West Ham admit that their players had just come back from a charity fun run

In a post match interview after West Ham’s 3-1 win over troubled Newcastle United, new coach Gianfranco Zola put the Hammers performance down to the fact that he had sent them out on a fun run on the morning of the match.

The entire squad had participated in the Newham 10k ‘Run for your life’, which involved runners legging it from Canning Town to Green Street whilst attempting to avoid BNP activists, muggers and gangs of surly youths hanging around outside the numerous fried chicken restaurants. The team are believed to have raised several pounds in sponsorship for needy cockney street urchins.

“As you could see from the players shirts” explained the hugely popular, pocket sized, Italian troglodyte, “we hadn’t even had time to remove their fun run numbers, but despite this, they were energised and able to run rings around the Newcastle team and, indeed, it was they who looked as though they had been forced to run a marathon before the match”. 

Hammers unveil new boss

West Ham’s Icelandic owner, Magnus Magnusson, revealed today that the team’s new manager will be a lump of Gorgonzola, becoming the first foreign dairy product to manage the Irons in their 113 year history.

The Hammer’s chairman scotched rumours that he’d intended to hire Gianfranco Zola and had only ended up with the 2lb lump of cheese when his PA ran the proposed contract through a spellchecker and failed to spot that Microsoft Word had substituted the name of the diminutive former Chelsea and Italy frontman for the name of a pungent Italian blue cheese, before getting Magnusson to sign the legally binding, 5 year contract, said to be worth £2 million per year.

In a smelly press conference, the baldheaded biscuit supremo stated that ever since Alan Curbishly’s resignation last week, the West Ham board had intended to break with tradition and employ a mouldy cheese to handle team affairs, pointing out that it could hardly do worse than Glenn Roeder.

With fans of the club said to be broadly in favour of the surprise move, celebrity supporter and professional cockney, Ray Winstone, told gathered news reporters “Fackin’ ‘ell, ain’t this a right turn up for the books! A lump of cheese managing the ‘ammers, never fort I’d see the day, but to be honest, an’ I could be on me Jack Jones here, but we’ve had to put up with some right pony over recent seasons and quite frankly I’m just relieved we didn’t end up with that toilet Souness. And let’s face it, the Curds will be better than Curbs in the transfer market, even a mouldy old piece of Gorgonzola knows better than to spunk a load of bees and honey on a Berkshire hunt like Keiron Dyer. “

However the appointment has caused consternation at the League Managers Association, with chairman Howard Wilkinson claiming that this is just another nail in the coffin for English managers.

“When I became the last English manager to win the title, with Leeds in 1991, why are you laughing? It’s true, look it up if you don’t believe me”, Wilkinson explained, “I never dreamed that not only would the top clubs nearly all be managed by Frenchmen, Spaniards and other assorted untrustworthy continental types, but that young, successful and progressive ballplaying English managers such as Aidy Boothroyd and that bloke that’s done alright at Hull, you know, something Brown, would be usurped by foreign, imported cheese! I mean if they want to go down the dairy route what’s wrong with a good old English cheddar or stilton?”

The footballing world is now waiting with baited breath to see if Newcastle owner, Mike Ashley, follows suit and offers the Magpies head coach job to a sphere of Edam.