Ceefax, the internet but with less porn

The rights to the match, which is now almost meaningless to England as the team have already qualified for next year’s World Cup in South Africa, had been bought by the, now bankrupt, Carlos Santana sports channel, but due to the collapse of the Irish broadcasters the rights were re-sold.

A surprise bid of £10 by the BBC’s text service, more famous for it’s “Bamboozle” puzzle pages and pisspoor jokes, such as “How to go to the toilet” by I.P.Freely, secured the rights to the match as there was no interest from any other broadcaster, as it’s believed no-one in England now gives a monkey’s and everyone will be tuning into “Strictly Come Dancing” to see if Anton Dubec calls Bruno Tonioli a “poof” or uses more racially inflammatory language to describe his dance partners new tan.

The service, as well as updating the scoreline on an annoyingly infrequent basis, will also be unveiling it’s revolutionary “Blockball” graphics system which will show a low resolution image of the pitch and have the players represented by either red (England) or yellow (Ukraine) pixels.

A version of this system was first used in the early 1980s, when it provided revolutionary coverage of the annual University Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford. A BBC boffin constructed a Ceefax page showing the route of the course using the graphics usually used for building the weather maps. Two dots then represented the boats and they were moved across the screen to track the crews once the race got under way. Despite getting, literally, tens of viewers this technological breakthrough was mothballed until it was realised that a variant could be used to bring previously unavailable live football to the masses.

The live match coverage will be available to anyone with Ceefax on page 311 starting at 5pm.

Manchester United superstar Michael Owen

According to a representative from Apple, who explained “Michael Owen perfectly encapsulates the qualities of the Apple brand and is an aspirational icon who communicates deeply with our core audience of people in the 20-40 year old bracket, who despite the current economic woes, still have a high disposable income that they are prepared to waste on stylish, but, ultimately pointless technological trinkets.”

“He’s been a player who has constantly been able to re-invent himself whilst staying at the top of his game. People have paid vastly over the odds for him, when they could’ve bought cheaper, but less glamorous and stylish players, who would’ve done the same job and, of course, here at Apple we admire his in built obsolescence and the way that he is able to break down just after someone has spunked a huge amount of money on him. We think this ability, over all his other brand values, makes him the perfect ambassador for our products, especially the iPod range.”

Apple have also announced that there will be a new “Michael Owen Super Soccer” app released for the iPhone which will allow users to recreate the strikers career, beginning with his sensational goal at the 1998 World Cup and then gradually moving on to his succession of injury rehabilitation’s with Real Madrid, Newcastle and Manchester United, before allowing you to finally concentrate on managing his property portfolio in Dubai and checking the horse racing results.

Chas 'n' Dave, pictured in happier times

Sol Campbell’s agent has confirmed to “Festival of Football” that the player has agreed to leave League Two side Notts County after playing only one match.

The ex-Spurs and England man is believed to have made the decision upon hearing the news that popular Cockney knees up merchants, ‘Chas ‘n’ Dave’ had split up yesterday.

Reading from a pre-prepared statement, Sol’s spokesman said “Sol has always been a big fan of ‘Chas ‘n’ Dave’, especially during his time at Tottenham Hotspurs, where they would often be invited to play at club functions, and he believes that it would be wrong for him, at this time of great sadness, to be playing football for Notts County. Sol would like it to be known that he is prepared to join Chas Hodges, in this hour of darkness, and play guitar, he is even prepared to change his name to Dave Campbell if this means that the legend of ‘Chas ‘n’ Dave’ can go on”

The former Pompey stopper, 34, is believed to have been practising his axemanship on ‘Guitar Hero’ for quite some time and was always looking to move into the music business once his playing career had come to a natural end. However the opportunity to work with his pop idol, Chas Hodges, has proved to be too much of a lure and he is believed to be prepared to rip up his £40,000 a week, 5 year deal with Sven’s County in order to pursue his dream of touring the pubs and clubs of the UK, belting out “Margate”, “Rabbit” and “Snooker Loopy”.

LordTriesman, Head of the FA

Lord Triesman, today confirmed that all leave for staff working in the Disciplinary Department had been cancelled in order to help clear the massive backlog of cases being brought before them.

With the current flare-ups involving Craig Bellamy and Gary Neville during the Manchester derby and El Hadj Diouf’s racial abuse of a ball boy during Blackburn’s match at Goodison Park, along with recent cases including the “Adebayor incident” and Eduardo’s much debated diving, the Head of the FA admitted that despite being the 2nd biggest department at the FA, after Merchandising and Money-grabbing, the disciplinary staff were currently so overworked that the committees would be sitting well into next season if this continued.

“An increase in footballer twatty-ness along with supporters constantly looking for something to get the arse about, combined with the media’s desire to blow everything up out of all proportion, means that we have seen the number of cases brought before us increase by 110% in the last season”

“It used to be that a footballer had to break another player’s jaw with a right hook, or jump into the crowd to molest a small puppy, in order to be brought to book but now it only takes Craig Bellamy to celebrate a goal whilst vaguely looking a bit like a plane and supporters are up in arms claiming that he’s desecrating the memory of the players who died in the Munich air crash whilst simultaneously shitting on the graves of Princess Di and Patrick Swayze, it’s madness” he continued.

“At this rate we’ll have to get some work experience kids in to examine the lower profile cases, or anything that doesn’t involve a player from the ‘Big Four’ or Manchester City”.

The statisticians at Prozone have predicted that if this current trend contines all Premier League footballers will be suspended for at least one game sometime during the 2013-2014 season.

Arsene Wenger's spitfire prepares to shoot down Tony Mowbray's Messerschmit 109

British journalists celebrated today as Arsenal and Celtic were drawn together in the otherwise completely tedious qualifying round of the stupifyingly dull, so-called Champions League.

Hacks everywhere were delighted with the draw which took place at UEFA’s fortified underground bunker in Switzerland, allowing them to dust off all those tired old “Battle of Britain’ clichés which have been used for every meeting of English and Scottish teams in European football since 1961.

Ignoring the fact that the original, and best, “Battle of Britain” involved the German Luftwaffe and the UK’s Royal Air Force in a hard-fought, no quarters given fight for survival, in one of the most intense air warfare campaigns in history, not a 4th placed English club struggling to catch up in the current financial arms race of the Premier League and the losers of the Scottish Old Firm League, media analysts and commentators will be obliged to follow convention and use the name to describe this two legged match up which will result in one team progressing into the licence-to-print-money group stage.

Celtic, who amazingly reached the play-offs with a dramatic 2-0 victory against Dinamo Moscow in Russia, their first away win in Europe since the ‘Lisbon Lions’ won the European Cup in 1967, will host the first leg at Parkhead on either 18/19 August with the return league being played at the atmosphere vacuum that is the Emirates, a week later.

The Sun newspaper is already believed to have knocked up a hastily photoshopped picture of Arsene Wenger and Tony Mowray dressed as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding and Herman Goering, dogfighting in a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt painted in the relevant teams colours, whilst one of their features writers has been asked to write an article describing Nicklas Bendtner as football’s answer to Douglas Bader.

Sven gives two thumbs up to the Nottingham ladies

Swedish love god and sometime football manager, Sven Goran Erikkson, has been appointed Director of Rumpy-Pumpy at League Two club, Notts County.

The former England, Manchester City and Mexico headcoach, and ex-paramour of fellow Swede Ulrika Johnson and curvaceous, former FA secretary and office bike, Faria Alam, has today been confirmed as joining the backroom staff of the Meadow Lane club.

In an interview with gathered journalists the bespectacled lothario said “It is well known that Nottingham has a female to male ratio of 4:1, this is why the University is so popular with boys, as even a spotty lad who’s hit every branch on his fall from the ugly tree can get a bit of action in this town.”

“To be honest” he continued “since I went to Mexico I’ve had a bit of a barren spell, Nancy left me, and thanks to their strict religious upbringing and aversion to palid, Scandinavian men in tight Speedos, the Mexican babes gave me a wide berth. So I thought, where better to go than England, somewhere where I’ve always had great success, off the field if not necessarily on it! And in England, where better to go than Nottingham, a city that is renowned for it’s quantity and quality of loose women. If I can’t score here then I might as well chop off little Svenis and post it back to Malmö”.

Eriksson, has been lured to the East Midlands club by a Middle East-backed consortium called Munto Finance, although Erikkson joked “They are not the first ‘Munto’ to lure me somewhere”.

His  package will be the subject of much conjecture but a spokesman said it would “largely be determined by the success of Notts County” on the pitch. His duties will include overseeing all the hiring of female staff at the club and selecting various young, attractive female fans to entertain him and fellow corporate members in his executive suite. He will be joined by his trusted assistant and masturbatory technique soundalike , Tord Grip.

Steven Gerrard wears an old FA Cup Final suit to court

Liverpool captain, Steven “Stevie G” Gerrard, attended court today to face a charge of ‘causing affray’ in a Southport nightclub in December of last year.

The scouse superstar is accused of starting a nightclub brawl that resulted in the injury of Southport man in the early hours of 29 December.

Businessman McGee suffered multiple injuries, including a head wound, a black eye, and a lost tooth during the scuffle believed to have been caused when Gerrard was asked to pass him his beer, a request which Gerrard carried out in his usual manner of passing it at high velocity and then blaming McGee when he failed to control the fast moving glass projectile.

Gerrard, 29, a father of two, was out with friends at The Lounge Inn wine bar in Southport, celebrating Liverpool’s 5-1 defeat of Newcastle United last season, when the fight broke out.

Six other defendants all players for non-league Accrington Stanley are all also facing the same charges of affray.

The melee was believed to have been exacerbated when Gerrard was introduced to the Stanley players and mockingly pronounced in a broad Liverpudlian accent “Accrington Stanley, who are dey?” before ordering them a round of milk.

The bar owner, who wished to remain unnamed, told police at the time, “Gerrard was unstoppable, despite being outnumbered he really gave 120% and displayed the fighting spirit from that epic Champions League Final comeback in Istanbul. It was an awesome display of manic, hyperactive energy and uncontrolled fury, exactly what he brings to Premier League matches.”

The trial is scheduled to last two weeks giving newspapers plenty of scope to fill their pages if they tire of making up outlandish transfer rumours.

Adebayor, pre-sulk

Emmanuel Adebayor completed his £25million transfer this weekend after Arsenal fan, Kevin Sampson, offered to drive him from the Emirates Stadium to Eastlands if it meant that the Gunners could get rid of the sulky striker and pocket a large sum of Middle Eastern cash.

Kevin, 33, an Arsenal season ticket holder for 15 years, explained to gathered journalists “Arsenal have had a good few seasons now of listening to Adebayor moaning about this and that, whilst making ‘Come and get me eyes’ to AC Milan and more recently, Manchester City, and, to be honest, most fans were only too happy to see Mark Hughes pay a big wedge to take the guy off our hands. I wrote an e-mail to Arsene Wenger, saying that if it helped to seal the deal, I’d willingly drive him to Manchester myself and, much to my surprise, he accepted my offer.” 

Several City fans welcomed the striker after he completed a medical and signed a five-year-deal worth £150,000-a-week, and Adebayor explained his motivation for the move “Mark Hughes made me feel really special and offered me the sort of money that dwarfs a Banker’s bonus! I can’t wait to play for City’s fans and show them what I can do. I promise to give 100% and score goals for the first couple of months before  losing form and being dropped for Tevez. I then promise to revert to type and moan sulkily before making overtures to Milan in time for the January transfer window” said Adebayor. 

City’s Arab owners have embarked on a ludicrous spending spree this summer, and Adebayor is the third forward to join, following the arrivals of  Santa Claus and Carlos Tevez. Those signings have created a groundswell of overblown optimism that City could possibly do better than last season’s 10th place and maybe, after spending shitloads of money, even qualify for the prestigious Europa Cup.

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