Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come. We’re here at Stamford Bridge for the Super Smashing Apocalypse Sunday match on the day football as we know it might, just might die, or elsedisappear up its own arsehole. And in this season to end all seasons, in which the Four Horsemen of Greed, Sloth, Envy and Racism have clatteredinto town and are now drinking up a storm in the local tavern, the Last Chance Saloon, we’ll have all the action LIVE AND IN 3D. You won’t miss a minute of it here on Death Star… I mean Sky Sports. But first, a commercial break…Welcome back to the biggest football match in the world everTM. Stamford Bridge, Chelsea is the stage. Your players, Chelsea FC and Abu… Imean, Manchester… Manchester City. Your host: the esteemed Jeremy Kyle. Jezza will be ably supported by expert pundits JerrySpringer, Judge Judy and Jamie Redknapp. And, slouching in like some rough beast into Bethlehem, your villain of the piece, thereferee. PRE-MATCH BUS WATCH – The Manchester City squad arrive on a luxury Ferrari coach. Top of the range. It has a jaccuzi in theback and just look at those wheel trims. The coach pulls up to a soundtrack of heavy bass beats, ploughs through the officialChelsea guard post, smashes through the barriers, and steams to a halt just short of the main stand. Phew. That was close. MarioBalotelli climbs out, clad in a coach driver’s uniform, complete with a chauffeur’s cap and epaulettes on his shoulders. He has acopy of The Sun tucked in his back pocket and a big red ball under his arm. The red ball might be a whole Edam cheese. The rest of the squad climb out after Mario looking shellshocked. All of them are wearing big, fly-eye headphones.PRE-MATCH CHELSEA PLAYERS ARRIVAL WATCH – John Terry arrives in a limo being driven by Morgan Freeman. This is like Driving Miss
Daisy all over again.
BACK IN THE STUDIO, Jamie Redknapp offers his own, quite literally, insightful analysis. “Look, the boy Terry literally literallied,” he guffs. Then
he turns to Judge Judy, placing a smarmy hand on her knee. “We both think that, don’t we?” Judge Judy shakes a weary head.
PRE-MATCH REFEREE WATCH – The sky turns black. John Terry regards it with suspicion and no little hatred. And, as thunder and lightning
commences, the referee arrives. He is driving a Mini Metro.
PRE-MATCH TWEET WATCH – Ashley Cole twats: “I just made sixty ding for fack awl. Suck my fat one you cheap dime store hoods.”John Terry twats: “Cunt off you cunts.”Gareth Bareth of Manchester City twats: “I. I. I. I. I. There is no you.”Carlos Tevez: “It rain. I go home.”Joey Barton: “Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Stan Collymore, John Terry, the referee. Which one of these is the biggestshithouse? That, Shakespeare, is the question.”PRE-MATCH MANAGERSPEAK – Roberto Mancini, looking very dapper in a new scarf, sulks: “It not fair. Que? Weonly spending £1bn. Que? Count the number of our player. There is only two hundred. How you say: this is fix.” A passing sheikh hands him a plastic bag stuffed with five million-pound notes, and reminds him to keep talking inMediterranean stereotype.Now onto the other Roberto, Chelsea’s Di Matteo, who cracks: “I’ve got bad teeth. Seriously. Watch any interview of me. My teeth are as rotten as the squad I manage.” Roberto Di Matteo helpfully puts rabbit-ears over the word 'manage'.
And now the interviewer has only gone and asked him whether the club ever seriously considered sacking their club captain in
the wake of the racism allegations! Sensational stuff, Jeremy. How will, Di Matteo get out of this one?
Di Matteo shows a good touch for a medium-sized man by replying: “Look, I’m from Switzerland. I’m neutral here.”
THE SKY SPORTS BLIMP HOVES INTO VIEW, SLOUCHING OVER STAMFORD BRIDGE LIKE A FAT, BLOOD-ENGORGED
LEECH.
BACK IN THE STUDIO, Jamie Redknapp offers his own, quite literally, leechingly insightful analysis. “Literally, this is literally the biggest day of my life and that is literally the biggest blimp I’ve ever seen. Oh for Andy Gray or Richard ‘Keysey’ Keyes. One of them would, quite literally, be able to make me chuckle with some banter about fat birds here.”
Jeremy Kyle: “What would you say to all the neigh-sayers who claim football’s turned into a circus? That it’s little better thanWWF in its heyday?”Redknapp: “The WWF quite literally did some wonderful stuff for animals. Getting pandas to literally smash it, for example.”Jeremy Kyle: “I think we’ll reveal the findings of that DNA test now….” Tears open an envelope. “But first, another ad break!”Welcome back to Stamford Bridge. Before the break we left you on the quite literal cliff-hanger. Is Jamie Redknapp about to berevealed as the bastard offspring of a trout and a melted Ken doll, spawned in the primordial soup of the Thames basin? Well, ishe?Jeremy Kyle raises an eyebrow: “Shocking scenes here at the Bridge! Jamie. That trout you thought was your father is actually your ever so
slightly under-educated step-brother. Your father is actually…. Well, the referee.”
REFEREE WATCH – Referee Rick Schadenfreude, from Nun Monkton, Yorkshire (why is it they always put where a referee is from, as though
that makes a difference. I mean, all Manchester United fans come from London and Devon don’t they, not Manchester?) is spotted scurrying
through the labyrinthine corridors of Stamford Bridge. In full Sky 3D. The Sky lights are on him full-beam and, terrified, he backs away into a
corner, desperately trying to shield his eyes. But the Sky camera presses in. The boy’s got nowhere to go. Literally. With trembling hands he
picks the red card out of the back pocket of his shorts, tries to show it to the Sky camera. But the camera’s not going anywhere. Frantic, the
referee emits a terrifying, bestial hiss, like he’s some vampire exposed to the daylight.
Jamie Redknapp says: “Dad? Quite literally, Dad?”TWEET WATCH – Ashley Cole: “Pass me that fahkin AK. Now get runnin’, work experience bozos!”John Terry offers some pearls of wisdom, quoting his hero Jim Davidson. Unfortunately the twats are unsuitablefor print.Garry Barry: “I still can’t believe someone thinks I’m any good at football. I’m only here for the banter!”Carlos Tevez: “Me no like the food here. I go home.”Joey Barton: “Dunno if anyone else has perchanced to notice, however, I would draw ones’ attention to that SkySports blimp. Doesn’t it look rather like a large arse?”PRE-MATCH WARM-UP – In the shadow of the Sky Sports blimp, the players take the field for the warm-up.Most of them are still carrying their smartphones and continue to fire out twats to the watching world. Nice howthey care, eh?Peter Cech, the Chelsea goalkeeper, comes out wearing a full Darth Vader suit. Mario Balotelli struggles to get into a bib, cussing and punching at the luminous fabric in his rage. He’ll have the fireworks out next, mark my words. Carlos Tevez, asked to take part in a game of ‘piggy in the middle’, storms off the field and taxies it to the airport, where he makes the Buenos Aires flight in the nick of time. John Terry, interviewed on Sky Sports at the side of the pitch, makes an impassioned plea for calm, and then says something unutterably terrible about ‘coloureds’, before quickly backtracking and claiming it was only said in sarcasm.
IN THE STANDS – Manchester City unveil a large banner, borrowed from Manchester United fans a few weeks back, which shouts:
‘Chelsea: Fighting Racism Since Two Last Sunday.’
ABRAMOVICH WATCH: Sky’s cameras pick out Roman in his director’s box. He looks very confused at life in general, as he picks
his teeth with a specially-wrought panda bone toothpick. This latterday Nero then scratches his bumfluff and continues to survey his
Roman Empire, which is on the verge of collapse. But, dear viewer, he can’t see it! He can’t see how things are falling apart, how the
centre cannot hold!
BACK IN THE STUDIO, Jamie Redknapp is curled across the Sky Sports coffee table like a shit, or else a foetal comma. He keeps
muttering dad to himself, over and over again. Jeremy Kyle, rightly, ignores him. “The players have gone back into the dressing rooms
to do their hair and perhaps perform some quick spitroasting. They’ll be back out in five minutes. Which gives us just enough time to slip off for another ad break.”
Welcome back to Death Star Sports and the match to end all matches. The atmosphere here at the Bridge is electric. Literally,as old Redknapp would say. Those electric fences which former chairman Ken Bates suggested, having now been installed aroundthe circumference of the pitch, thus keeping the landed gentry – the players – away from the plebs who come to support their team.AND THE PLAYERS ARE IN THE TUNNEL! Some of them are snarling at each other! Others are offering up juicy tidbits to thehungry God, banter! The referee enters, skittering down the tunnel like he’s on ice. And who knows? One word out of turn here and he’ll only be fit for Dancing on Ice!PRE-MATCH HANDSHAKE – The players are lined up and the battle lines are drawn. The question is: who bears who a grudge? Who
has slept with whose wife? Who has offered the toppest of top banter? Who is being paid more than someone else?
Even a DNA test couldn’t stop this one descending into farce, or disaster.
One player doesn’t shake another player’s hand. Another player looks about to shake, but then lifts his hand to his nose and makes a
very silly gesture. This may or may not be Mario Balotelli.
MEANWHILE! SKY SPORTS BLIMP WATCH – Who’da thunk it? Joey Barton was actually right! The Sky Sports blimp is a massive arse and right now, its bung-hole is opening up and emitting one huge stream of diarreah which is, quite literally, spattering all over the fans below. What a sight!
AND WE’RE OFF – A football match happens. Some players do some goals. Some other players dive. One fan clowns around doinga ‘monkey’ dance. What wit! What brilliance! This is the most exciting game until next week’s Post-Apocalyptic Monday NightFootball! OH I’M TIRED OF THIS! Why can’t footballers be more like our proud Olympians? And more particularly, like the cyclists? After all, cycling’s a sport which remains beautifully free of the whiff of controversy. When was the last time you heard a cyclistaccused of cheating?
