tottenham are now in lockdown, buckets of water at the ready, awaiting the arsonists and rioters.
The Football Association has charged both Tottenham and Chelsea with failing to control their players. A similar situation back in 1990 resulted in a points deduction for both Arsenal and Manchester United. We hope that common sense prevails and Spurs are deducted ten points. Incidentally, we learn this week that Spurs will be playing their home games at Wembley next season. Renting the National stadium will be the closest they shall come to making a proper appearance there.
The Foxes achievement is enormous, and we should give them every plaudit and respect that they deserve. But we all know what happens to foxes in the end; they are chased for hours on end by braying fools in circus ringmaster’s costumes and then torn apart by specially trained dogs. So next season should be a bloodthirsty spectacle. Tally-ho!
Sunday, then, and our annual visit to the Abu Dhabi Dome. All I ask of the chaps is this. No gongoozling, please. Especially from the defenders. It’s a game we very much enjoy, but if we find ourselves in a sloom, as we so often are, we shall be finished. Middlesex play at lunchtime on Sunday, and if they can vanquish St. Mary’s Church Young Men’s Association, they shall be six points ahead of us and St. Tott will be in hibernation for a year.
However, if Herr Koeman can avoid his side getting the ordure kicked out of them by the White Hart Thugs, then we may pull level on points with the curs. I shall be praying with all my might to the gods. Until Sunday then, my dears!
* A servant whose job was to empty the royal chamber pot.
