It’s been a funny few days. First Liverpool win 5-0 with a hat trick from Maxi Rodriguez and a goal from the world’s best player Joe Cole. Bizarre. Then Torres finally breaks his duck for Chelsea; had it not been for the waterlogged pitch he would have overrun the ball and fallen down. A first goal in about 92 years for the £50 million pound striker, so massive that it was instantly “breaking news” on Sky Sports News. Crazy. Then, to top it all off, I walked into the lounge on Sunday evening to be greeted by my former babysitter doing her strange poetry on Britain’s Got Talent, being viewed by around 10 million people. The snaggle-toothed lollipop lady was dribbling her way through some curious verses on national television. Insane.
At this point, I walked to the door and looked out expecting to see the horsemen of the apocalypse winging their way down from the heavens to inflict the final rites on the earth, lightening crashing down on the houses around me and lava spewing from the hills that encircle our village. And then normal service was resumed. Arsenal collapsed like a very tall man who has just been hit in the testicles by an elephant’s trunk and the world was right again. Had they managed to overcome their moment of adversity at this time of the season, and with all these other strange goings on taking place, I probably would have conceded that the Mayans were right and bought myself a large bottle of vodka and watched the drama unfold. But they didn’t, because they have as much spine as a Portuguese Man o’ War and as much team spirit as Robinho, and so as usual it is United vs. Chelsea for the Premier League title.
On to matters more serious than a near apocalyptic happening, it is time for the first ever 7Cantonas annual (nearly) end of season player awards. Being as this features in “A Week In Football” it is obviously going to be an alternative awards process and instead we will be looking at the players that have hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. And so without further ado, here are the categories and winners:
“The Ben Thatcher Fair Tackling” Award
Nominees – Jamie Carragher, Nigel De Jong, Lee Cattermole, Karl Henry and Ryan Shawcross.
Despite Nigel De Jong and Karl Henry shattering limbs on a weekly basis, they don’t merit this award. Poor old Henry is simply not technically skilled enough to tackle without causing injury, and Nigel is disqualified for not passing the minimum IQ level. Shawcross is instantly exempt for being an ex-Red, and Cattermole, despite being a “tenacious” tackler, does possess a small amount of ability. So the winner, for being a horrid shitbucket with the ability of a cuttlefish and the charm and charisma of a puss-filled turd is – Jamie Carragher.
“The Craig Bellamy Award for Tact and Diplomacy” (via @topcat1512)
Nominees – El Hadji Diouf, Mario Balotelli, John Terry, Carlos Tevez and Andy Carroll
Thankfully the offensively despicable Diouf has been whisked away from the Premier League to play in the North North England Sunday League, or the Scottish Premier League as it is sometimes known, so he is now ineligible for the award. John Terry was within a whisker of winning it, but on his way to pick up the trophy lost his footing and fell awkwardly, drenching the place in the process. Carlos Tevez would surely have won except no one ever knows what he is actually saying, and Andy Carroll was almost certain until he moved to Merseyshite, fell in love with Kenny and started going to see Boyzone gigs. So this trophy goes to Mario, the mohican-topped fuckwit, who amongst other discrepancies has insulted Jack Le Wilshere (on its own not a bad thing), thrown darts at the youth team (Elite Development Reserves, Second Youngsters, Academy of Football and stuff), been allergic to grass, been ridiculously sent off, been incapable of donning a bib and generally acting like a shithouse.
“The Kevin Keegan Level-Headed Under Pressure” Award (via @MU689908)
Nominees – Arsene Wenger, Carlo Ancelotti, Ian Holloway, Arry Redknapp and Agent Woy
Arsene is always going to be nominated for this award once we have passed March and his lovely boys start to fall apart. The Sky Sports cameras hone in on the sleeping bag adorned lizard, and every water bottle kick and shake of the head is examined. But this award isn’t for Arsene, he hasn’t properly lost it yet this season, and he did try and fight Kenny Dalglish so it’s not all bad. Carlo is always under pressure as the village idiot desperately tries to win the European Cup, but usually he manages to express his anger through his curiously elevated eyebrow, while Agent Woy was dismissed despite doing the job Sir Alex hired him for, but all the while he maintained his decorum and kept himself controlled. We think. It is sometimes weally difficult to understand what he is saying. So it’s between Arry and Ian for the title. Arry can be a touch incendiary at times, especially if anyone doubts his proven transfer policy (proven or scattergun?), but generally he is quite level headed. So the winner is Ian Holloway; in his debut season in the Premier League he has provided a perfect spectrum of entertainment, from the sublime to the fucking stupid. From the start Holloway has been a gem. As reports broke of him leaving the club before the season started, he asked reporters whether they could see him and then declared he wasn’t a cut out. After fielding a weakened team for a game against Villa he basically offered all of the journalists outside and then said that if any of them came to see him for a coffee he would probably just chuck it in their laps anyway. Take a bow Ian Holloway.
The second part of the 7Cantonas annual awards to follow in next week’s edition…
Balotelliwatch
This feature has now been disconituned. It is always good to poke fun at people who appear to be slightly unhinged and enjoyable to wallow in their misfortune, especially if they play for a rival club. Now, however, I realise that Mario has a very serious problem and once this is the case it ceases to be funny and becomes mean and uncaring. It is only recently that I found out about Mario’s problem and so it seems right to end the feature now and move on. Mario is allergic to grass. There, I have said it, it’s all in the open now and we can all get along with our lives without trying to block it out. The stupid clown clearly has a bag of issues as full as Santa’s sack, but to decide to be a footballer while suffering from such a debilitating problem is stupidity embodied. Has anyone ever seen a synchronised swimmer that has an allergy to water? No.
So from next week we will have a new naughty corner – Twats Tweets. This has taken a huge personal sacrifice as I have had to create a list on twitter including such luminaries as Lucas, Dobbin Van Horsie, Jack Le Wilshere, Wockface Chestnut and even Dirk “Hey You Guys” Kuyt. Skimming through their tweets has made me feel sick at times, but there is some comedy gold lurking, so it might prove to be a worthwile sacrifice.
Epic! 🙂