Knee trembler: The Young Boys manager reacted badly to the cup Christmas fixture list (photo: Kingston99)
THE Young Boys manager was left cursing Kenna HQ ahead of Christmas after Charlie Austin scored a hat trick during a cup week….when his side didn’t have a fixture.
Overwhelmed by such a glut of goals from the striker, the Young Boys manager had immediately taken to social media networking site Twitter on Sunday.
Defender John Terry brought the Young Boys goal tally to four, but the festive cheer dried up at the when the manager realised his side were not playing in group/pool A.
A long-time critic of Kenna HQ’s decision to amend the cup fixtures system from head-to-head points scored in a week to head-to-head goals, the Young Boys manager was quick to vent his spleen.
@jeffkennaleague O goody, JT scored another goal for the Young Boys in cup week, when we don’t have a fixture, you’ve ruined the cup!
Dynamo face Young Boys over the Christmas weekend. Sporting opened up their lead at the top of the Kenna League after chasers Bala Rinas put in a pitiful shift.
Injuries to influential midfielders Dusan Tadic and Aaron Ramsey have seen Bala Rinas lose momentum they could never dream to maintain with a front two of Stefan Jovetic and Marouane Chamakh.
‘Guys. Hey, you guys, I’m over here. Guys?’: Marvin Sordell has been overlooked by the Kenna apparatus (photo: Telegraph)
KENNA League blazers have admitted they didn’t know who Marvin Sordell was after it emerged the striker had not been scoring points for two months.
Until today no one at Kenna HQ noticed Sordell’s one start and three substitute appearances failed to contribute to the title efforts of St Reatham FC.
A leaked email from the charts and graphs department in response to an enquiry about the oversight read: “Sordell was down as a Leicester player, not sure why, probably because I don’t know who he is.”
Murmurs among managers in the league maintain Marvin Sordell was overlooked because his underwhelming performances and suggestive name make him sound less like a footballer and more like an adult film actor. Peter Ndlovu or Rod Fanni are two other such phenomenons.
Despite his lack of goals and perceived inclination to whip it out at the first sniff of innuendo, Sordell’s efforts have still seen St Reatham FC climb up on top of Cowley Casuals to third place in the table.
The St Reatham FC manager was unavailable for comment, but sources at the club say he’s welcomed the Sordell oversight in light of his continued efforts to avoid questioning from Surrey Police.
Sordell wasn’t needed for St Reatham to win their group C – or pool C, depending on who you talk to at Kenna HQ – match in the opening round of the season’s Canesten Combi Cup competition this weekend. A Juan Mata notch was enough to overcome a goalless, and bottom of the table, Fat Ladies.
A typical scene: Bearded barmen, retro clothes, pies – welcome to East London (photo: Sutcliffe)
IT was a bright October lunchtime when a group of regular pub crawlers congregated in south London lowlight New Cross.
The clocks would go back that night so there was still plenty of crisp daylight in which to attack their biggest challenge yet: 13 pubs in nine hours. The trendiest length of train track in the world. The East London line.
More than ever before organisation would need to be sharper than a Rotherhithe Stanley knife, swifter than a Whitechapel pickpocket, tighter than a pair of Dalston jeans.
Under their steady guidance London’s edgiest dives and hangouts would be negotiated with as much aplomb as could be mustered after a pint for each station.
Dazza was ‘on hand’ to take analysis of dryers in the gents to unchartered levels.
Saturday 25 October 2014 at 12.30pm. The itinerary:
Dublin Porter: A pint of flat Coke (photo: Sutcliffe)
Aromas from the previous evening were still partying hard in this single-roomed boozer, giving the impression they were permanent guests. Fortunately, attentions were quickly diverted by tap of Guinness Dublin Porter at the bar, the Russian Premier League preview on the small flatscreen and the fake ‘tweed’ jacket Sutcliffe purchased from a charity shop that morning.
The Amersham was a solid place to start for a crawl of London’s most faddish neighbourhoods. It is also Sutcliffe’s manor. The area is a curious mix of gritty south London and art students from nearby Goldsmith’s College pretending to be gritty south London. Sutcliffe has problems relating to either group, as evidenced by the polyester tweed.
The Amersham’s interior looks like it was gutted by fire before someone stuck up a few posters at jaunty angles. The resulting mood and proximity of a major art college gives the impression that at any moment someone could walk in wearing green hair, a leather trench coat and knitted mittens or another angsty combination.
No doubt the Amersham warms up in the evening. It was definitely not a lunchtime pub. Crawlers left the bearded barman on his lonesome.
The China Hall: All smiles, thankfully no Chelsea smiles (photo: Sutcliffe)
Having made the short Overground ride to Surrey Quays, crawlers met the day’s first setback. The Yellow House was closed! Not to worry, just up Lower Road the welcoming chalk board of The China Hall beckoned the party to enter.
A part of south London in no danger of becoming trendy soon. A gaggle of shaved heads and calf tattoos greets the visitor. Crawlers were quick to order rounds and file into the beer garden. A low brick wall and several wooden picnic tables became their home for enough time to see off a Stella Artois.
It’s best to visit pubs like The China Hall early in the day, before Milwall lose and the local septum duster mixes with a few pints of short-dated wifebeater.
Words and photo: Dazza
3. Canada Water – The Albion (closed)
Silent threat from The China Hall stalked crawlers on the short walk up Lower Road to their next destination. Internet research had shown The Albion, the only pub within sensible distance of Canada Water station, was bedecked in St George’s flag bunting. It was with some relief the establishment was discovered to have closed down.
The Mayflower: Plenty on the pull (photo: Sutcliffe)
Parched everyone dived into The Mayflower. At this stage of the route the party crossed the Greenwich to Tower Bridge crawl from 18 months previously, the first time crawlers would visit the same pub twice. Premonitions of torn dimensions or the day of judgement arriving with a Biblical thunderstorm were swept aside when the chairman announced the crawl would stop for two drinks to make up for the closed pub.
A mandatory pint of Black Maria was also decreed, the drink equivalent of a Caramac. The mixture proved too much for the bar’s resources and left the strange flavour of Guinness and Kahlua on the palate. A poor substitution.
The Mayflower is definitely worth a visit particularly if it’s clement enough to sit on the river terrace. The serious drinker should be warned: the pub’s history, twee architecture and proximity to the Thames make it a priority destination for tourists. Intent on finding hipsters, the East London line crawler is met instead by the rustling din of windjammers ordering coffees or halves of ale.
Balloon dog whisperer: Soon after this photo was taken a parent demanded his son’s balloon dog be returned (photo: Sutcliffe)
There was a time when the warehouses of Wapping teemed with the Victorian activities of cheeky bootblacks, maritime swagger and tubby prostitutes. The streets retain their narrow dimensions and the buildings their towering capacity, but any human interaction is limited to yet more brightly-coloured windjammers as they explore the echoing thoroughfares. The neighbourhood is trendy, but the price per square foot is an investment banker’s weekday squeeze lair.
The Captain Kidd reflected both the area’s architecture and Saturday afternoon street traffic. Exposed brick and an excellent terrace over the River Thames are tempered by the Samuel Smith’s offer at the bar.
Many years of experimentation have demonstrated a Samuel Smiths pub doesn’t quite feel like any other boozer. Everything about Samuel Smith’s drinks tastes like a scientist tried to recreate the heritage and breweries of a normal pub using a Bunsen burner and 1930s laboratory ethics. The cheap beer tastes a few molecules away from the real thing, and has been known to induce a skull-crushing headache the next day.
Captain Kidd provided an excellent example of this lab rat approach. The concept, taste and after taste of ‘Chocolate Stout’ just goes to show what a bunch of chocolate starfish Samuel Smith’s descendants consider their punters to be.
Great piss up: Dazza lays the foundations for another hand dryer test (photo: Sutcliffe)
One of the closest pubs to Shadwell Overground station is still a 10-minute walk away. The trip is worth it. The George has attracted customers from the stratosphere of musical celebrity, but now struggles against the tide of housing development in the area: ‘Save the George Tavern’.
Bowling in four pints to the good at that same hour in the afternoon, crawlers found the snug deserted save for a lone Irishman in a shell suit top at the bar. The cheery fellow proclaimed his colleague was in the cellar, it was not yet his shift but he was in a few hours early to get ‘warmed up’ for work. He decided to take the initiative and help pull a few pints for the unexpected rush. Obviously not a union man.
Like the Amersham Arms, this is certainly an interior best viewed in the evening when it could be politely called ‘heroin chic’. The windows are almost opaque and every single surface in the George is covered in graffiti, like a giant pub toilet. No surprise then that the theme was carried through to the facilities. There was no danger of an hourly cleaning rota, but who cares about hygiene when you’re shooting up with a rockstar?
Right in the boat race: The chairman demonstrates where the Krays would point their shooters should they have met today’s Blind Beggar regular (photo: Sutcliffe)
It’s impossible to mention the Blind Beggar without referring to the infamous murder of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie by Reggie Kray, presumably for having the most unimaginative nickname in the East End. Even though it’s fanciful to think the pub is still a den of mobsters getting rubbed out and fenced goods, it does lend some much-needed charm to the grimy decor.
A sack of coin has been thrown at a beer garden refurb, and on a late Saturday afternoon it was bubbling with people and atmosphere. It’s uncertain which popular Spanish travel and lifestyle publication is to blame but Whitechapel seems to have a growing population of chattering Iberians who were very much in evidence here, sporting white or blaugrana colours. El Clásico was about to kick off on the screens.
As for the rest of the clientele, they’re not the prettiest but an all-female bar team made a not entirely unsuccessful attempt to brighten the place up. Plastic gangsters, down-on-their-luck app developers and, in keeping with the neighbourhood’s ethnicity, a few south Asians outnumber any genuine cockneys. It’s unlikely many people die of their gunshot wounds here anymore, if only because the pub now stands opposite one of the UK’s leading major trauma centres.
Leaving Shoreditch High Street station and passing under the tunnel, the visitor is greeted by Boxpark – shipping containers stacked upon each other, painted bright blue and turned into shopping outlets. An innovative concept or a mocking gesture? The sight of those imposing, windowless, steel boxes can only lead a minority of the local area’s high immigrant population to get painful flashbacks of their entry into UK.
Tucked away on Redchurch Street a couple of minutes walk from the station, the Owl and the Pussycat used to be one of the few remaining boozers in London to have a bar billiards table. This game of poise, skill and other qualities lacking in crawlers now seven rounds to the good is now sadly absent from the premises. What’s left is a pub that retains so much of its traditional character but is packed with the demographic influx of young people from all over the world to the trendiest neighbourhood in the country. The L-shaped snug was rammed early evening with patrons spilling out into the small courtyard beer garden at the back.
Back home: Katie is yet to fully explain this picture (photo: Sutcliffe)
Taking the Overground to Hoxton, it’s a 10-minute walk to Howl at the Moon. A decade ago, when Hoxton was already synonymous with ‘trendy’, this far up Hoxton Street was still Jamaican jerk chicken joints, Nigerian travel agents, Cockney saloons and Turkish members-only clubs. Over time the wave of gentrification has increased its foothold further north and Howl at the Moon is full of young white folk sitting around candled tables drinking craft beer.
There was a time when it’s isolated location halfway up Kingsland Road meant the Fox was an odd place ahead of its time, catering for young professionals who preferred to ride the few stops on the bus to Shoreditch of a Saturday evening. The Fat Ladies manager was once so moved to describe its clientele as ‘yourself, but on a bad day’.
Nowadays it’s rebranded itself into ‘The Fox Craft Beer House’. There was hardly room to move in the high-ceilinged bar as punters selected from an impressive range of pilsners and pale ales.
It was at this point circumstances became too much for Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket. The high volume of people north of the river who had migrated to their capital, tripped over in Beyond Retro and put on the airs of frustrated creativity incensed a genuine south Londoner with verified artistic credentials.
Shrugging marvellous: The Hoxton Pirates manager tells crawlers what appeals to him most about his religious beliefs (photo: Sutcliffe)
Back in the naughties, hipsters began moving north from Shoreditch in search of lebensraum. The migration has seen trendy bars, restaurants and nightclubs spring up among the murky Irish pubs and Caribbean street market. Farr’s School of Dancing is one such ‘vintage chic’ example, full of ‘vintage chic’ people striking ‘vintage chic’ poses. Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket were furious.
Flash jacket: Fox regulars are not too snooty about their hi vis (Sutcliffe)
Leaving behind the stressed furniture, pretension and craft beer of Hackney, the East London line winds on to one of Islington’s quiantest suburbs, Canonbury.
Unlike the venues visited before, the Snooty Fox is not a ‘destination’. Whereas a popular Home Counties teenager spends the week staring out of the classroom window daydreaming about such matters as a forthcoming night out on Kingsland Road and whether the online designer drugs order will be delivered in time, not even Andy from accounts has grand designs for pubs like the Snooty Fox. These residential boozers are instead the backbone of middle class London drinking. A stop gap, a local bar for a midweek catch up or somewhere for a quick one before heading ‘out out’. Of course, white-collar alcoholism being what it is, the ‘quick one’ can easily escalate into a full blown session, and encountering the bustle and honest laughter of the Snooty Fox mid evening crawlers chanced upon the latter phenomenon. It was a welcome change from the posturing of Dalston.
Underground, Overground, bungling free: The rabble reaches its the final stop (photo: Sutcliffe)
The crawl ended in the most traditional pub of the day. A low-ceilinged, carpeted bar on a quiet street near Highbury Corner. The Compton is soon likely to lose the battle to retain its local feel and commitment against the tide of rising house prices and gastropub-itis. A fairy will die when it ends up with the flatpack marketing of The Canonbury nearby.
Everyone was left to enjoy their feat of 13 pints in 12 pubs in around nine hours. Well, everyone except Sutcliffe and his tweed jacket, who had taken themselves outside to cool off.
KENNA HQ has admitted it still doesn’t know whether the first round of this season’s Canesten Combi Cup competition will be known as the ‘group’ or the ‘pool’ stage.
The quandary comes as the four cup groups – or pools – are announced today.
Recovering from the first of a clutch of Christmas smash ups this morning, the chairman said: “We’ve always called the first round the ‘group’ stage, but we thought this year we would call it the ‘pool’ stage. They use the term in rugby’s The Heineken Cup and it sounds quite professional, but then it also leaves us open to jokes about that night at Michael Barrymore’s house, and this kind of inappropriate carry on is really off brand for the league.
“We’ve got through at least a crate of scotch and several types of recreational drugs debating the matter in the Kenna HQ situation room but we’re still drowning in detail. We could even call them ‘draws’, I suppose.”
Further criticism was heaped on league authorities for their controversial new cup seeding process.
Each team has been grouped – or pooled – with every fourth team going down the Kenna League table.
“The new seeding process is an excellent solution to two problems,” said the chairman to the dayshift barman’s exasperation in the saloon bar of the King’s Arms in Waterloo.
“First, it ensures that every group – or pool – is of comparable quality so any team can strike it lucky, and second, we forgot to do the draw at the October transfer window because everyone was too busy drunkenly playing with the display-only cutlasses in the pub.”
Cup fixtures will be played during the following five weeks:
16 December
23 December
30 December
6 January
20 January
Group/Pool A Sporting Lesbian
Young Boys
Headless Chickens
Judean Peoples’ Front
Dynamo Charlton
Group/Pool B Bala Rinas
KS West Green
Piedmonte
Team Panda Rules OK
Just Put Carles
Group/Pool C Cowley Casuals
Pikey Scum
Walthamstow Reds
Still Don’t Know Yet
Hoxton Pirates
Group/Pool D St Reatham FC
Lokomotiv Leeds
Hairy Fadjeetas
FC Testiculadew
Fat Ladies
Gorilla salad: Hairy Fadjeetas have looked ugly up front this season (photo: Elizabeth Halsam)
The Hairy Fadjeetas manager has claimed a ‘striker conspiracy’ is the reason for his side’s poor form.
Having reached the heady heights of fourth place in the third week of the season, Fadges lost form and dropped down the table a little each week since. They now find themselves struggling in 11th place.
Striker problems have characterised the side’s performances. The hopeless partnership of Glenn Murray and David Nugent scored but one goal between them in the first seven competitive weeks.
At October’s transfer window the manager’s only business was to discard the pair in favour of Radamel Falcao and Papiss Cisse, which everyone except the Senegalese viewed as a bit of a gamble. According to official league records both forwards are yet to register a goal.
Fadges have relied on goals from midfield. Eden Hazard is their top scorer.
Through his rolled-down car window outside the club’s Bikini Lane ground the Fadges boss said to journalists this morning: “There’s a striker conspiracy and I won’t rest until I’ve found the missing goals.
“My message to the many fans of Hairy Fadjeetas is: the only way is up. To experience the smooth we sometimes have to the tackle the rough, and that’s what everyone at this club is hell bent on achieving. Tackling the rough.”
Kenna HQ has dismissed the manager’s comments as sour grapes. A smug chairman said: “This is the first we’ve heard of any ‘missing goals’. We would suggest the only thing Hairy Fadjeetas are missing is a decent manager. And some Canesten Com….oh, shit a brick! I’ve forgotten to arrange the cup draw. Interview terminated. No, naff off. Somebody open up the Kenna HQ situation room. Get those little bits of torn up paper. Where’s my drink?”
RETURN to the top flight of fantasy football has been a chastening experience for the Fat Ladies manager.
Crowned Kenna League champions in 2008, their first full season back after a three-year absence has left the Fat Ladies crying into their family-sized buckets of Hagen Daas watching Bridget Jones after a calamitous campaign where they have only managed one goal between them in 11 competitive weeks.
Daniel Sturridge, the manager’s £35m star signing, provided that solitary strike in the first week of proceedings before he succumbed to injury a fortnight later.
The manager has failed to coax even mediocrity out of his band of misfits since, and he finds his side bottom of the Kenna, trailing three managers who didn’t even attend the August auction.
Instead of the springboard to turn around the Fat Ladies’ misfortunes, October’s transfer window only compounded issues on the pitch.
Inexplicably, the manager failed to jettison Qatar-based training ground agitant Chico Flores, opting to wave goodbye to regular starter Fabrizio Coloccini from defence along with unfavoured Vlad Chiriches. In their place perennial Kenna desperation signing Phillipe Senderos arrived beside Central American dice throw Christian Gamboa.
In midfield, the decision was taken to swap Antonio Valencia for Ashley Young, essentially replacing one flakey black minority ethnic Manchester United winger with another. Events on the pitch have done nothing to allay criticism this was little more than an HR tick box exercise.
Nevertheless, it’s up front where the manager suffered his biggest howler. Christian Benteke looked a good August investment for £8m. Laid low with injury for a few weeks, he would surely burst into goalscoring form upon return.
So complete is the inadequacy permeating Fat Ladies Football Club that instead of half-and-half shirts and selfie sticks Asian supporters have begun to arrive at home games wearing surgical masks for fear it’s contagious.
And therein lies one ray of sunshine in the Fat Ladies manager’s whole sorry snafu: at least some cries of terrace dissent will be muffled.
High rise: The imperious form of Alexis Sanchez, Graziano Pelle and Raheem Sterling have put Sporting Lesbian top of the league (photo: Cokedragon)
SIGNING Ahmed Elmohamady at a transfer window can only mean a Kenna manager has run out of one of two things: money or ideas.
The Egyptian winger rarely finds the net but his regular starting berth and intermittent assists can make him the panic buy of choice late in the evening when the pints have ceased to taste.
For the Sporting Lesbian manager the transfer night acquisitions of Elmohamady and Nathan Dyer may have stunted a promising follow up to his 2013 championship, but like that season a South American strikeforce continue to carry the can the club.
While Elmohamady has plodded through the last three weeks for Lesbians exactly like he’s plodded through English football for the last four years, Graziano Pelle and Alexis Sanchez have exploded all over the Kenna campaign just like Sergio Aguero and Luis Suarez did for the Lesbians two years ago.
Fast, ruthless and squat, Sanchez (60 points) in particular looks like he was made for a wet Tuesday night in Stoke. Only Pelle has done more (61 points) to put Lesbians top of the league.
In response, the Bala Rinas manager’s decision not to tinker with his side at the window appears to have backfired.
Like Elmohamady, Bala striker Marouane Chamakh has managed but one assist since the window, and although it came last night it was not enough to stop Sporting Lesbian easing away from the pack.
The rotting corpses of two sex workers, a murder weapon found on the crime scene and a lead suspect calling himself in to authorities meant only the Hong Kong police had an easier time of it this weekend.
Burqa-use I’m happy: Despite his leanings, the Piedmonte manager was overjoyed to find in his absence from the transfer window he automatically signed Abel Hernandez (photo: 4thlion)
THE Kenna League has awarded the lucrative contract to refurbish the committee’s executive bathroom to a Polish builder.
Work many considered to be long overdue began late last week, but critics of the chairman say the project has led to a bureaucratic slowdown at Kenna HQ.
No communication has been published since the season’s first transfer window 10 days ago. Managers desperate for confirmation of which mid-table treadwater bought which form-fiddling flake, who topped last week’s league and exactly what time the chairman woke up the day after transfer night have been disappointed.
The chairman brushed aside concerns he’s losing is grip on the league.
“Do you think Martin Luther King made his famous speech while busting for a jimmy? Did Hannibal trek through the Alps without stopping to pinch one off on a vinegary rock? The Kenna committee is making crucial decisions with far-reaching consequences every single day. You expect us to consider these matters reasonably and equably without serenity to which to retreat when it’s touch and go?”
“Kenna HQ will only be running essential functions during the period of renovation,”he said, returning from the garden while doing up his fly.
The building work may have interrupted normal operations, but is has led to some hilarious moments for followers of the chairman on social media networking site Twitter*.
“So in conclusion, the Islamic State’s decision to promote the beheading of Westerners on the internet has led to better engagement with potential recruits, more exposure in the media and increased intimidation of infidels. As a social media campaign it’s quite brilliant.”
Delivering this last line he bristled with pride at his succinct summary. He was enjoying every moment of getting one up on his peers around the table. As the organisation’s head of online terror, it was important he could show he had his finger on the pulse.
The other department heads around the table had struggled to impress, particularly the head of pirate relations. The gradual loss of coastline over the last six months, or more precisely the stress of it, was believed to be the root cause of his continued adoption of that ridiculous English West country accent when talking to the committee. He would be one of the first to go when the purges began.
The head of online terror was way ahead on that front. An unplanned change of leadership meant organisational upheaval was inevitable. The former head man had suffered an ailment all too common to African extremists, he had walked into an American sniper’s bullet. Internal promotions were there for the taking for those who made the right allies.
The intelligence committee chair sat motionless for a few seconds at the end of the talk and looked impassive before speaking to the whole group.
“We must congratulate our colleague on his extensively-researched and well-presented talk.”
The head of online terror beamed. The chair continued: “I think we can all agree that our colleague’s presentation demonstrates incredibly well…where our movement is failing miserably.”
The head of online terror’s face dropped for the audience, but he was ready for this comeback. He would allow the chair build up a head of steam before delivering the master plan.
“Our recruitment levels are dropping,” said the chair, “Our popularity in our own country is dwindling. We have no significant networks outside of the Horn of Africa. And the Islamic State is grabbing every newspaper front page in the world with an internet meme!” he thundered as the rest of the committee avoided eye contact.
He had become increasingly short-tempered since the change of leadership. No one said it but everyone knew purges were on the horizon, and those who couldn’t prove their worth would find themselves waking up before morning prayers with the muzzle of a Kalashnikov thrust in their face. The intelligence committee chair needed results fast.
Still standing after his presentation, the head of online terror treated the chair’s outburst as a Q&A session. He said: “But sir, the Westgate shopping mall attack was shown throughout the globe. Our social media evaluation showed record levels of fear in its wake.”
“I should remind you,” replied the chair in a quiet tone that still betrayed his anger bubbling beneath the surface, “that Westgate was over a year ago and authorised by the previous command. The new leadership want to move on. They want us to continue the spread of terror going into the future. We need recruits. We need terror cells on foreign soil. We need to show that we’re still in the game.”
Everyone stared down at the table in front of them. The head of online terror waited a few moments before striking: “I have an agent in London, sir.”
Usually heavy with mint tea preparation and the mastication of khat, the room went deathly silent. The chair said: “Surely all our British networks are blown.”
“That’s correct, sir, but I’ve been running this agent as a sleeper. He’s under deep cover. He’s nearly ready to strike right at the centre of the infidels’ belief system.”
“And what exactly is he doing?” asked the chair, still visibly reeling from this knock out news.
“He’s infiltrated a fantasy football league, sir.”
“A what?” boomed the chair. He despised infidel culture and learned as little of it as possible. It was probably the reason his career was hanging by a thread. Now, even the head of pirate relations could have smelt his desperation.
The head of online terror was implacable: “Well, sir, you may have heard of the Premier League. It’s a typical example of Western decadence. Athletes are paid vast sums of money to play association football. The matches are televised throughout the world and the best players become infidel household names.”
Some of the committee were pretending to be as ignorant of this subject as the chair, but they had illegally watched televised games on the internet.
“So is our man one of these footballers collecting funds to further our cause?” said the chair, trying to appear knowledgeable.
“Not quite, sir, but an admirable suggestion” snaked the head of online terror. “Allow me to explain a little further. It’s become very popular among infidels to operate an elaborate form of gambling where an individual will pick eleven footballers from the Premier League to make their own team. That team will then score points depending on the performances of those players. Whichever team has the most points at the end of the football season wins.”
“Ridiculous pastime,” dismissed the chair. “It’s no wonder these Godless morons will never get to Paradise. They must have the souls of Kenyan goatherds.”
There was a ripple of tittering around the table. It was accepted practice to find the chair’s witticisms funny, no matter how awful they were.
“Be that as it may,” replied the head of online terror. “Our man assures us that the winner of the particular competition he has entered wields considerable influence. It is by all accounts London’s leading pub-based fantasy football contest.”
“Stop right there! Pub-based? Is our man frequenting houses of vice?” the chair was alarmed.
“As I said, sir, he’s deep undercover. Meetings are only held in London pubs, in particular the pre-season auction in early August. Our man must not arouse suspicion, although in all his reports I have not found a single incident of him breaking fast Ramadan.”
“So how’s he getting on?” said the chair begrudgingly, not quite satisfied.
“In the first couple of seasons he was getting himself acquainted with the league and results on the pitch were not positive,” said the head of online terror. “Then last year he went on an incredible cup run and won the Canesten Combi Cup.”
The committee were nonplussed.
“I won’t go into detail here,” said the head of head terror, “but suffice to say that represented a considerable coup for our agent.”
“What about this season? How did he get on in the pre-season auction?” asked the chair, picking up the gist of this operation quickly.
“Ah, well sir, there were some complications. In short, he didn’t attend the pre-season,” shrugged the head of online terror.
“How is he supposed to build a decent team?” the chair was indignant.
“The team was picked automatically using a computer from the remaining players after the auction,” said the head of online terror.
“That doesn’t sound like a successful strategy to me,” frowned the chair. “Imagine we did the same with suicide bombers? It literally would blow up in your face. What was the outcome of this so-called automatic selection?”
“Actually quite positive, sir. He’s got Frank Lampard in midfield.”
There was a low groan around the room. The chair looked astonished at the rest of the committee, like he’d never seen them before.
“What’s wrong with this Crank Shampard character?” said the chair slowly.
The head of online terror talked over the stifled smirks: “There is an opinion that Frank Lampard, sir, will not perform as well now he has left Chelsea, but evidence shows that he is already a promising asset for our man at Manchester City.”
The chair stared blankly at the head of online terror. After a few moments he said: “So where do we go from here?”
“Well, sir, next Friday is the first transfer window. It represents an excellent opportunity for our man to strengthen his side in a bid to win the league,” said the head of online terror in a businesslike manner. “Once he wins the league he will be in a position to exert powerful authority over the infidels.”
“And this agent is of good temperament? He’s not likely to lose his head?” said the chair.
“Oh absolutely not, sir,” said the head of online terror. “He assures us that throughout all his dealings with the fantasy football league, and despite the temptations of alcohol and pork scratchings, he never loses focus or composure even for a second.”
“Excellent,” said the chair, placated. He looked forward to having this little gem of an operation up his sleeve at his next meeting with the new leader. “What can we do to support our agent?”
The head of online terror suppressed a Cheshire Cat grin and pushed a form towards the chair: “Our man says the operation is very resource heavy. If you would just sign this expenses chit please, sir.”
Back from the brink: Angry protestors outside Kenna HQ last week show their contempt for the chairman
‘THE Kenna should be won and lost over a pub table groaning with empty pint glasses and dog-eared player lists’ were the words of the chairman this week in deciding London’s leading pub-based fantasy football league’s latest debacle.
The arguments over remaining budgets will no doubt rumble on, but effectively the outcome has answered the question over which managers should be favoured by the league: those who attend the pre-season auction over those who don’t.
The two camps had credible arguments. Those who turned up to the auction used their £100m budget in the time-honoured Kenna tradition, by attempting to buy eleven players through the fog of alcohol and the 50p game. They either make an outlay for the big names or take the shrewder approach of picking up less fashionble footballers and leaving themselves a sizable war chest for the first transfer window.
Those who did not attend were offered the chance to have players picked at random from the most well-thought-of dregs by the charts and graphs department’s new spreadsheet tool. At the minimum cost of £0.5m a player, the non-attendees would be left with unprecedented resources at the window, ultimately giving them first dibbs on such available talent as Angel Di Maria and Leonardo Ulloa.
The attendees said this was unfair. Why should someone who didn’t go through the emotional mangle of six hours in the upstairs room of a pub on a scorching August afternoon have a budget to eclipse the rest of the league?
The ire of those attendees had last week threatened to overturn the legitimate power of Kenna HQ. The Young Boys of Vauxhall manager led a vociferous faction that caused one league member to lock himself in his South London flat, declare martial law and claim his side would be placed top of the table until new leadership was installed at Kenna HQ. The Still Don’t Know Yet manager’s curtains are still reported to be twitching wildly. His neighbour’s cat, Mr Tibbs, is still missing.
The chairman ultimately came down on the side of those loudest voices, but the murmur of dissent from managers who did not attend the auction could still be heard.
They claimed that having been awarded a team automatically from the dregs of the players after the auction meant they needed the tremendous remaining budget to edge their way up the table. All three auction no shows – the managers of FC Testiculadew, Hoxton Pirates and Just Put Carles – are in the bottom five.
The chairman decided to award those three managers the average remaining budget of all the others – £17m. They now have the eighth highest spending power going into the transfer window. It is not enough, they say. Will the straitened managers come to the pub in three weeks’ time? Could the window turn ugly if they do? Only time will tell.
Of course, the Young Boys manager – with his paltry £4m fund and serious questions being asked of his decision to part with £20m for a misfiring Bojan Krkic – will claim ‘The No Show Three’ have been given too much. His case will be dismissed by the majority who see through his sedition as political ambitions in the Kenna boardroom.
For now the chairman appears to have regained control of the league and many see his solution as a common sense approach, but how quickly this snafu escalated will cause some concern in the corridors of Kenna HQ.
Kenna table (*awarded average remaining of managers who attended the auction)
Kenna table and remaining budgets -30 September 2014, week 6 of 37
