Soccer Humour

Over the coming months we will show examples from some the webs funniest soccer sites. 

Some samplesfrom the excellent Planet Football from The Irish Times.

I am a little bit shocked, but not particularly surprised."

- Portsmouth's Alan Knight on the unexpected predictability of Harry Redknapp's appointment at Southampton.

"If the club is moving forward and doing well I won't have to be looking anywhere else. But if it isn't looking as good, I'll have to think again in the summer."

- Steven Gerrard confirms he'll be leaving Liverpool at the end of the season.

"We have had 200 applicants, 150 from people who have sent in career records from computer games like Championship Manager and Fantasy Football."

- Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie on the quality of applicants for the vacant managerial job.
Song of the week

"God rest ye merry Kop-ite men, let nothing you dismay, for we'll still be ahead of you, come this Christmas Day."

- Everton supporters, to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, rub salt in to the wounds of the team managed by Rafa Beneathus.

Pull in those wings

You might be aware that, in an attempt to infuriate Manchester United fans, opposing supporters sometimes do impressions of crashing aeroplanes (arms out like wings, swaying from side to side), in reference to the Munich air crash. Well, the United We Stand website we mentioned above had a story on Friday about airline Flybe offering a financial incentive to any Exeter player who scores at Old Trafford in the FA Cup third round: if they celebrate the goal "with an aeroplane gesture" they will be rewarded with £1,000. The website was incredulous, but they'll have been relieved if they read the Observer yesterday: "The offer was withdrawn when Flybe was reminded how badly aeroplane impressions have been received at Old Trafford ever since 1958."

More quotes of the week

"It's like the Alamo, except for two things: Portsmouth don't have any bullets or arrows for their bows."

- Sky Sports' Chris Kamara, as heard by Football 365. A gem, but his finest moment remains: "It's real end-to-end stuff . . . but unfortunately it's all up at Forest's end."

"I don't go to football to drink chardonnay in the boardroom with those t*****s. I have no interest in schmoozing with other Premiership chairmen. F*** them all. I am no respecter of tradition and have no time for the Manchester Uniteds and Arsenals of this world. There's nothing to admire in these clubs. They're just a bulls*** world full of bulls*** people."

- Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan, making friends in the boardrooms of the Premiership.

"He's got a big bump on his forehead, but fortunately the head-butt that he received and the consequent damage has not taken anything away from his looks."

- Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock implying that goalkeeper Paddy Kenny is no Leonardo Di Caprio look-alike.

Planet Football Best of the Season, Part 1

BOY WONDER

 Andy Gray unveiled another string to Wayne Rooney's clearly prodigious bow as he notched the second on Sunday.

"He keeps himself onside beautifully by not getting excited."

 Perhaps we should ask Auld Slapper just how far the Roon would have strayed offside had he not kept a lid on things.

WHAT SIZE DID YOU SAY?

 Forget what happened in the tunnel, BBC Radio Five Live's Juliette Ferrington came up with the real scoop of the weekend when reporting on the Man U anti-Glazer antics.

 "They have also got business cards, which they are handing out to fans. They are about the size of a business card..."

 YOU WIN SOME…

 Eamo had some insight to deliver while Celtic shamed Ireland once more during the week:

 "If you play for a draw you very rarely win."

 Not a patch on Uncle Bob though…

 "It's like the old adage, if you can't win, don't lose."

  AS I SAY

"Lee Hendrie is Lee Hendrie and always will be"  

- David O'Leary

 TREV'S TOSH

 Just another night at the office for the Trev-Tosh partnership during Liverpool - Deport on TV3…

 Tosh (rambling again): "Out of the 4 Spaniards Liverpool signed I think only Xabi Alonso will be a success. I am yet to be convinced about the other 3." 

Trev (excited): "And here's another, Cisse!!, bursting down the right"

 Tosh (sharp as a tack): "Actually Trevor, he's French"

 Trev (saving face): "I meant a new signing."

 Tosh (possibly unconvinced): Silence

 HOLDING YOUR HANDS UP

 "We've missed him. We've missed his punch."

 Chris Coleman on Andy Cole's return after his suspension for… yes indeed… punching.

 THERE'S AN IDEA

 "Glenn Johnson is breathing pretty hard, but I suppose that's his own way of getting air into his lungs."

 BBC'S Jim Neilly will have sports scientists everywhere revising their players' methods.

Quotes of the week

Guest at a charity dinner: "You have a gun with one bullet. Who would you shoot: Victoria Beckham or Arsene Wenger?"

 Alex Ferguson: "Could I have two bullets?"

 "They are one of very few teams who will play a 4-4-3 system and have done for the last couple of seasons."

 - Spurs (assistant Irish) coach Chris Hughton putting Bolton's success this season down to the fact that they field 12 players.

 "Celtic were like monsters and their only intention was to crush me into thousands of pieces. Whenever I got near the box they tried to break my legs."

 - Shakhtar Donetsk's Ciprian Marica, eagerly anticipating the return Champions League trip to Glasgow.

 "It is true that I would love to play at a big club again but I am still under contract at Manchester City and it is up to them to decide if they want me or if they want to let me go."

 - Is Nicolas Anelka implying City are minnows?

 "G8 is right for us now. It sounds a bit like great, or it does with my Geordie accent. Paul's not right for us because it's too closely linked with the past."

 - Paul Gascoigne on his new name, G8. Nope, we don't understand any of this either.

 Show me the money - Sosa

 Does all that badge-kissing on football shirts drive you mad, especially when the one doing the kissing are the most likely to desert their clubs when the going gets tough? Well, as a contrast, here's a refreshing dollop of brutal honesty from Atletico Madrid midfielder Marcelo Sosa: "I dedicated myself to football to make money. I'm not interested in becoming a world champion. There are world champions who have no money. I play for the team who is prepared to pay me the most." Applause please.

 Two guys Tugay's words of wisdom Do Blackburn Rovers have two players by the name of Tugay? Tugay to a Turkish newspaper last week: "Nobody wants to play football any more at Blackburn. Graeme Souness left and that's how it is now. Now, I'm looking for new alternatives." Tugay to a Blackburn newspaper last week: "I am a Rovers player and proud to be so and I want to be at Rovers next season as well - I cannot be clearer than that. I believe Blackburn are doing all the right things . . . my desire and love for Rovers has never been more."

 More quotes of the week

 "It's going to be hard for me to make the England team now. I want to play in the 2006 World Cup finals and I may have to seriously consider making myself available for the Republic of Ireland."

 - Fulham's Zat Knight, wrapping the green flag 'round himself.

 "Some players seem to have a social life and they fit football in around that. You can not afford to do that. He is a good lad but he needs David O'Leary to keep right on top of him."

 - David "third person" O'Leary on his young rowdy, Carlton Cole.

 "Al Fayed was being very aggressive to me in one meeting. I had to excuse myself from the room and I actually began to cry."

 - Former Fulham manager Jean Tigana on his relationship with chairman Mohammed Al Fayed.

 "Kevin Davies just got the flick with the corner of his head."

- Chris Kamara, as heard by dangerhere.com, on Bolton's square-headed forward.

 Mixed messages sinking Tinker

 We're sad to hear our favourite manager, Claudio Ranieri, is struggling at Valencia. According to tribalfootball.com he has "lost the dressing-room, with many senior players having no confidence in his training methods".

 In the home drubbing by Inter Milan, in the Champions League they didn't understand his instructions - "they did not know whether they should go forward or fall back, defend or attack". Apart from that, though, everything else was clear.

 The wacky world of Adrian Mutu

 "Sudden mood swings, isolation within the group, unexpected injuries, fatigue, difficulty in concentrating, early morning escapes from traffic police, public statements which were untrue and made no sense - there were many situations which caused us to wonder."

 - Jose Mourinho explaining that he half-suspected all was not quite right with Adrian Mutu.

 "This is the problem with all these d***heads who earn lots of money and believe they can do anything."

 - Mircea Sandu, president of the Romanian FA, on news of Mutu's troubles.

 "He has tested positive for cocaine."

 - PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor.

 "I did not take cocaine. I took something to make me feel good - I'll tell you later what it was. The only reason I took what I took was I wanted to improve my sexual performance. It may be funny - but it is true."

 - Mutu.

 "Mutu was here before me, so it was not my mistake.

 - Mourinho, paying tribute to Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea shopping.

 "Mutu should drink a dozen bottles of wine a night instead of taking drugs. It's a tragedy. He didn't take life seriously until this moment."'

 - Wolves' Ioan Ganea, Mutu's Romanian team-mate.

Lights, camera ... Liverpool

 Big thanks to the Liverpool fan who emailed us a list of possible movie remakes in light of "the talk of Hollywood money going into Liverpool". Ready? When Harry Met Xabi, Kewell Runnings, Scooby Diouf, Huckleberry Finnan, Darren Potter And The Chamber of Secrets, The Shawshankly Redemption, SeaBiscan, An-Field of Dreams, Benitez Hur and our favourite, Molby Dick.

 Quotes of the week

 "Scoring for Lazio this season has been like making love with the woman of my dreams, Demi Moore."

 - The one and only Paolo Di Canio.

 "I felt lost, to lose all those contacts, the network of people around you, the email system, telephone, fax, the staff . . ."

 - Bobby Robson on the things he misses most since leaving Newcastle. Note he didn't list Kieron Dyer, Alan Shearer, etc, just office equipment.

 "When you thump a fist on the desk you either break the desk or you break your hand, nothing else happens."

 - Roberto Carlos pays tribute to the managerial style of Jose Antonio Camacho, who resigned as Real Madrid boss.

 "The Galacticos aren't more than a band of stray dogs."

 - And Diego Maradona pays tribute to Roberto Carlos and Co.

 "Is it hard to take? Does it make you sick to your stomach? Of course."

 - Crystal Palace manager Iain Dowie enjoying life in the Premiership.

 Great footballing miss-matches

 We don't mean to tar them all with the same brush but we're sensing that modern footballers just aren't getting the hang of this romance lark. While no one will ever quite match Nicolas Anelka (especially the time he took his agent with him on a date with his new girlfriend) Jermain Defoe is catching up. He'd promised to take his girlfriend for a romantic dinner last month but having scored against Birmingham that day decided instead to rush home to see Match of the Day. Dinner cancelled.

"Seeing my goals on Match of the Day is one of the best things about scoring," he said, "so in the end I just bought her a bag of chips and we went home."

 Then there's Lee Hendrie. His private life has been splashed all over the tabloids recently after Becky's "June marriage to the Aston Villa love cheat crumbled in hours". Hours? "It even got to the stage where a friend of my mum's was having her nails done and heard the beautician saying her pal was knocking off Lee," revealed Becky, who also discovered that Lee had celebrated his marriage by having flings with "two friends of mine who are sisters, and a neighbour of his mum".

 Becky is flummoxed about it all - "I'm not saying I'm special but a lot of the girls he's had are fat and ugly - I'm told Emma is a bit of a chipmunk."

 Shay, also known as Shary

 The current Irish goalkeeper, according to www.fifa4fans.com (which provides pictures of players for FIFA computer games), is a chap by the name of Shary Given who looks like a cross between Wayne Rooney and Benny from Crossroads.

 More quotes of the week

 "When I cut the grass the cows all come over to the fence and I feed them and it's blinding." 

- David 'Del Boy' Bentley, on loan at Norwich from Arsenal, enjoying the rural life.

 "We shouldn't wait for flowers to come from people. Maybe we will get some at the end of the season but right now it's very difficult."

 - Jose Mourinho, feeling a little unloved these days.

 "It's very painful . . . the coach just thinks that Le Saux is better than me. There is nothing else to do but to show I am better than him. That must be it as Le Saux can't do anything else as a defender."

 - Jelle Van Damme, miserable at Southampton.

 "I am very happy at Southampton. I have no problem with the manager, Graeme Le Saux or any of the players."

 - Jelle Van Damme, ecstatic at Southampton.

 "Doncaster is a hard-working town and there was a challenge but we were chocolate warriors."

 - Joe Royle explains why his Ipswich side were knocked out of the League Cup. A bunch of Curly Wurlys.

Talking through his Winterbottom

 In his column on the BBC website Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock paid tribute to Brian Clough last week. "The big disappointment for me was that he was never England manager," he said. "He thought he'd had a great interview when he went to Lancaster Gate and he was absolutely distraught when Walter Winterbottom got the job."

 As Football 365 politely pointed out: "Considering that Clough was a full 12 years old when Winterbottom was appointed England manager in 1946, surely that was a tad over-ambitious even for the great man himself".

 Song of the week

 "Heinze, wherever you may be, you are the king of variety." Manchester United fans' ode to Gabriel Heinze (means beans), to the tune of Lord of the Dance.

 Game over for gals on the game

 There were ructions at a women's football tournament in Guatemala when the organisers decided to expel one of the teams, Stars of the Line, after their first game. Their captain, Valeria, was none too pleased and suspected she knew the real reason for their ejection: "When they found out we were prostitutes they tossed us out like cockroaches - it is really discrimination."

 Officials, though, insisted that Stars of the Line (who take their name from Guatemala City's red-light district, situated beside the railway tracks) weren't thrown out because of their occupation, rather because of the chanting of their supporters at the game - which loosely translated as: "One, two, three, whore."

 Planet Football Best of the Season, Part 2

compiled by Mary Hannigan          

You said what? Part 1

 "There could be fatalities - or, even worse, injuries."

 - Phil Neal, previewing England's trip to Turkey.

 "Today's been a good day for Wayne (Rooney), but he's understood that on another day it could've been a bad day."

 - David Moyes

 "If we had taken our chances we would have won - at least."

 - David O'Leary

 "Remember Danny Cadamarteri? He was the new Wayne Rooney before Rooney came along."

 - Alan Smith

 "On another night they could have won tonight."

 - Graeme Souness

 Miaow

 "He has the audacity to have a plus sign between the one and nine on his shirt. I don't know what it means - it's probably the number of goals he's scored in the past five years."

 - Danny Mills about Clinton Morrison

 "You are talking about a man who spelt his name wrongly on his transfer request."

 - West Brom manager Gary Megson, casting doubts on the credentials of his want-away striker Jason Roberts.

 "Real Madrid have discovered this season what can happen when you have a celebrity player in your team."

 - Alex Ferguson on you-know-who

 "So Gary's going to be writing a book, is he? That's good news for insomniacs everywhere."

 - Sheffield United's Neil Warnock on West Brom manager Gary Megson's forthcoming autobiography

 "We are in year six of Gerard Houllier's five-year plan."

 - Prospective Liverpool investor Steve Morgan.

 Charming

 "Sometimes it can be difficult to get a cross in to Alan Shearer. Alan can get a bit sick about that, but it's difficult, jumping, jumping and jumping, especially at his age."

 - Nolberto Solano.

 "It would be exciting to attach some electrodes to Ronaldo's head and see what he's thinking during the match because he has plenty of time, standing there doing nothing on his own, watching guys run all around him, sweating, breathing heavily. Maybe he's invaded by profound thoughts of rainbows and flying ponies, tigers, Donald Duck and cheeseburgers."

 - Juanma Trueba, in the Spanish newspaper AS.

 "I have spent nothing - and if you look at my squad it is probably worth nothing."

 - Leicester manager Micky Adams.

 "It's hard to get real rhythm away and you have to work hard to stand your corner, especially at places like Newcastle, where your support is outnumbered by 30,000 zebras." 

- David Pleat. 

Foot in mouth

 "What about jokes about my long chin? I mean, n***er is black - so we have jokes where we call them n***ers because they're black. Why should that be any more of an offence than someone calling me chinny?"

 - Jimmy Hill, attempting to defend his chin and Ron Atkinson.

 "Louis Saha will be leaving this club over my dead body."

 - Fulham manager Chris Coleman, shortly before Saha left for Manchester United.

 "Without any room for doubt Real Madrid is the best team in the world and this season we will demonstrate it by winning every title possible."

 - Luis Figo. How many trophies did he win this season? Divil a one.

 "I've achieved nothing, I've won nothing, and that's why I am here."

 - Harry Kewell explains why he joined Liverpool. Behave.

 "Nobody's too good to go down - but Leeds won't go down: they've got too many good players."

- David O'Leary

 Tributes

 "He always wanted to get one up on you. If I told him I'd just got back from Tenerife, he'd say he'd just got back from Elevenerife."

 - Former Chelsea player David Speedie on ex-chairman Ken Bates.

 "I had conversations with him that left me bamboozled. He was saying things that I didn't understand. I was left gobsmacked half the time. I would just shake my head and think 'what?' I just used to sit there in disbelief."

 - Harry Kewell on David O'Leary 

"When he jumps in the water, the sharks jump out."

 - Sheffield Wednesday chairman Dave Allen on Ken Bates

 You said what? Part 2

 "Ray Parlour will miss both legs due to injury."

 - ITV suggest the Arsenal man has a career-threatening problem

 "In the first half I felt exactly the same way as Micky (Adams) does now, only he feels worse."

 - Wolves' Dave Jones

 "I expect Chelsea to make a world-record signing in the near distant future." 

- Tony Cascarino

 "We owe it to ourselves first and foremost and, more importantly, to our fans."

 - Kevin Keegan

 "You can't just pick confidence out of a refrigerator."

 - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

 Wit and wisdom: Bobby Robson

 "I don't think Blackburn were unlucky, you make your own luck. They missed chances and luck is about taking your chances, but . . . at half time I said to the boys: 'we've been lucky here'."

 "We had 10 times as many shots on target as Bolton and they had none at all."

 "When I finally get him (Laurent Robert) right I will be 120 years of age."

 "If we get a five per cent improvement from every player then that's 50 per cent from a team point of view."

 Beckham's season - The Spanish press

 "Beyond the ad campaigns, the dyed hair, the changes of look, the premature autobiography and the famous singing wife, the Englishman is making it plain that he is also a quite fabulous football player . . . of course he's worth much more than he cost."

 "Bad on the right, worse in the middle."

 "David is a wonder of nature: he enjoys being generous, passing for others to score, and looks with admiration at the stands, seeking out the love that he needs, and that he gives himself. Beckham is a blessing from heaven."

 "The chapter on disasters needs to make space for Beckham. First of all, he played and ran. Then he ran and played. Then he just ran. Now he neither runs nor plays."

 Grumpy gaffers

 "Our midfield has about one goal between them in the last year. Did you see David Prutton's effort at Everton last week? We needed air traffic clearance."

 - Gordon Strachan (Coventry)

 "My hands are tied behind me, I'm wearing a blindfold and people are trying to kick my feet from under me. There is always someone worse off than you, but I'd be interested to meet that person." 

- Stuart Murdoch (Wimbledon)

 "I can't sleep, I can't nod off, I can't go out for a beer with the lads like I used to, I think about the job all the time, I'm losing my hair and losing all my mates."

 - Chris Coleman (Fulham)