By Billy “the Dog” McGraw. Our man in a spot.
Arsenal are sending a witchdoctor and exorcist to Wembley to help the three players picked for Wednesday’s game. It appears that Arsenal are worried both about the influence over young players of such malign forces as A Cole and Fabuloso Cappuccino and so will be taking preventative measures.
“We shall use the horse’s foot and the ostrich leg, mixed with some herbs,” said Arsene Wenger. “Put that in the pre-match bottle of scotch that A Cole likes to drink and I think our young players will be protected.”
Arsenal will also also be using a little muti which the boss picked up while working for French TV at the world cup.
Muti however is dangerous as it is used as an aphrodisiac. Give it to A Cole and he is likely to move after anything that moves. “Of course we don’t want A Cole to catch anyone, that would be too unpleasant, but a bit of chasing will distract him from anything nasty he might come up with,” said a spokesman.
Many teams around the world now employ their own sangoma—a traditional healer with powers of divination and Arsenal expect this move will help reduce their three year old injury crisis. Arsenal’s sangoma will smear muti on the walls of the dressing rooms and bury animal parts in the soccer field.
“This is no problem at Wembley,” said a person, “as the pitch is so bumpy no one will notice the odd pig in a trench.”
However there can be problems. In 2002, Cameroon’s assistant coach was arrested after being accused of using black magic ahead of an important game against Mali. In neighboring Swaziland a new artificial turf field was damaged when chicken feathers were buried in the center of it before a league match.
In Italy muti is used by managers like Mr Cappuccino as a way of winning games. “How else do you think I do it?” asked the coffee maker. “You think I know about football?”
Actually no, but he can dream.
Irvin Khoza who was chairman of the World Cup organizing committee took muti to Ivory Coast in 1995 to help his team become African champions. The FA were impressed and a bunch of old bods with their bits of stuff on the side have been looking into the matter ever since.
“It’s a goer,” said Sir Hardly Anyone, when I asked him last week. “We shall use every methodological methodology for to help the lads begorrah, and if that includes giving them a football to practice with so be it. We are an experimental nation, and you will never find us sticking ourselves in mud. Never!
“The recent sacrifice of an ox at Very Old Trafford was a blessing for our great Shrek and included rites designed to help our great and glorious motherland succeed in the next match against McDonalds Restaurants United. I am a member of the Traditional Healers Organization and my wife fully understands my needs. This is, after all, north of the A406.”
But Sir Trevor Brooking said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
How well muti works is open to debate. In February, the chairman of the medical committee at Fick Fufa, called on anti-doping authorities to investigate traditional medicine. But World Anti-Doping Agency Director General David Howman said the matter was better left to local officials such as Sir Hardley.
Winton Hawksworth of the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport said stimulants are common in traditional English drinks, and therefore it might be hard to spot who has and who hasn’t. Asked to elaborate he left the room.
However it is true that before most internationals various players are (as Sir Hardley put it) seen “putting something in their socks or their underpants.” When asked if it was money received as a bribe to throw the game he replied that he felt England’s players didn’t need bribing.
Lord Hedgehog, chairman of the FA said that foreigners don’t like it up em.
Don’t worry if you don’t believe most of this, only part of it is true.
Do you ever laugh? Would you like to laugh more?
Is Billy the Dog (or Tony) going to do a piece on Martin O’Neill and Villa? I find the media response to this highly illuminating. Randy Lerner takes over as owner of Villa and gives Martin O’Neill 179million to make Villa competitive. With 179million Martin O’Neill can take Villa only as high as 5th, and seems to be heading backwards now. Randy Lerner, pissed off at having seen 179million wasted, tells Martin O’Neill 12 months ago that the wage bill will have to be trimmed, players will have to be sold, and losses reduced. Martin O’Neill does not trim the wage bill, or sell players, and losses continue to rise. So Randy Lerner tells Martin O’Neill that if Milner is sold, O’Neill will not be able to spend the transfer money.
Martin O’Neill quits.
The English media eulogize O’Neill and castigate Lerner for getting rid of the man responsible for Villa’s success (coveniently forgetting that Randy Lerner is the man who invested 179million into Aston Villa).
Is it just me or does this episode stink of everything that is wrong with the game now? Managers such as Benitez and O’Neill insisting that they have to be given millions to “do their job”. If they were truly doing their job they could survive and flourish with a transfer budget of ZERO (as AW has for the best part of a decade).
My respect for Martin O’Neill has plummetted.
Forget Muti, give A. Hole some lasagne. Besides, when reached for comment, the witch doctor had this to say: “Ooh-ee, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla-bing-bang.” (For those who don’t get it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYgOlqinH7A )
Good point Paul C.
People tend to forget that the clubs that have spent the most money are the ones who have made the most mistakes in the transfer market and then had to spend even more the cover up for those mistakes. Buying players is such a risky business that it would appear that you’ve got to have a contingency fund of at least as much again to throw at the problem until it’s fixed. Sadly, if you go down the route of buying success that way it’s a treadmill that few seem to be able to get off before the money finally runs out. Villa are a classic example of spending a fortune and then finding that they need to keep doing it.
But of course they won the reserve league last year so the future is rosy! Or maybe O’Neil doesn’t agree.
Totally agree with you Paul
off topic rant:
I have to ask the question. Why is there so many arsenal fans that seemigly LOVE to hate Arsenal?They indulge in the club doing bad(when it does) and seeem to really only feel alive when there is something to moan about? They moan and moan and moan and the worse we do the more they love it???
How can you love something and hate it so much at the same time? I just cannot understand that. Hating 3/4 of the arsenal players. Boooing your own keeper, like he is going to become better when you boo him right? That makes perfect sense.
It really frustrates me. And for some reason they are all on the internet too! waaah!
This is just crap!
@sad. Gloryhunters who startet supporting Arsenal 10 or so years ago and don’t get the concept of supporting the team through thick and thin. It is easier to be negative than positive. For some people all that matters is the trophy room, short term and definatly not long term. They believe it is easier to copy/paste from various blogs/forums who are negative than express their own opinions.
Today I read that an Arsenal fan wished that we would lose against L’pool just to prove AW wrong and make him buy extra players. But take note that when we are winning it is not good enough, when we win a trophy it is not good enough because it wasn’t the treble. They won’t stop just yet, but at least when we are on a good streak they go hiding. For some reason I can’t find as much negativity around other clubs. Maybe they haven’t grown up just yet.
I must agree with alot of commentators recently that most of our fans or at least a huge chunk have developed some negativity towards arsenal due to the slow movement in the transfer market. They are all baying for blood if Wenger don’t sign player A or B to the point of dissilusionment. The coming season will be tough no doubt and there are no guarantees but one thing for sure is we will be right up there with the best of them. Frankly speaking even if arsenal don’t win it my passion for the club will not change notwithstanding. We haven’t splashed those astromomical transfer fees like man city and to some extent chelsea( with Ramires and possibly David Luiz coming over)We still have some exciting players comin thro and in an enviously fantastic fiscal condition. Top 3 finish will be sufficient and semifinal position in the champions league will augur just as well. But that does not mean that the team should settle for this. But as a fan who is realistic these targets are achievable.If you ask me man city is the only team under pressure considering the money they have splashed around.I am really looking forward to the coming season and will support my beloved arsenal win or loose.
Tony and walter i love reading your articles finally a true arsenal blog devoid of negativity and slandering. The bloggers here are also true fans of the game who understand that there are times that the team will go through a rough patch and that is when the fans should rally behind the team. I am tired of so called supporters slugging Denilson Diaby and our goal keepers at every opportunity. they did the same thing to Song and Ebue now they are singing their names. Some have outrightly dismissed Kozzer as a failure next season i bet they will be singing his name. Will i be dissaponted if we don’t win the league this season hell yeah….but will i be disillusioned as some of these fans not in a million years.Continue with the good work fellas here in the states espn,fox sports and Goal tv will be screening most of the games am waiting with glee lol….
Fedda, I also have read that comment and I couldn’t believe it. How on earth can a fan want his team to lose? Well he isn’t a fan, let alone a real supporter, of Arsenal.
Yes, Billy, muti might work. But more craft is available if the players would also be presented with mojos before the game. That is of course witchcraft, not footballing craft.
And what’s the exorcist for? You made no mention, but I relish the thought of A Cole kneeling in the goal, while abusing himself in the groin area and uttering blasphemies while his head does a 360 degree turn. Ahh, the simple joys of life.
I think Wenger is the excorsist in this 😉
Fedda/ Walter- I think these comments are wrong surely no Arsenal fan wants to try to prove a point by the team losing? -Surely these comments are likely to be the result of frustration in our failure to strengthen our defence- when Wenger says the defence is short ( and we can all see that it is) and we have money to strengthen the squad- why should we not expect some transfer activity before the end of the transfer window? It must be the case that Wenger assessed the internal options before making the statement. If Wenger has changed his mind- he should explain that and tell us why. Maybe we just need to be a little bit more patient.
Brillante idea