AS soon as liquid was sprayed in his face in departures he knew something was seriously wrong.
Eight months of freedom. Eight months since leaving his position as manager of Real Brexit, his last posting in the so-called ‘world’s greatest London pub-based fantasy football league’.
Now he was sinking to his knees, a wave of nausea sweeping over him.
Contemplating his untimely demise at gate two of Durham Tees Valley Airport.
And when he heard another passenger innocently enquire ‘was that Emanuel Pogatetz dressed like a lass?’ his worst fears were confirmed.
Only one organisation used former professional footballers as assassins: the Kenna League’s manager experiences department.
Cross the manager experiences department and the outcome was far from pretty.
It was no fluke they had chosen Pogatetz as the trigger man. While managing Still Don’t Know Yet in his first season he had signed the Austrian for £3.5m in the February transfer window.
The 14th-place finish was nothing to do with it though.
It was the beginning of that season, his first in the Kenna, where he had made an enemy for life.
He realised it now as the darkness intensified and a woman who smelled strongly of Superkings Menthol wheezed ‘you alright, pet?’
You never really left the Kenna. You went through life thinking you’d left, as he’d done since the summer, but they always caught up with you.
And as his life ebbed away, his head resting on the flabby thighs of a morbidly-obese airport worker, he thought of the strapline on the Durham Tees Valley Airport website.
GABRIEL Jesus will be top of many shopping lists ahead of the final Kenna League transfer window tonight.
The Brazilian striker has made a big impact following his move to England a few weeks ago.
Of the top four teams in the table, only Islington Sports Islam & Leisure can sign Jesus without triggering the Titus Bramble forfeit ruling.
The managers of Thieving Magpies (Yaya Toure), FC Testiculadew (David Silva) and Sleptember XI (Raheem Sterling) would all have to release a high-value player as a wildcard tonight to bid for the Brazilian.
Peter Crouch and Jay Rodriguez are the other most notable strikers currently without a Kenna club.
League leader ‘Pies released Dimitri Payet ahead of the window, but there are slim pickings in midfield, where Victor Moses looks the most attractive available player.
With only one wildcard permitted, the ‘Pies manager is taking a long hard look at Pedro.
Another Chelsea player, Marcus Alonso, will captivate interest for managers after a defender. Chambers, Ward, Prodl and Rojo lead the ragtag alternatives.
At 20th in the table, the Piss Poor manager is yet to release Adam Johnson.
GRANIT Xhaka has told police he was the victim of racial abuse just 24 hours before being brought in for questioning over allegations he himself racially abused a Heathrow Airport worker.
In the aftermath of his red card in Sunday’s match, the midfielder claims his Kenna League manager called him a ‘chocolate Swiss’.
The AJFC manager fiercely denied the allegations of racism made to him during a press conference yesterday.
“What I was trying to tell Granit was if he’s always suspended through ill discipline he’s as much use to me as a chocolate Swiss Army knife,” said the manager.
“I’m not racist. I’m not a Nazi. Gold – that’s the standard I set at this club for diversity and inclusion.
“Granit’s flown off the handle before I’ve had a chance to finish the sentence. I’ve managed a lot of foreign players and they tend to do that, but if he thinks he can explain away the Heathrow incident using my post-match comments he’s cuckoo.
“There’s more holes in his argument than a lump of Alpine dairy product.
“He needs to watch it.”
Narcozep Cup – final group standings and playoff fixtures
Sleptember XI v Lokomotiv Leeds
Burqini Pool Party v Wandsworth Window Lickers
The Kenna League has warned against football talent being drawn to Chinese wealth after the chairman bumped into a manager travelling to the Far East end of the Jubilee Line.
The encounter happened in the Friday morning rush hour when a furtive Lokomotiv Leeds manager was spotted by the chairman at Canary Wharf.
The Lokomotiv boss was forced to make a shifty admission he was ‘going all the way to Stratford’.
By lunchtime Kenna HQ had issued a explosive press release entitled ‘Lured to the Riches of The Orient’, and packed with provocative, xenophobic, racially-aggravated jingoism such as ‘The Yellow Terror’, ‘The legacy of Fu Manchu’ and ‘Brexit means Brexit’.
“The enormous wealth of China is leading to a ‘Sino-The Dotted Line Mentality’ and is the biggest challenge to London pub-based fantasy football since the 2006 smoking ban,” read the release, which claimed Kenna HQ is now on ‘Yellow Alert’.
Astronomical wages in the Chinese Super League has thrown preparations for the second Kenna transfer window next month into disarray
This weekend saw Islington Sports Islam & Leisure striker Diego Costa compound his manager’s problems by being unavailable for selection until interest from Asia is resolved.
The chairman’s own team, Adam Johnson Fan Club, has been left with a hole in midfield since Oscar moved to China in an audacious £60m deal.
It is widely believed this move has got the league apparatus in a particular paddy over the Lokomotiv manager’s oriental tube ride.
But Lokomotiv Leeds supporters have welcomed a move abroad for their manager, and questioned the Kenna’s description of him as ‘football talent’.
The editor of fan blog BellendRurdFurrever.com tweeted: “Lokomotiv Leeds? More like Special Leeds! 14th last season, 16th today. Couldn’t give a Peking duck where he goes #SackTheJew”.
FOR the first time in history the Kenna League title race is more exciting than an American industrialist’s Moscow hotel room.
Thieving Magpies reestablished their position at the top of the table, cutting short the FC Testiculadew tenure of first place to just one week.
Many feared the FCT manager’s accession to the Kenna summit would mark the end of a competitive season but ‘Pies midfielders Pedro (15 points) and Yaya Toure (10) quickly struck back.
WNS and ‘The Burqs’ will be duking it out in two weeks time to see who will avoid an unwanted playoff match to get out of group B.
Elsewhere those struggling in the league are also experiencing Narcozep squeaky bum time.
The Pikey Scum manager’s sphincter may be more resigned than others. Having completed all his cup games, he must rely on the side above him in group D losing by more than 20 points to the group leaders.
And in what situation could you imagine Young Boys being whipped by Two Goals One Cup in a haze of Narcozep?
Other than in an American industrialist’s Moscow hotel room?
IT was only a matter of time before the Kenna’s own pussy-stroking villain went top of the league.
Having hovered around the top four for the first half of the season, FC Testiculadew saw Tom Heaton, Kyle Walker, Christian Fuchs, Alex Iwobi and Eden Hazard score in the teens in a bumper week over New Year and Zlatan rack up 25 points.
Known as the Tactical Brambler for his ruthless interpretation of league rules, the FCT manager was also in the winning tag team of the inaugural Roque Santa Claus Christmas Cup.
“Pathetic earthlings!” Ming the Mercilessed the Tactical Brambler to journalists outside the club’s Death Star training facility.
“Hurling your fantasy football teams out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the Kenna League, anything at all, you would’ve hidden from it in terror.”
But there was unwelcome turn of events for the FCT manager.
This evening Kenna HQ issued details of the Christmas Cup prize and confirmed only the weaker half of the winning tag team – in this case mid-table Walthamstow Reds – would gain free entry to next season’s Kenna League.
Reds face Christmas Cup tag team partner FCT in Narcozep Cup group A this weekend, which is now being touted as a grudge tie.
Ironically, the dip in form in the last month that saw Islington Sports Islam & Leisure fall from first to third place is the only Christmas catastrophe to which ISIL have not laid claim.
Swann, who took 255 test wickets, believes he witnessed three league managers abusing drinks at a free bar on the Strand, including two high-ranking officials from Kenna HQ.
“Everyone was having a quiet drink but these three were planted at the bar ordering round after round, and on a Monday night too. At the time you think ‘is this normal?'” said Swann.
The incident followed ‘Graeme Swann’s Great British Spin Off with Henry Blofeld’ at the Duchess Theatre in Covent Garden in October.
Three Kenna managers and their entourage attended a VIP event with Swann and Blofeld after the show (pictured, above), where they are reported to have consumed more than the recommended daily allowance.
Challenged by the media at a press conference outside Kenna HQ this morning, the chairman tried to deflect the scandal.
“That was Graeme Swann?” he shrugged. “Oh…this is going to be awkward. I thought it was Peter Such.”
Waiting in the wings while twirling his moustache, the manager of FC Testiculadew leapt into second place ably assisted by a 21-point haul from striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
AFC Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has said a chance meeting with a Kenna League manager inspired his side’s incredible comeback against Liverpool.
Howe (pictured, right) claims he used a surprise visit by the Thieving Magpies manager before the match to deliver a stirring half-time motivational speech. His side recovered from 0-2 down to win 4-3 last weekend.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw an actual Kenna League manager in our stadium,” Howe said of the encounter with the ‘Pies boss.
“For me, just to be working in football and managing a side in the Premier League is a joy, but to manage a team at the top of the Kenna – the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league – that’s the ultimate dream.
“I said to the lads at half time ‘we’re amongst football royalty, there’s a Kenna League manager in the stadium today. Now you get out there and show him why he should consider signing you for more than £0.5m at next August’s auction’. The rest is history,” explained Howe.
The Thieving Magpies manager, who extended his lead at the top of Kenna by 12 points this week, said it was important to support young managerial talent coming through.
“I’m an English manager in the world’s top league which – whether I want it to or not – makes me a role model to guys like Eddie,” the ‘Pies gaffer told reporters outside the Vitality Stadium.
“It’s great to see these young English guys in the game. If he works hard and brings that creativity to bear in every match, in every training session, perhaps one day Eddie will be managing in the Kenna League too. We need to support the English talent pipeline,” said the manager whose policy of signing St George’s Cross players has not always brought success.
Bournemouth midfielder Jack Wilshere once criticised the Kenna League for having too many foreigners.
At the time only four Kenna managers hailed from south of the Watford Gap, thereby qualifying as English under Wilshere’s stringent nationality test.
AN ALEXIS Sanchez hat-trick this weekend helped end Islington Sports Islam & Leisure’s thirteen-week spell at the top of the Kenna.
The Chilean forward deftly chipped the goalkeeper for his third to put Thieving Magpies five points ahead of The Pirates.
ISIL striker Diego Costa found the net, got an assist and somehow managed to avoid the melee and cards being dished out in the closing stages of Saturday lunchtime’s game, but it wasn’t enough.
Surprise leaders of the Kenna from the start of the season, the Pirates have put out some increasingly mediocre team performances since the manager resisted the urge to tinker with his line up in the October transfer window.
Fans now face growing concerns more weeks of middling team totals could see their manager hit the February window with the cutlass between his teeth.
The Roque Santa Claus Christmas Cup
Bala Monkeys lead the inaugural Roque Santa Claus Christmas Cup after the first week.
The festive tag-team contest sees two Kenna sides paired by random draw. The best combined score over December wins the cup and free entry for into next season’s Kenna League for the highest-scoring half of the partnership.
There was early disappointment for Vauxhall Chinese Takeaway whose star player Sergio Aguero will miss four of his five games over Christmas due to suspension.
“Can I change my tag-team partner?” said the Young Boys manager after Aguero was sent off for clattering David Luiz on Saturday.
FANTASY football has been hit by shocking allegations of historic alcohol abuse going back over a decade.
Alcoholic drinks have begun to come forward to tell of their mistreatment at the hands of ‘diabolically drunk and out of control’ Kenna League managers. Victims could run into their thousands.
Throwing off the legal mantle of anonymity, one pint of lager told the media nothing was done to address irresponsible drinking, and in some cases it was actually promoted by ‘senior figures at Kenna HQ’.
“It was Wednesday when usual punters were genteel and enjoyed their drinks at a reasonable pace. We were completely unprepared for what would happen next.”
The pint said eight men entered the bar and crowded around a table to begin ‘drinking at a rather alarming pace’.
“There was ribald laughter and strange references to someone called Tomas Repka,” said the pint. “They were literally tearing through us without a second thought for our flavour or centuries-old Belgian brewing tradition.
“All they cared about was who would sign Frank Lampard. Dozens of us were left feeling used and empty afterwards.”
Emboldened by their actions, which remained unchallenged by witnesses, Kenna managers continued to abuse a multitude of alcoholic drinks with abandon over the next 10 years.
The harrowing experience of a pint of cider at a transfer window night in October 2012 shows just how unchecked the wild behaviour went.
“No one spoke up about it. There was a culture of silence. It was like a Taboo. Or an Archer’s or a Barcadi Breezer. It wasn’t something people would ever consider talking about. You just had to ‘man up’ and get on with it.”
Fast forward to this summer, and tales of abuse were now intertwined with something far more sinister – trafficking.
A Czech bottle of absinthe who claims to have been abused at the auction this August said: “They make abduction me Prague, input me dark suitcase for long time.
“I very confused and disorientate. They take me dark cellar in London and leave me months.
“Then one day they take me pub. All people drunk but not yet 3pm.”
Continuing in recklessly inappropriate broken English, the absinthe told how it was poured into shot glasses and downed by managers with ‘Godless’ faces who showed no interest in its distilling process or its botanicals.
“No sugar. No spoons. They just tip down me like water. I simple feel shame.”
Confronted with allegations of historic abuse outside Kenna HQ this morning, the league chairman stonewalled the scandal.
“I’ve been at every single auction and transfer window since the Kenna was founded and I have never seen anyone so much as touch a drop of alcohol. We’re a responsible fantasy football league.
“We’ve always organised league activity in public places for the convenience of managers. If they were pubs I’m the last to know about it. I think some of the venues had bars, I really can’t recall.” said the man in charge of the self-proclaimed ‘world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league’.
“Of course, we will be commissioning an independent inquiry to find out where these stories are coming from. That is if this intense media scrutiny doesn’t blow over in a few days.”
