From a Deuce reader:

Man City to make GBP50m bid for Newcastle United supporters

Premier League billionaires Manchester City have today launched an
audacious bid for the entire fan base of recently relegated Newcastle
United. The unexpected move has come as part of City’s plans to be
the best supported club in the world, and the so-called ‘Best
Supporters In The World’ have provided a logical starting point. The
move will see each of Newcastle United’s 50,000 ‘regulars’ offered
GBP1,000 to change their allegiances to Manchester City.

Our competitive advantage is our financial position, and we will buy
anything and everything we feel will help us improve this football
club. Said City boss Mark Hughes. Securing the Newcastle United fans
offers us a great opportunity to improve our position as the best
supported club in the league They have just the sort of experience
we’re looking for, in that they’ve enjoyed fleeting periods of great
expectation followed almost immediately by abject failure, which will
be useful to us in the next two years.

Unlimited funds

Hughes continued, We’ll happily pay top dollar for supporters who
will blindly follow their team and defend them as the greatest in the
world in the face of over-whelming evidence to the contrary. And in
that respect, the Geordies really are second to none. The Newcastle
fans, who will not be subjected to a medical, are expected to have a
‘fully clothed at all times’ clause inserted into their Man City
contracts. A Newcastle spokesperson said that although the move has
come at a bad time for them, the entire fee will be used to rebuild
the supporter base into a slimmer, better looking unit which they
hope will be ‘the envy of the Championship’ .

We’ve already broken down the clusterfuck that is Newcastle United. Interim manager Joe Kinnear has done nothing to change that view of the club since he took over for Kevin Keegan. If anything, he reinforced it by giving a press conference rant that rivals anything Jim Mora or Dennis Green could ever hope to do.

Enough from us. Take it away, Joe. Here’s the transcript courtesy of The Guardian:

The following is an edited transcript of Newcastle interim manager Joe Kinnear’s first official press conference yesterday

JK Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]?

SB Me.

JK You’re a cunt.

SB Thank you.

JK Which one is Hickman [Niall, football writer for the Express]? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you’re saying I turned up and they [Newcastle's players] fucked off.

SB No Joe, have you read it, it doesn’t actually say that. Have you read it?

JK I’ve fucking read it, I’ve read it.

SB It doesn’t say that. Have you read it?

JK You are trying to fucking undermine my position already.

SB Have you read it, it doesn’t say that. I knew you knew they were having a day off.

JK Fuck off. Fuck off. It’s your last fucking chance.

SB You read the copy? It doesn’t say that you didn’t know.

JK What about the headline, you think that’s a good headline?

SB I didn’t write the headline, you read the copy.

JK You are negative bastards, the pair of you.

SB So if I get a new job next week would I take the first day off? No I wouldn’t. If I get a new job should I call my boss and tell him I am taking the first day off?

JK It is none of your fucking business. What the fuck are you going to do? You ain’t got the balls to be a fucking manager. Fucking day off. Do I want your opinion. Do I have to listen to you?

SB No, you can listen to who you want.

JK I had a 24-hour meeting with the entire staff.

SB Joe, you are only here six weeks, you could have done that on Sunday, or Saturday night.

JK No, no, no. I didn’t want to do it. I had some other things to do.

SB What? More important things?

JK What are you? My personal secretary? Fuck off.

SB You could have done the meeting Saturday night or Sunday. You could have had them watching videos, you could have organised them.

JK I was meeting the fucking chairman the owner, everyone else. Talking about things.

SB It is a valid point that was made in there. A valid point.

JK I can’t trust any of you.

Niall Hickman Joe, no one could believe that on your first day at your new club, the first-team players were not in. No one could believe it in town. Your first day in the office.

JK My first day was with the coaches. I made the decision that I wanted to get as much information out of them.

NH But why Monday, no one could believe it?

JK I’m not going to tell you anything. I don’t understand where you are coming from. You are delighted that Newcastle are getting beat and are in the state they are? Delighted, are you?

NH Certainly not. No one wants to see them get beaten, why would we?

JK I have done it before. It is going to my fucking lawyers. So are about three others. If they can find something in it that is a court case it is going to court. I am not fucking about. I don’t talk to fucking anybody. It is raking up stories. You are fucking so fucking slimy you are raking up players that I got rid of. Players that I had fallen out with. You are not asking Robbie Earle, because he is sensible. You are not asking Warren Barton? No. Because he is fucking sensible. Anyone who had played for me for 10 years at any level … [but] you will find some cunt that …

Other journalist How long is your contract for Joe?

JK None of your business.

SB Well it is actually, because we cover the club. The club say you are here to the end of October, then you say six to eight games which would take it to the end of November. We are trying to clarify these issues. We are getting no straight answers from anyone. How long are you here for. It is a dead simple question. And you don’t know …

JK I was told the length of contract. Then I was told that possibly the club could be sold in that time. That is as far as I know. That’s it finished. I don’t know anything else. But I have been ridiculed. He’s trying to fucking hide, he’s trying to do this or that.

There follows an exchange regarding the circumstances under which Kinnear had met the owner Mike Ashley and executive director (football) Dennis Wise.

Steve Brenner (football writer for the Sun) We are all grown men and can come in here and sit around and talk about football, but coming in here and calling people cunts?

JK Why? Because I am annoyed. I am not accepting that. If it is libellous, it is going to where I want it to go.

Newcastle press officer What has been said in here is off the record and doesn’t go outside.

Journalist Well, is that what Joe thinks?

JK Write what you like. Makes no difference to me. Don’t affect me I assure you. It’ll be the last time I see you anyway. Won’t affect me. See how we go at Everton and Chrissy [Chris Hughton, assistant manager] can do it, someone else can do it. Don’t trust any of yous. I will pick two local papers and speak to them and the rest can fuck off. I ain’t coming up here to have the piss taken out of me. I have a million pages of crap that has been written about me. I’m ridiculed for no reason. I’m defenceless. I can’t get a point in, I can’t say nothing, I can’t do nothing, but I ain’t going to be negative. Then, half of you, most of you are trying to get into the players. I’m not going to tell you what the players think of you, so then you try and get into them in some way or another, so I’ve got a split camp or something like that, something like that. It’s ongoing. It just doesn’t stop.

Journalist It’s only been a week.

JK Exactly. It feels more like a year.

Journalist It’s early days for you to be like this.

JK No, I’m clearing the air. And this is the last time I’m going to speak to you. You want to know why, I’m telling you. This is the last time. You can do what you like.

Journalist But this isn’t going to do you or us any good.

JK I’ll speak to the supporters. I’m going to tell them what the story is. I’m going to tell them. I don’t think they’ll interpret it any different, I don’t think they’ll mix it up, I don’t think they’ll miss out things. I mean, one of them last week said to me … I was talking about in that press conference where you were there, I said something like “Well, that’s a load of bollocks …”

Journalist “Bollocks to that” is what you said.

JK Bollocks to that. And what goes after that?

Journalist That was it.

JK No it wasn’t, no it wasn’t. What was after it? I don’t know if it was your paper, but what went after it?

Journalist I don’t know.

JK It even had the cheek to say “bollocks to Newcastle”.

Journalist I didn’t write that.

JK That was my first fucking day. What does that tell you? What does that tell you?

Journalist Where was that? Which paper said that?

JK I’ve got it. I can’t remember. It was one of the Sundays, not a Saturday. It was a Sunday.

Journalist But you didn’t say that to the Sundays, you said that to us. That was during the Monday press conference.

JK I’ll bring it in and show it to you. Why would I want to say that?

Journalist Are you saying that someone has reported you saying “bollocks to Newcastle?”

JK Yes. Lovely.

Journalist I don’t know who’s reported that.

JK I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring it in.

Journalist That’s obviously going to damage you. That’s not a good thing. But I don’t think someone’s done that. We have to have some sort of relationship with you.

JK So have I. But I haven’t come in here for you lot to take the piss out of me. And if I’m not flavour of the month for you, it don’t fucking bother me. I’ve got a job to do. And I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. I’m not going to spend any more time listening to any crap or reading any crap. Stick to the truth and the facts. And don’t twist anything.

Journalist You know, you know the game …

JK Of course I know, but I don’t have to like it.

Journalist Today we’ll print the absolute truth, that you think we’re cunts, we can all fuck off and we’re slimy. Is that fair enough?

JK Do it. Fine. Fucking print it. Am I going to worry about it? Put in also that it’ll be the last time I see you. Put that in as well. Good. Do it.

Much, much later after long discussions over whether Kinnear had promised Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan would be returning to the club

Press officer Let’s get on to football. Let’s have an agreement that everything said so far, if anyone has got their tapes on, it’s wiped off and we’re not discussing it.

Journalist But that’s what Joe has said he thinks of us.

Press officer I’m saying don’t push it. Let’s accept what’s been said and try and move on.

Journalist: Move on to not doing any more press conferences?

PO: No, to doing something now.

Journalist: What, one press conference only?

(Silence)

Journalist: Any knocks?

PO: Come on, let’s go football.

Journalist: What are your plans for training in the next three days? How’s the training going?

JK It’s going very well. No problems at all.

Journalist Enjoyed getting back in the swing of things?

JK Absolutely. I’ve loved every moment of it.

As promised we have the unique pleasure of our first guest post from one of my heroes. A New York football legend if you will and a saint of the only church I attend on 3rd Ave between 11th and 12th Streets. At his request we have hidden his identity to protect the innocent. He took some time out from his busy schedule to break down the situation at Newcastle in terms you can understand. Hopefully this won’t be his last contribution to your football knowledge.

Save Newcastle United!

Mike Ashley has the scorn of the Geordies and is the root problem of all that is wrong with the club! Well, so say members of the Toon Army as they parade their angst with their “Cockney MAFIA out!” banner during a recent home loss to Hull City. Even Magpie, the Toon mascot, was photographed holding a poster stating, “No more Geordie cash for Ashley!” Things certainly are off the charts north of Hadrian’s Wall.

But is Mike Ashley really to blame for this mess or is he just misguided lad with too much money?

Billionaire Mike Ashley isn’t really a Cockney but he was born in Buckinghamshire and ranks 54th in the Sunday Times Rich List. Ashley has loved his football since attending the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 and was attracted to Newcastle by the myth that Toon fans were the best fans in football. In fact, Ashley believes that the fans are Newcastle United’s best asset. Ashley paid ₤134 million for the club and paid another ₤110 million just to reduce the debt. That’s right, reduce the debt.

Things were wrong at Newcastle United BEFORE Mike Ashley won the scorn of all illiterate Toon fans. Toon? Well, that’s the Geordie pronunciation of the word “town!” To really look into this situation, we really need to go back in time to see where things went wrong.

Newcastle United was formed in 1892 with the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, rivals in the Northern League, as Newcastle West End had fallen into financial difficulties. Success was rapid for Newcastle United and they won their first league title in 1904/05 followed by more league titles in 1906-07 and 1908/09. The FA Cup followed in 1909/10. Success along with the lack of transportation and lack of nearby competition gave Newcastle United a strong base for fans. Sadly, Newcastle United would win the league title just once more, in 1926/27, but the FA Cup brought success on the club with victories in 1923/24, 1931/32, 1950/51, 1951/52 and 1954/55. The brilliant and storied history of success at St. James’ Park was over after 1955 and no domestic silverware would be won unless you count the Texaco Cup.

Still, even without silverware there was little competition for fans. The closest rivals are Sunderland, a mere ten miles away, and the Tyne-Wear derbies are heated events that pit city against city for the bragging rights of the county. Most southerners will look at Middlesbrough as a local for Newcastle thanks to the lack of teams “up norf” but Middlesbrough plays a hefty 34 miles away and is not considered local!

With a huge fan base, surely Newcastle would have been primed for success both fiscally and on the pitch. There is no doubt that the fans let their feelings known. The highest attendance in Newcastle history is 68,386 for the match against Chelsea in 1930. Why did so many Geordies show up for this one match? The fans showed up in huge numbers to welcome their former hero Hughie Gallacher who was the club’s most prolific scorer (143 goals in 174 games) but had been sold to Chelsea! Queue the mass hysteria and attendance. In fact, many thousands of fans were unable to get inside the stadium and were locked outside.

Could this event have shaped the club’s managerial policy into pleasing the fans at all costs? Since 1930, only two managers have had tenures of ten years or more; Stan Seymour and Joe Harvey, who departed in 1975. Since Joe’s departure, Newcastle have had 16 managers including such high profile figures as Osvaldo Ardiles, Kevin Keegan (twice), Kenny Dalglish, Ruud Gullit and Sir Bobby Robson. In fact, Newcastle is already on their sixth manager this century. This must-win to appease the fans who still believe the club is massive is finally killing the club in this period of high financial risk.

Run the club by appeasing the fans? Mike Ashley has certainly tried! In September last year, Ashley tried to wear his Alan Smith number 17 Newcastle shirt in the corporate box at Sunderland without permission to show the fans his true colours. After being denied, he sat in the away end and tried to buy all of the fellow “fans” a pint of lager at half-time. These gimmicks haven’t worked for him as they were not complimented by success on the pitch and the fans now want the “outsider” gone.

For his part, Ashley has been able to make himself an easy target for the fans by becoming a PR nightmare and embarrassing the club. From partying in New York and buying 175 bottles of Crystal champagne, to snubbing Dubai investors, who had low-balled his anticipated selling price, by missing a scheduled meeting with them to drink with Dennis Wise, his Director of Football, in the nearby Bahri Bar, he’s played his part.

The club is still in debt and still owes millions on transfer fees while current commercial deals were paid up front and spent before Ashley bought the club. Ashley bought a dog with fleas and did everything to keep the club’s number one asset happy; the fans.

Mike Ashley has now hired London-based Seymour Pierce to sell the club and wants an unreasonable figure of ₤480 million. This is far more than the Dubai investors are willing to pay although there is a Nigerian outfit out there willing to buy the club. Let’s hope Ashley pays attention to their needs of his initial wiring of money to a bank account in Abuja.

Until the fans step away from this “massive club” demand, Newcastle will continue with quick fixes that will never work. Kevin Keegan was never going to be the answer and neither will Alan Shearer. A new owner is obviously needed but the owner must place the fans second to the club before embarking on the business of finding the right manager who knows which players he needs to make the club tick. The club must break tradition and think long-term.

The debacle at Newcastle United continues to boggle the mind. It’s nothing but a clusterfuck from owner Mike Ashley down to the fans who continue to drive away potential club buyers and managers with their rabid, bloodthirsty rantings about King Kev and their non-existent history. We’ll have an in-depth look at the club from a guest writer who is a football legend in his own right. Before we do that, let’s catch up on the latest haps from the “very big club”.

Ashley, realizing that he’s cruising for a lynching, has been trying to find a buyer for Newcastle. However he insists on selling at over £400million GBP. He had no luck in the Middle East and things were looking rather bleak until the Nigerians showed up. The latest rumored buyer is a Nigerian company called NVA Management.

We used our Abuja sources to track down the introductory communication from NVA to Mike Ashley and the trillions of Newcastle supporters expressing their interest in purchasing the team.

From: Prince Chris Nathaniel

Dear My Most Best Sincerity Friends,

I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Prince Chris Nathaniel, the Chairman of the “Contract Award Committee”, of the “NVA Management (NVA)”, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). NVA Management (NVA) was set up by the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha who died on 18th June 1998, to manage the excess revenue accruing from the sales of Petroleum and its allied products as a domestic increase in the petroleum products to develop the communities in the Niger Delta Oil producing areas. The estimated annual revenue for 1999 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph “D” of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Report of Nov. 1999 on estimated revenue.

I am the Chairman of the Contract Award Committee, and my committee is solely responsible for awaiting and paying of contracts on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria. My Committee awarded Contracts to foreign contractors for Drilling and Ecological Matters in the oil producing areas of Niger Delta. We are now in expansion to Premiership League football and are in heavy negotiations for the biggest team in all of Tyneside called Newcastle United. We overshot the contract sum by £13,485,000.00. We have paid His Excellency Mike Ashley of Buckinghamshire £400million and withholding the balance of £13,485,000.00. But, because of the existence of some of the domestic laws forbidding civil servants in Nigeria from opening, operating and maintaining foreign accounts, we do not have the expertise to transfer this balance of fund to a foreign account.

However, this balance of £13,485,000.00 has been secured in form of Credit/Payment to a foreign contractor, hence we wish to transfer into every Newcastle supporter bank account as the beneficiary of the fund. We have also arrived at a conclusion that you will be given 20% of the total sum transferred as our foreign partner, while 5% will be reserved for incidental expenses that both parties will incur in the course of actualizing this transaction, and the balance of 75% will be kept for the committee members. This balance will be paying to every Newcastle supporter who helps us complete the transaction.

If you know that you will be capable of helping us actualize this transaction, you should send to me immediately the details of your bank particulars or open a new bank account where we can transfer the money £13,485,000.00, which you will be holding in trust for us until we come to your country for our share. Your nature of business does not matter in this transaction. The required details includes your company’s name, address, your private personal telephone/fax numbers, your full name and address, including your complete bank details where the transferred fund will be routed by the Apex Bank.

Note that this transaction is expected to be actualized within 21 working days from the day the required details are forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Finance who will approve the needed foreign exchange control allocation for the release of this money to your account. Please, treat this as top secret. You should contact me urgently.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Yours faithfully,
Prince Chris Nathaniel

This is by far the best offer Ashley will ever receive. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll give up his details and encourage every true Barcode fan to do the same. Soon they will be delivered from evil and into Highlife heaven by a prince. Imagine Fela Kuti blasting from the speakers of St. James Park while the strike force of Obafemi Martins and Ade Akinbiyi strike fear into the hearts of Gareth Southgate and Gary Megson. That’s straight juju right there.

All praise due to 419eater.com.

It is a widely-accepted quasi-fact that I loves me the soccer. Love it. Can’t get enough of it. Stupid for it. Pick whatever vaguely sexual metaphor you like and apply it to me and soccer and you will get the idea.

Because the quality of what is offered from our fair shores rarely strays out of the “meh” zone, I – and many others like me – get my fix by turning to soccer of the European variety, and most specifically the English Premier League. It’s like television or disgusting animal entrails euphemistically called “pudding”: if you want the really good stuff, you gotta go to England.

But I was still born and raised in this country, and my conception of professional sports was formed from watching them over here. When you start watching the EPL this mental framework leads to a slight disconnect when you realize that the English way of looking at sports is completely fucking insane. If you think too long about the differences you will slowly go mad, your brain eaten away by little gremlins that say “would you like a cup of tea?” while they devour your neurons.

There are a thousand little things, and most of them are terminology issues that you quickly assimilate like a second language. You learn that the standings are “the table,” that the game is played at a “ground” and not a stadium, and that the referee is actually a “wanker.” Other than that, you get used to singing profane songs while watching sporting events – “Fly Eagles Fly” has got nothing on “The Wanky Tottenham Hotspur” – and eventually getting up at 6AM on a Saturday to go to a bar to watch grown men kick a ball around on TV will become your new normal.

Two of these quirks, however, are so massive that they drive American sports fans – this one, at least – quite mad.

1) “History”

In the entire cosmology of sports, there is no single element more irrelevant to an individual contest than history. And this is in a world with things like DIPS, “quality starts,” and the save, the only statistic in which the phase of the moon is actually one of the deciding factors. English commentators and fans love to blather about history. Seriously. One of the popular songs sung against Chelsea fans actually has a line “you ain’t got no history.” It is beyond idiotic. It puts idiotic to shame. Idiotic cannot hold a brain-draining candle to the notion that history is a factor in whether your team is good or not.

To put it in context, a soccer fan COUGH Liverpool COUGH talking about their team’s brilliant “history” and/or/vis a vis your team’s lack thereof is roughly equivalent to a Jets fan claiming that they are - RIGHT NOW - better than, say, the Eagles because did you fucking SEE us in Super Bowl III? We kicked ASS twenty years before I was born!

I mean, if Jets fans weren’t charity cases as things stand now, can you imagine if they talked like that? They’d be euthanized to protect the future from their genes.

The fact that past glories, however many and varied, have absolutely no bearing on what’s going on down on a field right now is a completely alien concept to fans like this. What I eat for dinner five time zones away has about as much effect on Arsenal v. Newcastle as the history of the two teams, though in fairness there is very little anywhere that can have a positive effect on Newcastle.

Now it’s true that there are historical elements of soccer that are definite indicators of quality – Chelsea’s 85-game home streak without a loss, Real Madrid’s 943,000 trophies, Newcastle’s 53-year trophyless streak – but when Aston Villa plays Swansea in the FA Cup and we are told that Swansea hasn’t won at Villa Park since that famous day in 1941 blah blah blah yackity schmackity, it means absolutely jack shit unless we’re going to call in Herbert West, Reanimator to turn the guys who actually played that game into zombies and send THEM out on the pitch. If that were the case I might actually toss a ten-spot on Swansea at 14-1, but until something out of HP Lovecraft is involved please shut the almighty fuck up about history.

2) “Mind Games”

Can you imagine that, let’s say, the day before Patriots-Colts in the AFC Championship, Bill Belichick was asked at a press conference what he thought of the Colts and his answer was:

“Well, you know what, the Colts fucking blow. I swear to god Peyton Manning is such an assmonkey, it really makes me sick. Who the fuck do they think they are, anway? Look at them. Their guards are undersized, their safeties couldn’t bring down a figure skater, their linebackers are older than my grandmother, and I’m pretty sure Tony Dungy once sprained his back trying to suck his own cock.”

Okay, maybe Belichick isn’t the most unrealistic example in this specific case but imagine, like, Mike Tomlin saying that (after he heals from the two black eyes, swollen lip, and fractured coccyx Jim Johnson just gave him). The press would go BERSERK. ESPN would run it on a non-stop loop for weeks. He’d get fired 5 minutes later and Goodell would probably toss him in a re-education camp for good measure.

In the Premier League managers say shit just like this EVERY WEEK.

And instead of calling them crazy people, the press just labels it as “mind games” – I’m serious, that’s the exact phrase they use - and goes on to tell us what happened when Manchester United played Preston North End in 1902 and of what great import that is to their match tomorrow. It transcends insanity.

Now don’t get me wrong, behind closed doors I’m sure coaches in any sport in this country trash talk other teams. But you don’t slam the other guy in public. You express nothing but respect and admiration for your opponent and heap praise on them, even if you’re Joe Paterno and you’re “playing” Temple that week (and he did, I heard his press conference). That’s the kind of thing you learn in fucking high school. To publicly run down your opponents is so startlingly unprofessional I’m still blown away when they do it, and I just advocated a eugenics program to eliminate Jets fans for Chrissakes.

Yet this is a common practice over there. You actually have to go to classes for a year and get a fucking LICENSE to manage a Premiership team, and “don’t slam the other guy in the papers” apparently isn’t part of the curriculum. It boggles the mind.

Then again, this is a country that eats the parts of animals even Native Americans couldn’t find a use for, so prion diseases are probably a lot more common.

As I am slowly stewed in the cauldron of misery that is being an Eagles fan, today I take some heart in the fact that the Birds are taking on the Rams, who had (in terms of points allowed, at least) the second-worst defense in the NFL last year. They gave it up more than the DOLPHINS, and those poor bastards only won one game.

The best part is that this is an IMPROVEMENT for St. Louis. Back in the bright halcyon days of Warner, Faulk, Bruce, Holt, and those other guys, Mike Martz basically realized “hey, if I can score 45 points a game I don’t even need to PLAY defense.” And for the most part they did not, and we salute them for their bravery in essentially abandoning 50% or so of football.

In celebration of the full-fledged return of the NFL and the beginning of the Brian Westbrook Countdown To Injury And With It The End Of The Eagles Season, let’s take a look at some other historically awful defenses.

L.A. Galaxy, 2008

It is said by some that soccer is a dumb game. These people are wrong and stupid, unless their only exposure to soccer is watching the display of hapless shenaniganery that is the Galaxy D. If that is the exceedingly unlikely case than yes, what you are watching is, in fact, both wrong AND stupid. They managed to broadcast their genre-defining ineptitude on national television a few weeks back when they played Chicago on the ESPN Thursday night game and a group of so-called professional soccer players were run ragged by a 36-year old who was barely a year off having a small explosive device go off inside his knee and a guy who, quite tellingly, has scored half of his career MLS goals against Los Angeles.

Don’t get me wrong. I loves me the B-Mac. But Brian McBride is not exactly the height of human physical potential any more. Talented though he may be, Brian McBride is one slow-ass motherfucker. You’re sitting there reading this on a Sunday morning, sipping your coffee and hoping you’ll be completely awake before the games start and you are, at this moment, as fast as Brian McBride. You would probably bag two or three goals were you to end up in a game against the Galaxy.

Kentucky Men’s Basketball, March 28, 1992

Yeah, you played well for 39 minutes and 57.9 seconds. Unfortunately, a college basketball game is, in fact, 40 minutes long.

I would have loved to hear the huddle talk before this one. “Let’s see, Grant Hill is on the inbounds, don’t have to worry about him… hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s cover everybody! I mean, there’s a CHANCE they won’t try and get it to the 6’11″ guy, right?”

You go through all that shit to beat Duke and then you fuck it up in the last 0.08% of the game. For shame, Kentucky Wildcats. For shame.

On the plus side, you did give me and my friends a ton of enjoyment when we spent every free moment for a solid week afterwards in our high school gym trying to replicate Laettner’s shot. I don’t think anyone ever did, but then again none of us were on the Dream Team either. Also I went to a snooty prep school so we were all probably wearing wingtips too.

Newcastle United, eternally

Here’s another great idea in the history of sports. Let’s take Shay Given, who by any account is a very, very good goalkeeper, and then put a bunch of fucking sock monkeys in front of him and call it a defense, thus insuring that we will lose all the time because our world-class keeper has to make 453 saves every game. Also we will let opposing forwards just run into him like a Ferrari and tear his bowels into small pieces.

Some might argue this point, and to those sad chowderheads I have two words: Titus Bramble.

What, still arguing? Here’s two more words: Jean-Alain Boumsong.

A word of advice: if one of your defenders was once voted “Worst Player In The Premiership,” your defense is pretty bad.

Nazi Germany, 1944-1945

“Well, all right, boys! Well done all! We’ve conquered most of mainland Europe, we have tanks and barbed wire and machine guns and thousands upon thousands of troops covering every single intersection between Calais and St. Petersburg… looks to me like this war is WON, fellas! Break out the champagne! No, Strauss, you Bavarian dumbass, not that sparkling wine crap! CHAMPAGNE! The real thing! We didn’t conquer the damn province for nothing.

“What? Americans? What Americans? Those lazy assholes aren’t gonna do a damn thing…

“Ah. Hm. I see. Yes. Well, er… Berlin, you say? Right this way, Mister Eisenhower.”

Imperial Navy, Battle of Endor, 4 ABY

Seriously, HOW DO YOU FUCK THIS UP? You are the Galactic Empire. You have Star Destroyers up the yin-yang. You have, by all accounts, an inexhaustible supply of cannon fodder in TIE Fighters alone, never mind stormtroopers. Yes, we know your soldiers (and probably your pilots) can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a basketball. That shouldn’t matter. You have a giant space station that BLOWS UP PLANETS, and you get your ass handed to you by Billy Dee, a talking squid, and some other kind of talking cephalopod.

How about a little discipline in the face of a technologically inferior enemy that you massively outnumber who can not, it should be noted, BLOW UP FUCKING PLANETS? Jesus, who are you guys, Newcastle? Your ships are Star Destroyers. That rolls off the tongue, don’t it? Ssssstarrrr Destroyyyyyyerssss. Your ships destroy stars. Their ships are named after letters. Do I want a ship that destroys stars, or the ship that yesterday’s episode of Sesame Street was brought to me by? Hmm. Tough choice. And still you manage to lose to these multi-culti douchebags. Sad.

(For the record, Admiral Ackbar is obviously the squid; I’m not sure what Nien Nunb is. An octopus, perhaps? Also it is worth noting that this is still my favorite sequence from any movie, ever. It is the Platonic ideal of Awesome.)

And so, the beginning of kickoff Sunday and another season of wishing Terry Bradshaw would somehow suffer some kind of tropical infection that would render him mute is almost upon us.

Against the Rams defense, a worthy addition to this pantheon, the Eagles are 9 point favorites. If you don’t recognize that as a sucker line, congratulations! You are not an Eagles fan. Man I wish I knew what that’s like. Must be sweet.

Where’s the laugh track when you need it? Everyone’s favorite family after the Cosbys and Seavers might be interested in buying Newcastle United.

Rumors are floating around that the Bin Laden family is interested in buying Newcastle United from current owner Mike Ashley. A Newcastle spokesman called the rumors “absolute nonsense”. What better way is there to differentiate yourself from your Arsenal-loving terrorist spawn than buying a second rate team with delusions of grandeur and no chance of success?

What’s there to say about Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton? He’s currently serving a six-month sentence for an assault outside of a Liverpool McDonalds. I don’t think his victim was lovin’ it.

If you lost count, Barton punched the guy 20 times. This wasn’t his first run-in with the law. We detailed his rap sheet last year when news broke of his beatdown of former Manchester City teammate Ousmane Dabo. He changed his plea and admitted assaulting Dabo in court yesterday.

Barton and Dabo confronted each other after a row during a training match, the court was told.

Dabo, 31, was said to have felt intimidated that Barton had invaded his personal space as he shouted and swore at him.

The Frenchman pushed his shoulder with both hands and Barton retaliated by punching him in the head, causing the Frenchman to fall over and lose consciousness.

Mr Vardon said several witnesses said Barton continued to punch Dabo while he lay on top of the player, who was in a dazed state.

One player, Georgios Samaras, said he had never seen such a violent incident on a training pitch in all his career, the prosecutor added.

Barton will be sentenced today. Hopefully he’ll rot in a cell with his degenerate brother who’s serving a 17-year sentence for participating in an ax murder. Not that I feel strongly about it or anything.

Very Big Club Newcastle United has fallen on hard times over the past couple years after finding domestic and European glory. Winning the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969 is a massive achievement. Have you won it? I didn’t think so.

Despite the lack of success on the pitch, Newcastle claims to have fans that will see the club through thick and thin. St. James Park is always filled to its 50,000+ capacity for every match by loyal and… What’s that? They give tickets away? Of course they do. All teams have corporate and family seats. What do you mean they’re not exactly corporate or family seats?

The BBC reports that Newcastle distributes four season tickets a year to recovering drug addicts as a way to “help them on the path to recovery”.

“The tickets are provided on the understanding that they are used, as part of a package of measures, to particularly help young people who have had substance misuse problems, and are making clear progress and showing a genuine commitment to living a normal, structured life.

“We thank the club for this generous gesture that goes a long way towards re-introducing people to a structured way of life.”

It’s not clear how going to a Newcastle match would help addicts adapt to living a sober life. Have you ever been to Newcastle? There’s nothing to do but drink and use drugs. Have you ever watched Newcastle play? It’ll make you want to drink and do drugs. Even when they’re not playing, they’re not setting a good example:

Here’s some video of Newcastle’s Damien Duff and Spurs striker Robbie Keane celebrating Celtic’s win over Rangers on Sunday.

Keane’s teammate Alan Hutton must be thrilled with Keane as he stands to receive a winner’s share and medal if Rangers win the SPL. They’re five points behind Celtic but have three games in hand. How the hell does that even happen?? The words of the immortal Barry Glendenning come to mind but I don’t need to start a sectarian battle. They do that just fine on their own.