Pirate manages to Vorm his way out of drop zone

ISLINGTON Sports Islam & Leisure may have saved their season from certain relegation after it was revealed they had been playing most of the season with the wrong goalkeeper.

Negative publicity ISIL attracted last week after the manager appeared to be having yet another car crash campaign shone a light on an error in side’s starting eleven.

The club’s Somali manager spotted Michel Vorm was still in goal despite being released at the October transfer window in favour of Heurelho Gomes.

Reunited with ‘The Octopus’, ISIL’s points tally was backfilled by the boffins in charts and graphs, which raised the team from bottom of the Kenna League to lower mid table.

“Yarrrrrr! From the second I see ye Vorm in me crew I thinks to meself it be a landlubbin’ name, and being a seafarin’ vessel we sure to have ye Octopus! Yarrrrrrrr!” said the Somali, having somehow overlooked – at every single practice session at the club’s Spyglass Hill training facility for the last 18 weeks – there was a Dutchman in goal rather than a Brazilian.

ISIL were not the only side score badly this week. It was a low-scoring affair in the title race too, but Young Boys managed to extend their lead at the top of the table with a brace from new signing Emmanuel Emenike.

In response, chasers Walthamstow Reds scraped together just two points with an Aaron Cresswell start.

Heading into this weekend’s Narcozep Cup quarter final tie, the Young Boys manager will need to be just as convincing to overturn a considerable first leg deficit.

Narcozep Cup – quarter final first leg results (from last week)

Pikey Scum 29 – 10 Uncertain
Young Boys 26 – 54 Walthamstow Reds
Dynamo Charlton 43 – 33 Northern Monkeys
Lokomotiv Leeds 26 – 33 Thieving Magpies

Next week: quarter final second leg results

Kenna table – week 26

Weekly scores

11 Chinese takeaways you hope aren’t local to Adam Johnson

FOOTBALLER Adam Johnson pleaded guilty to charges of grooming and sexual activity with a child last week.

Since then the prosecution’s case has centred around an encounter between Johnson and a 15-year-old girl behind a Chinese takeaway in County Durham.

With all the allegations of where hands were placed, what act was performed and other inappropriate liaisons, wouldn’t it be unfortunate if the Chinese takeaway in question shared a name with one of these fast food establishments?

Adam Johnson gamble unbuttons Kenna League survival hopes

THE Islington Sports Islam & Leisure manager has admitted his gamble on Adam Johnson in the transfer window could derail the club’s chances of Kenna League survival this season.

Just five days after ISIL bought the midfielder at the second and final transfer window of the season, Johnson pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual activity with a child and one charge of grooming.

ISIL are rooted to the foot of the Kenna League and the transfer window was seen as the manager’s last chance to tilt for safety.

“Yarrrrrr! Ye Johnson lad be gettin’ plenty o’ assists afore spillin’ ‘is guts to the law ‘ee be friggin’ in unweathered riggin'” yo-ho-hoed the Kenna’s only Somali manager.

“‘Tis skullduggery an’ no mistake, getting yer cutlass between yer teeth wi’ a lass wi’ less years than me cabin boy, but truth be told ‘is signed shirts be sellin’ very smartly. Yarrrrrrrr!” added the manager, scanning the gates of the club’s Spyglass Hill training facility for eager, young autograph hunters.

Under Kenna League regulations, Johnson will stay with ISIL until the end of the season. The club is rumoured to have changed the passwords to its social media accounts.

The campaign has been yet another unmitigated disaster for the Somali manager, who looks set to lead a side to relegation for the third successive season.

The manager won the Canesten Combi Cup in emphatic style in charge of Spartak Mogadishu in May 2013, but a year later took the club down.

He went on to manage Hoxton Pirates the following season, only to guide them to a bottom-of-the-league finish 10 months later.

Going into the stats a little deeper, since winning the Canesten Combi Cup in May 2013, the Somali has spent 85 of 109 weeks of league play in the relegation zone, or as the manager ruefully admitted at this morning’s press conference “78 per cent o’ me hours in Davy Jones’ locker”.

Kenna table – week 25

Weekly scores

		Manager	Points	Goals
1	Newington Reds	Ben D	54	3
2	Dynamo Charlton	Alex	43	2
3	Carles	Carles	35	1
4	Thieving Magpies	Phil	33	3
5	Northern Monkeys	Hugo	33	2
6	Bala Rinas	Lewis	31	2
7	Wandsworth Network Solutions	Will	30	1
8	KS West Green	Stix	30	1
9	FC Tescticuladew	James N	29	2
10	Pikey Scum	Jack	29	1
11	Team Panda	George	28	2
12	Cowley Casuals	Stu	28	1
13	Lokomotiv Leeds	Ben S	26	2
14	Young Boys	Andrew D	26	0
15	ISIL	Abdi	26	0
16	Hairy Fadjeetas	Aiden	21	2
17	Judean People’s Front	Sholto	20	0
18	Headless Chickens	John N	18	1
19	Uncertain	Pete B	10	1

		Points	Player
	Player of the week	15	Coutinho, P – LIV – MID
		Club	*Newington Reds*

The Green Man, Fitzrovia

THE Green Man is a fabulous cider pub just a short walk from Oxford Circus.

On Friday evening it was peopled mainly by local office workers, with tourists cheerfully beyond the ken of the pub’s tucked-away location.

Many tipplers were huddled smoking outside on the pavement, despite the inclement February weather of Storm Frank, Godfrey, Henrietta, Ivanhoe or whatever the Met Office have begun overzealously renaming the same kind of wind and rain each week.

Inside the bar faces the front door and large windows. A high ceiling provides patrons with plenty of headroom to enjoy the multitude of beers and ciders. The Veltins and the Thatchers Old Rascal were delightful.

For a Kenna transfer window it was cramped. Managerial grumbles were heard of the pub’s unsuitable aspect on more than several occasions.

Against this dissent the show went on, as the league packed around a high corner table to make themselves heard over the din of ad agency creatives who regularly take deliveries on late Friday afternoons.

Business was conducted swiftly and with the minimum of fuss. In fact, it was so Bramble free an emergency meeting was convened immediately afterwards between the chairman, vice chairman and whoever else happened to be waiting for bar service nearby at the time.

The chairman summed up Kenna HQ’s dilemma at a press conference this morning.

“The simple fact is: managers aren’t drinking enough,” he said upon showing a deadly Periscope video replay of a bunch of managers crowded around a small table full of pint glasses carefully studying lists of available players.

“We need to introduce some sort of spirits imbibing system into league meetings. No one’s Brambling, no one’s resigning in anger halfway through auctions and no one’s almost coming to blows over whether a contravention of made-up, fantasy-football-league regulation minutiae constitutes a breach of gentlemanly conduct,” said the chairman in reference to the acrimonious 2012 Emmanuel Olisadebe Euros auction.

“Four years ago we had a shot of tequila midway through the Euros auction and look what happened. When it comes to the [2016 Jean-Alain] Boumsong auction in June managers should prepare themselves for carnage.”

An increase in entry fees to cover rounds of moody top-shelf spirits is among rumours to be on the drawing board.

The chairman was heard to say after the press conference that plans a manager would drink a shot for every player bought would ‘be the next vanishing spray’.

Kenna table – week 24

Weekly scores

		Manager	Points	Goals
1	Young Boys	Andrew D	83	2
2	Pikey Scum	Jack	82	3
3	Wandsworth Network Solutions	Will	75	1
4	Thieving Magpies	Phil	68	3
5	Judean People’s Front	Sholto	67	4
6	KS West Green	Stix	64	2
7	Headless Chickens	John N	60	2
8	Dynamo Charlton	Alex	60	1
9	Newington Reds	Ben D	55	2
10	Team Panda	George	55	2
11	Carles	Carles	54	3
12	Northern Monkeys	Hugo	52	1
13	Cowley Casuals	Stu	52	1
14	Hairy Fadjeetas	Aiden	48	2
15	Bala Rinas	Lewis	48	0
16	ISIL	Abdi	47	1
17	Uncertain	Pete B	44	3
18	FC Tescticuladew	James N	40	0
19	Lokomotiv Leeds	Ben S	30	0

		Points	Player
	Player of the week	19	Huth, R – LEI – DEF
		Club	*Uncertain*

Transfer window death threats – five of the best

KENNA managers were set the task of releasing players for tomorrow’s second transfer window in the form a death threat to the chairman.

Just fewer than half the league responded to the challenge, with varying degrees of creativity and menace.

No one went so far as to nail the cat to the door of Kenna HQ or send a funeral wreath, which for any fantasy football league chairman is always a bonus.

The top five death threats are below, as well as this week’s table (not including Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s games).

For the first time, the transfer window will be broadcast live from The Green Man on the borders of Fitzrovia and Marylebone using Periscope. Absent managers can bid at https://www.periscope.tv/jeffkennaleague.

Regardless of whether they’ve released players or not, Kenna managers can still play one wildcard when the window is open between 7pm and 10pm tomorrow night.

A full list of available players and managers’ remaining budgets will be published at Friday lunchtime.

5. The Lokomotiv Leeds manager

Lokomotiv Leeds death threat — Threat level: 4/10

The Lokomotiv Leeds manager was the first to admit this was less of a death threat and more a reminder even the chairman’s side could come unstuck by scandal. However, still very amusing although there’s a greater threat Funky Pigeon has reported the LL boss to the authorities.

4. The FC Testiculadew manager

FC Testiculadew death threat — Threat level: 4/10

One of many classic lines from that Alan Partridge sex swap episode. The release graphic was a highlight, but the close is far too polite, softening the sinister connotations of the kiss at the end.

3. The Walthamstow Reds manager

Walthamstow Reds death threat — Threat level: 6/10

The Reds boss has gone to the trouble of creating an innovative word puzzle death threat which contains an actual threat on the chairman’s life, while simultaneously appealing to his penchant for crosswords. Marks taken off for using a space for a hyphen. Not great crossword etiquette.

2. The Judean Peoples’ Front manager

A jump in death threat class to a message with proper intent and intimidation. It’s a blurry image, but it doesn’t take much imagination to decipher the Anders Breivik lookalike’s promise to rain down judgement not just on the chairman but the whole league. He also takes time to single out the Young Boys manager, a definite plus. The coffee ring shows this has been on display at Kenna HQ all week.

1. The Young Boys manager

Young Boys death threat — Threat level: 9/10

Personal and chilling. The Young Boys manager has taken time to rifle through the chairman’s social media profiles to dig out the aftermath of Cambodian tuk tuk misadventure. Insinuates the YB boss was somehow behind the 2007 road traffic accident while threatening further harm. Inside is a clear threat to take over the league.

Kenna table – week 23

Weekly scores

		Manager	Points	Goals
1	Hairy Fadjeetas	Aiden	41	5
2	FC Tescticuladew	James N	33	0
3	KS West Green	Stix	31	3
4	Carles	Carles	29	2
5	Uncertain	Pete B	26	4
6	Wandsworth Network Solutions	Will	25	1
7	Pikey Scum	Jack	22	1
8	Northern Monkeys	Hugo	22	1
9	Thieving Magpies	Phil	21	1
10	Dynamo Charlton	Alex	18	1
11	Team Panda	George	18	0
12	Lokomotiv Leeds	Ben S	16	0
13	ISIL	Abdi	16	0
14	Headless Chickens	John N	15	0
15	Bala Rinas	Lewis	14	1
16	Young Boys	Andrew D	14	0
17	Judean People’s Front	Sholto	11	1
18	Newington Reds	Ben D	9	0
19	Cowley Casuals	Stu	3	0

		Points	Player
	Player of the week	20	Iheanacho, K – MCY – STR
		Club	*Uncertain*