Teddy’s View: Hearts have the painters in, AVB’s family Xmas, and Anelka becomes first among equals.

Hearts players have finally been paid the wages they were due from November, and now everyone waits with bated breath to see if they’ll receive December’s wages which are due today (Friday). It’s a move which could be put down either to a softening of Vladimir Romanov’s position due to realising it’s Christmas and the season of goodwill to all men…or simply down to him realising that he can’t sell the players if they’re all free to move due to breach of contract. It was revealed this week that Ian Black has been working part-time helping a friend’s painting & decorating business so that he can afford food and presents for his daughter. While any opposition fan who’s watched Black career recklessly into the back of one of their players will have questioned his credentials to be a professional footballer… for as long as he’s contracted to be one he should be paid accordingly.

The craziness of football must have been summed up for the Hearts players by reading that Andy Carroll is about to receive a £150k “loyalty” bonus from Liverpool for still being at the club a year after he signed. Presumably Liverpool’s lawyers failed to insert a clause saying “unless nobody else actually wants you”.

At Deepdale, the battle of egos between new chairman Peter Ridsdale and manager Phil Brown that I predicted last week has been won on a first-round knockout. Phil Brown has cleared his possessions from the ground, presumably desperately trying to ram a sunbed into a cardboard box. Only pausing to p*ss in Ridsdale’s goldfish tank before he left.

Harry Redknapp has suggested that football should experiment with having two referees on the pitch at once. Something which will give him the opportunity to “never criticise” two people after the match, while criticising them.

Juan Mata has said that Chelsea boss Andres Villas Boas has created a “family atmosphere” at the club. Granted, it does look like the kind of family where most of them want to go and live with their Dad in Madrid because they hate the new guy. Lampard in particular wears the face of a man thinking “So unfair! Jose let me play every game, he never made me share with the other boys!”

To be fair to Lampard, at least unhappiness is an unusual state for him at a football club. Carlos Tevez, who may or may not have smiled once, has reiterated that he never wants to play in England again. He wants to go back to Boca Juniors, highlighting the problem of the capitalist system. He wants to play for them and is good enough to play for them…but there’s more chance of them being able to sign me. (I am up for it – let’s make this happen.)

Thank goodness then, in these days of capitalist collapse, for China’s sensible egalitarian communist ways. Nicolas Anelka’s £200,000 a week deal to sign for Shanghai Shenhua can only mean that this is exactly how much money Chinese paddy-field farmers and factory workers are also receiving…

Referee Chris Foy’s performance in the Stoke v Spurs match meant Twitter abuse being mistakenly hurled at triple Olympic gold medalist and cyclist, Sir Chris Hoy. Using famous sporting figures as abuse-sponges is surely something that will catch on for blundering referees. At least according to Steve Conroy, who’s just changed his name by deed poll to “That woman from the curling team, the one who looks a bit like Colin Hendry”. Apparently he’ll answer to “That” for short.

The aforementioned Stoke match may yet spark an FA investigation, as the Potters decided to get round the FA’s ban on them providing towels to dry the ball for their famous throw-ins by having Ryan Shotton wear a towelling top under his shirt. No doubt once a stop’s been put to that, Stoke will become the first side to have their entire team wearing goalie gloves. To be honest, banning towels does seem like a daft move in the first place. What if a player just uses it to dry his hair? Does he get into less trouble because he’s only used it for “recreational purposes” rather than “performance enhancement”?

Rangers midfielder Maurice Edu has become a youtube hit with his pranks on his fellow team-mates and the coaching staff. One video is titled “getting coach Big Jim Stewart with the shaving cream handshake”. Hopefully the prank is that it’s not shaving cream.

Across the city, Celtic went out of the Europa League again this season, leaving their support nursing a collective sense of déjà vu. Meanwhile Sion, who thought they’d knocked Celtic out earlier in the tournament only to be kicked out by Uefa, lost their appeal against the decision. You can’t help feeling that if Man Utd would give their place in the tournament to Sion then both clubs would be happy.

———————————————————————————————————-

About the Author

Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other shite”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)

“brilliant Scottish comic” Kate Copstick, Scotland on Sunday

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes above the rest…mighty stage presence and impressively high punchline ratio” Brian Donaldson, Scotsman

“freshly minted topical gags…pin-sharp lines…great routine…a class act” Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk

“has flourished…cracking lines” Jay Richardson, Scotsman

“there are few of his Scottish-based contemporaries that can spin the same high standard of punchlines” Brian Donaldson, Scotland on Sunday

You can follow Teddy on Twitter: @ComedyTeddy

Check out Teddy’s website: http://comedyteddy.com/

Comments

comments