Knock that robot out
Michelle Mone's night with Shane Warne
Quote of the day
“You’ve got school in the morning” - the
Ally Pally darts crowd serenade 16-year-old sensation Luke Littler.
FOOTBALL
Will you switch off that bloody Tracy Beaker and read up on overlapping centre backs
If you’ve ever spent your Saturday morning cowering from the drizzle in a miserable, bog-ridden park, you’ll know all about deranged football dads.
In a leaked Whatsapp exchange this week, one father ripped into the “damn embarrassing” performance of his son’s under-8s team, and their staggering inability to “work in 2 or 3s creating triangles/ vertical possession to move forward.”
Forgetting that his son was probably more interested in setting fire to worms than studying Roberto De Zerbi’s pressing game, he urged them to “watch any football match and assess how everything is trigonometry based in possession”.
The
entire thing is utterly mental, and well worth a read.
CRICKET
A Warne-ing from history
As grifting Baroness Michelle Mone goes full Prince Andrew in the media, she can at least draw on her previous experience of public scandal.
Like in 2014, when she was accused of breaking up Shane Warne and Liz Hurley after Warnie rocked up to her hotel room with a bouquet of roses.
Mone later revealed the pair had been exchanging “flirty” calls and texts for months:
I did feel the odd text from him was a bit too explicit. But finally, after all that build-up, we met in a hotel suite.
He chain-smoked about 35 cigarettes – and I hate smoking – and after about an hour he got restless. ‘Can we go next door to the bedroom?’ he asked.
I made it clear that I was not that kind of girl. He was a bit too wild for me.
So she screwed the British taxpayer instead…
FOOTBALL
Please don’t sit beside me, the stench of failure is unbearable
They were supposed to be Belgium’s golden generation, but Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany and co never lived up to the billing.
And it turns out there’s a simple explanation: they fucking loathe eachother.
Last year, the squad’s simmering hatred descended into civil war in Qatar, with Hazard and Leandro Trossard refusing to speak, and Kevin De Bruyne enduring taunts about Thibaut Courtois shagging his girlfriend while they were at Chelsea.
Now, as new gaffer Domenico Tedesco tries to blood a fresh generation of talent, the poison is back.
Belgian hacks are reporting that Courtois had a dressing room meltdown after a recent qualifier, raging he didn’t want to play with players who’d been relegated with their clubs.
Thibaut later explained: “if you fall behind… and you have relegated players in the team who have lost more matches than they have won then it becomes difficult to reverse that situation.”
Considering the dressing room contained Timothy Castagne, Youri Tielemans and Dennis Praet, who all went down with Leicester last season, you can imagine it went down well…
BOXING
Best salable product of the world
“Gone are the days when it was for fun”, lamented Anthony Joshua last month, as he discussed his boxing career with Louis Theroux.
That became very clear in a soulless Riyadh hotel this week as AJ engaged in some very
tepid trash talk with his old foe Jarrell Miller.
After flouncing past AJ and hissing “I smell pussy”, the 28 stone American then accused him of “ducking” their fight three years ago.
It was a slightly weird jibe considering their fight was cancelled when Miller failed a drugs test, blaming it on a Black Ant pill - one of those dodgy Viagra alternatives you see in the condom machine at horrible pubs.
They look legit - the packet describes them as "best salable product of the world".
And the farcical showdown ended with AJ picking a fight with a robot vacuum.
After the self-driving hoover bumped into him, Joshua told a journalist: “what the fuck is that, I’m gonna knock that robot out.”
TENNIS
Andrey if you don’t calm down we are going home
As they seek to entice hordes of caffeinated morons, tennis blazers are cooking up ridiculous new gimmicks.
After insisting the players adopt idiotic nicknames like “The Viking”, this week’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown introduced a “triple point bonus card” which lets players treble the value of a point.
Unfortunately, the only over-excited man child it attracted was headcase Andrey Rublev, who
climbed the umpire’s chair and gestured in his face like a stroppy 9-year-old harassing his mum for another bag of Wotsits.
Quick hits
After leaving school at 16,
Gary Neville says he never spoke to his friends ever again.
When
Michael Owen was at Newcastle, he landed his helicopter on the training pitch on Christmas Day, stepping off in full kit and boots and exclaiming “Merry Christmas” to his unimpressed teammates.
IPL side
Punjab Kings accidentally bought the wrong player called Shashank Singh at this week’s auction.
NFL star
Tyreek Hill has fathered three children with different women in four months.
AND FINALLY
How Roud
That's it for today. Thanks to Emyr. Happy Christmas!