THE CORRIDORS of Kenna HQ have long echoed with reverence for five seconds of Mel Gibson in 1989, but the bubble has sadly burst.
A closing shutter door to the league’s underground executive car park prompted a YouTube search for a remembered gem from Lethal Weapon 2.
The film features two veteran homicide detectives with terrifically well-managed hair fighting the evil spectre of South African Apartheid, which takes the form of snappily-dressed diplomats with clipped accents, automatic weapons and equally high-maintainence bonces.
In one scene madcap martial arts expert Martin Riggs, played by Gibson, enters a restricted area at the South African consulate by rolling underneath a closing shutter door without breaking stride. A true masterclass.
Unable to find the extract posted on YouTube, the Kenna HQ LoveFilm account was pressed into service and a DVD of the film hired for that purpose.
Zeut alors! Upon closer examination it was found that what was previously thought to be an unbridled display of letter-jacketed panache turned out to be two camera shots neatly spliced together.
“A two-minute silence will be observed before every fixture this weekend,” read a missive from Kenna HQ.
19th hole: The Chairman and former Dan Terry Seduction manager enjoy a well-earned drink
NOT MANY can endure the constant pressure of top level football management for long, and the Kenna League is no exception.
For every Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Vasco De Beauvoir manager there are countless others who have passed on from the game to other arenas in which their skills are more suited.
One such example is the former Dan Terry Seduction manager, who readers of these pages will last recall steering the club to relegation in 2012 after a disastrous campaign in which he failed to woo players, the board or even a young journalist.
But whereas reports of his failed effort to slip a roofy to a girl from the local newspaper stretched credulity, the former DTS manager’s present crusade of villainy at a pay-and-play golf club in middle England is more than plausible.
“All the members act like it’s some exclusive club but they miss one point: they’re all sh1t at golf,” he explained during a round with the Kenna chairman on Monday, confirming common knowledge that most amateur golf club members’ enthusiasm for dress code and etiquette far outweigh their prowess on the course.
Retiring from the Kenna last summer, the former DTS boss relocated to Worcestershire to immediately begin his full-time campaign of terror midway through a competitive round.
With one parent on the committee and the other a popular member, particularly in the bar, the ex-Kenna man managed to wipe out his own respectability in one swoop by driving the ball over the heads of the group in front. A fourball that included the club pro.
As the angry scratch golfer marched 250 yards back up the fairway to deliver a furious, expletive-filled tirade, the former DTS boss heeded advice and kept his counsel. But far from being chastened by the experience, the out-of-work manager responded the only way he knew how: by taking the incident as an invitation to start leaving his car in the club pro’s reserved parking space.
“As part of my membership I get a free hour lesson with the club pro, but neither of us wants me to take that one up!” joked the former DTS manager as he produced a scrunched up voucher for a free 18-hole round.
His notoriety secured, the former Seduction boss turned his singular charm to that most sacred of clubhouse property – the notice board.
Eager to get some more competitions under his belt, weather permitting, he signed up for a contest on one condition. An asterix next to his scribbled name directed administrators to the bottom of the sheet to find: ‘*unless it’s snowing in which case I’ll stay in bed’.
Accosted by a senior lady member laster the day, the fairweather golfer was told that under no circumstances was he to deface club property in such a fashion. To the cheeky wag this was yet another chink in their armour.
Fans of 90s Canadian comedy TV show The Kids in the Hall will remember a sketch in which a balaclava-clad athlete with a catchy alias promises only to reveal his true identity once he climbs, ultimately unsuccessfully, to the top of a leisure centre squash ladder.
Taking inspiration from the show, but betrayed by his membership number, the former DTS boss received a curt phone call from a club apparatchik the day after signing up for the next competition and informed that it was not considered club etiquette to call himself ‘The Eradicator’.
So what’s next for the ex-Kenna man?
“I’ve thrown a couple of rounds with the old man to get my handicap up, so in the next Stableford contest I’ll romp home with 70 points. Who cares? It’s not exactly the Belfry,” he said.
Last 16 cup results (aggregate)
Vasco De Beauvoir 3 – 0 Headless Chickens
Still Don’t Know Yet 3 – 1 Piedmonte
PSV Mornington 0 – 2 Just Put Carles
Woking 1 – 2 Sporting Lesbian
Greendale Rockets 0 – 2 Northern Monkeys
Hairy Fadjeetas 1 – 2 Spartak Mogadishu
Dynamo Charlton 1 – 1 Pikey Scum (Dynamo go through on most points scored in second leg)
Shooter: Sporting Lesbian have scored 11 more goals than the next highest club this season
THE CASUAL Kenna manager must be hoping for some kind of Oscar Pistorius turn of fortune to beset Messrs Suarez and Aguero.
The Sporting Lesbian duo are fast leaving the rest of league behind. Chasing managers are wondering why their midnight trip to the John is being interrupted by the sound of a strange padding noise outside their bathroom door.
Chipping in with a paltry two appearance points, Maynor Figueroa was the only other Sporting man to contribute this week, but still the side outperformed all but one other.
No stranger to automatic weapons himself, Anders Breivik lookalike the Judean Peoples’ Front manager made his team’s case for a place in Europe as Jose Enrique and Ashley Cole both put in strong showings.
At the bottom Woking slipped even further away from safety. The manager’s competence has already been doubted by the highest authorities. How long until the club has their very own Night of the Short Blades?
Space just outside heaven: Managers attending the August auction may need to kiss the chairman’s ring
THE KENNA League chairman has thrown his funny hat in the ring to become the next Pope.
The Catholic Church was left in the hunt for a new leader yesterday after Benedict XVI became the first pontiff in 600 years to resign.
Despite not being a cardinal or even a Catholic, the Kenna chairman, who was recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list to become Sir Nimrod Rodgers-Boyce, claims he has the perfect credentials for the job.
He said: “The Vatican may have a following of 1.2bn compared to our smaller league membership [of 20], but the issues are the same. Most of my flock freely engage in intimate pre-marital relations, and if the stories are true a few of them enjoy going bareback with strangers too.”
Asked how he’d tackle the high-profile issue of child abuse in the church that dogged the last incumbent’s papacy, Rodgers-Boyce said his in-depth knowledge of the Kenna League’s draconian forfeit process – the Titus Bramble ruling – would more than prepare him for the role.
“During my eight years in charge a lot more people than just Kenna managers officially complained after forcibly having their pants pulled down by Titus Bramble.”
The Vatican are yet to comment.
Cup scores – Last 16 first leg
Five teams picked up crucial away goals, including Hairy Fadjeetas on a precarious visit to the Horn of Africa.
The second leg will take place on 26 February.
Kenna HQ has produced a gnatty wallchart to keep track of the latest cup developments. Download your free copy from The Rub on the right hand side of the page.
Funny looking brown envelope: The Woking manager (right) accepts the Bramble jersey at Friday’s transfer window
WOKING emerged from the transfer window in the unsavoury spotlight of the match fixing allegations sweeping Europe.
The struggling club’s truly lacklustre debut season left Europol with little doubt that an Asian betting syndicate must be involved.
Handed the Bramble jersey at Friday night’s transfer window for being last-placed in the Kenna League, the Woking manager insisted there was nothing fishy going on at the club.
“I’ve just been unlucky in the transfer market,” said the Woking boss, who only has Leighton Baines left from his original eleven in August. “Who are Europol anyway? They sound like something from a second-rate sci-fi movie. What are they doing to do? Come after me with Judge Dread and Commander Worf?”
However, the European Union’s law enforcement agency dropped the charges soon after discovering that, amongst other glaring examples of tactical shortsightedness, Shane Long had scored just hours after being ditched by the Woking manager.
Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said: “Having investigated Woking in more detail we’ve come the conclusion that the manger’s ineptitude excuses him of any wrongdoing. He’s bought Stewart Downing, for crying out loud.”
Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson having a ‘siesta off’ to prove their worth to the Just Put Carles manager.
The Sporting Lesbian boss interrupted with news of the fast approaching transfer window during a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe dismissing concern with the words: “We have time to finish our game of bowls and defeat the Spanish.”
These are some of the things that could be happening this morning as managers rush to get their players released to Kenna HQ ahead of today’s noon deadline.
Come Friday night it’ll be game faces ‘on’ for the second and final transfer window of the season before clubs make their assault on the title / relegation survival / mid-table mediocrity (delete as appropriate).
Top-performing unsigned players, and a few new faces, are listed below. As everyone steels themselves ahead of Friday the question hanging in the air is: just who will walk away with Emmanuel Pogatetz?
Strikers
Hernandez (MUN, 89)
Le Fondre (REA, 87)
Benteke (AVL, 83)
Shaun Maloney (WIG, 64)
Di Santo (WIG, 62)
Happy ending: Half the teams in the Kenna have already progressed from the cup group stage (Photograph courtesy of Wet and Messy Photography)
CRYSTALLIZED at the bottom, breathless at the top and much jiggling around in the middle: in many ways the Kenna table resembles a fat man with gout and a carrier bag over his head in the final throes of rubbing one off in the shower.
So it’s fitting that the coming weekend sees the climax of the race to the cup knockout stage. Who will breathe a satisfying sigh of relief? Who will tumble through the shower curtain, sustain a fatal head injury on the sink and be found naked three days later by sniggering paramedics?
Going into the deciding week, each manager will be looking at his team for goals, the key to a successful cup campaign. Chances of progression to knockout stages are analysed below – starting with the most wide open.
The Lickers will be backing Peter Odemwingie (7 goals this season) and club top scorer Fellaini (11) to combat the recent upturn in form of Just Put Carles striker Daniel Sturridge (4). Lokomotiv Leeds will hope that Jonathan Walters (7) will score at the right end, while Piedmonte look to Lambert (10) and Lampard (7) – a draw will not guarantee survival for either club.
Sporting Lesbian trio Luis Suarez (18), Michu (14) and Sergio Aguero (8) will take some beating from Newington Reds, who rely on, oh dear, star striker Fernando Torres (7). A woeful goal difference means FC Testiculadew will have to keep out Spartak Mogadishu star Romelu Lukaku (9) to ensure safety.
No player at either Vasco De Beauvoir or Judean Peoples’ Front have found the net for two weeks, and being on equal goal difference survival may be decided on who ships the least in the final game. A 1-1 draw was played out between the clubs in December, so JPF carry the advantage having scored one more goal in the contest.
Form: Demba Ba and Juan Mata have both been in the points
BINOCULARS trained on the bedroom of next door’s saucy, late-30s divorcee can scarcely produce such a fascinating window as the dilemma facing one Kenna manager in the build up to 1 February’s transfer night.
Demba Ba’s move from the Big Market to Fulham Broadway leaves the PSV Mornington boss in the unenviable position of choosing between the goal hungry African or the twinkle-toed creativity of Juan Mata.
Under Kenna rules, no manager may have two players from the same Premier League club, and PSV must release either the Senegalese or the Spaniard come the 12pm deadline on Wednesday 30 January.
At the prospect of the coveted signature of either Ba or Mata to boost their campaign, Kenna managers will be monitoring the situation in the window more closely than a teenage boy surveilling a rough and ready tradesman’s visit to the neighbourhood cougar.
Faced with a similar quandary – albeit child’s play in comparison – between Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson, and with no other Chelsea players in his side, fellow Catalan the Just Put Carles manager is a strong suitor.
If Demba Ba or Juan Mata joined JPC it would be a major coup for the manager after losing out in last season’s bitter midtable ‘Cat’-fight to his rival at PSV, and go someway towards closing the 39-point gap between the two clubs.
Step away from the party the popper: Celebrating goals is so 2012
A GARETH BALE goal was not enough to keep Bala Rinas from being dumped out of the Canesten Combi Cup.
Four hapless group game defeats left the side without a point, and with his team also struggling in the league the manager, yet to win a trophy in six years in Kenna, is under increasing pressure.
“People are saying that I’ve got no silverware, I can’t bring success to the club and I’ll never know the difference between riding the normal team coach and riding an open-top bus, but of course I knows the difference – one’s got a fcuking roof and one fcuking ‘asn’t,” sing songed the Welshman.
Bala Rinas weren’t the only ones not celebrating this week. Footballers are fashionable creatures, and a new craze has swept through the Kenna: not celebrating goals.
Cup results – 8 January 2013
In Group D, Daniel Sturridge found the net to help Just Put Carles to their first cup win and a chance at the next round, but ‘out of respect’ the England striker did not cheer after scoring against his former club Lokomotiv Leeds.
In the other Group C match there were remarkable scenes at FC Testiculadew’s ground, the Death Star, where no players celebrated any of the eight goals in Sporting Lesbian’s 7-1 destruction of the hosts.
Hairy Fadjeetas, on the end of five-goal thrashing by Headless Chickens, were the only side to have the decency to avoid any awkward embarrassment by not scoring any goals at all.
The final cup game will be played on 29 January, where the top four from each group will go through to the last 16 knockout draw.
Teams below in yellow have already qualified, teams in red are out.
Group A – 8 January 2013Group B – 8 January 2013Group C – 8 January 2013Group D – 8 January 2013
Bearded: The FCT manager’s public image suffered in 2012
DESPITE Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero notching them up like John Terry’s bedpost, Sporting Lesbian go into the New Year with only a slender lead over the reigning champions.
FC Testiculadew shaved a point from the gap since Boxing Day morning with goals from Jonny Evans, Steven Pienaar and Dimitar Berbatov.
FCT enjoyed the added advantage of Danny Simpson missing Saturday evening’s game, while Lesbian Davide Santon had seven knocked past him and got booked.
Much maligned for the heinous crime of tactical Brambling during May’s Euros auction, the FCT boss hopes to regenerate his public profile in the New Year, as well as becoming the first manager to defend the league title.
“For some reason I’ve earned a bad reputation, but I hope that everyone can leave that unfortunate, summer misunderstanding in 2012 and see that behind the sinister facial hair I’m just a stand-up guy who can get the best from his team in all competitions,” said cad and bounder the FCT manager, while counting out 11 bullets into envelopes addressed to the Sporting Lesbian first team.
At the bottom, Bala Rinas climb out of the drop zone thanks to Gareth Bale and Daniel Agger. Wandsworth Window Lickers sink down most likely because their top scorer this week was Gabriel Obertan.
Looking into 2013, managers’ immediate focus will be on the cup ahead of this week’s fixtures, with every team in with a chance of progressing to the knockout stages.
