The Coyle

Unless you've been living in a bread bin over the last year, you won't have been able to move without hearing the words on everybody's lips: Owen Coyle. The Burnley manager has certainly been raising a few eyebrows in the dressing rooms with his outspoken and frankly sexual approach to the sport.

It's famously known within the beautiful sport that the man doesn't have a hair on his body. His vigorous waxing regime has been the focus of huge debate, especially as he demands the players watch. If only cameras were allowed in the dressing room at half time. Eye witness accounts describe the scenes as "repetitively brutal". Coyle, who earned his grotesque nickname on account of his spiral shaped genitalia, apparently lies on the floor with his knees by his ears while the unlucky substitutes are goaded into pouring hot wax over his naked thighs. He howls demotivating abuse at the team and rips the hairs out while his appalling wife plays fast percussive music.

He's blind in both eyes and has been quoted as describing football as "exactly like basting turkeys". When asked what he meant the ruddy-faced monster launched into a twenty minute tirade of racist abuse leveled at the Turkish.

His twenty-four hour benders are famous within the city centre. He collects all his body hair that's been removed into bin bags and takes it out on the town with him so he can "fluff up the doubters", a game he likes to play where he pins down anybody who questions him and effectively tars and feathers them with his own body hair while his appalling wife plays fast percussive music.

The players seem strangely loyal to the cider-swigging madman. they famously put each of the letters of his name (Owen Coyle) into a hat, drew them out and each had one letter tattooed onto their naked backs. It's rumoured that when they first showed Owen what they'd done they lined up in front of him naked spelling out his name. A sodden Coyle stood before them and demanded they re-arranged themselves into the words "Cool Weeny", before pulling down his trousers, pulling out his spiral-shaped weeny and urinating over them while his appalling wife played fast percussive music.

It's a long time since we had a true character like this in footballs and I for one think it's exactly what we need to start getting seats in bums in the major stadiums. Long gone are the days of managers like 'Mad Roddy Dunthwaite', 'Graham Sods' and ' Old Derby Dad-pipes' himself. Bring them back I say for their presence can only mean one thing. GOALS!!!!!

NEW SEASON!

Open your saxophone cases. Dust off your trouser-presses. Wipe down your cheese-knives. It's a new season and The Footballs have started again. BANG! IN YOUR FACE to all those who said the game was dead and wouldn't be returning in 2009.

The first match was so good. All the men were back on the pitch after their summers off. There were loads of headers. In fact it was like they'd never been away. The referee was out. There were all those white lines on the pitch. Man, it was exactly as good as I remembered from last year.

A lot of readers of the blog have been asking why the season ever has to stop at all? Well, I hear 'ya people. God I wish it didn't, but I like to look at it like this:

Imagine if a cobbler wasn't permitted a holiday. He'd be heeling brogues back to front, he'd be buffing up suede with shoe-polish and he'd be re-lacing slip-ons. It'd be chaos. Football is no different. These guys need a break, just like everybody else. Look at what happened towards the end of last season with Liverpool. The guys were over worked. Yeah, they shouldn't have set fire to that homeless guy in the changing rooms but they were knackered.

So the new season of course brings with it a few new rules. The one that's causing the most chatter at the beer pumps this year is the introduction of a third card. For years now the poor referee has been limited to just two cards. RED and YELLOW. In a bid to show that they are "doing their bit" towards climate change, the F.A. are now issuing referees with a GREEN card, which will be used to penalise players whose actions are deemed to be detrimental to the environment.

It was clear the fans are unsure about the new rule when the card had it's first outing during The Hot Spurs against Man Chests United on Saturday. Jermaine DeFoe was cautioned after his trainer rushed onto the pitch and sprayed his leg with a muscle-soothing coolant known to contain above average levels of CFC. The Spurs manager was also asked to leave the pitch after he was overheard bragging to a linesman that "he'd left a generator running at home AGAIN".

So here we go, here we go, here we go again for another year of British football at it's best. What do I think? Well, there's only one environmental issue on my mind. GOALS!

The F.A. Cup

As the F.A Cup final looms, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about the history of Great Britain's best loved cup.

Having searched the internet I have been unable to find out what F.A. stands for. I imagine it's just one of those things like BYOB where nobody actually knows what it means, it's just been on the bottom of faxes for so long you don't question it.

I can only guess that the "F" stands for "Foot" (The first half of the word Footballs). The "A" almost certainly stands for "All" (The second half of football) The "Cup" part of the word is NOT an abbreviation, it actually refers to a cup.

It's considered a great honour to hold this "Cup" aloft with your hands. Ironically using your hands during a game is a sackable offense. Only the referee or the keeper may do so and so it is doubly ironic that neither such players are permitted to lift the "Cup" aloft. Once the "Cup" is held above the head the crowd all shout words at it. Half the crowd do happy words, half the crowd do dirty words. Those dirty words often echo of the walls of the trophy cabinet for years to come and I mean that both literally and non-metaphorically.

The cup which is made of tin, has been dubbed the biscuit barrel ever since Dougie Fashanu hid his glasses in there as a disgusting joke on his poor blind sons.

So who will win the cup on Wednesday. Lets just hope it's not the team with the dirty-word-shouters. I for one will be enjoying a cup myself on cup night, a cup full of goals in a cup.

BYOB

Chelsea to play in big cup final

So the news is in. It's a double-header. A twin-brit. YES! It's two British football associations in the big Europe cup.

Chelsea, who will be hosting the first 45 minutes of the final are said to be "over-excited" about the game, which takes place next Thursday. Who would have thought 'The Buns' would ever play in Europe again after their dear friend Scolari was forced to leave the country after a bitter legal battle with Paul Scoles over the spelling of his name. 

Apparently "Scolari" is Italian for Scoles, and Paul owns the sole copyright to the name within the premiership. The copyright runs out in June next year when it is believed several other premiership players will finally be able to use their real names again. Frank Scoles was forced to change his name to Frank Lampman in a similar legal battle at the beginning of his career. Scoles has repeatedly won in court on the grounds that "Scoles means goals". This is a catch-phrase that he has built up over several years and claims it would be unfair of another player to have the advantage of their name also meaning goals. 

As previously reported on The Footballs, (http://tiny.cc/0iH23) Giggs failed miserably with his own expression "Giggs means Figs", and was once again beaten in court by The Scole-keeper himself. 

So with the Italian Scoles dead and buried, who is going to be their manager? Gus Hiddink. Who? EXACTLY!!!!!! The hilariously named man is a complete unknown and surely a massive risk at this stage in the season. A bit of research on the internet reveals his background is in Lizards and he suffers from the skin condition Rosacea.

I for one think Chelsea will need all the luck in the world, but of course luck plays no part in this dance of skill. The skill of the Football!

Popularity to be officially linked to football

Bobby Charlton, the UK minister of football shocked the nation today with his announcement that Football will now be enforced on every single school-boy. He also plans to make popularity and achievement at school DIRECTLY linked to their football ability.

It's long been known that the popularity of a male school attendee is very closely linked with how handy they are with their non-hands (their feet.) A place on the school footy squad automatically means you will have far more friends and in later years, far more success behind the bike-sheds. (With girls.)

Sports scientists (who everybody knows are the best scientist) revealed today that people with natural ability at the sport carry more of the genes responsible for knowing what to do in a social situation. Have you ever noticed how a keen footballer is able to slip a sleazy aside or a startling shout into almost any occasion. Finally this will be rewarded.

From now on a simple examination at the start of each term will rank each member of the year in order of prowess. The bottom five will simply be expelled. The bottom 15 will have the option of leaving the school or putting themselves forward for public ridicule. While it's miserable at the bottom, its glorious at the top. The top 20 will receive automatic A Grades in any subject where the teacher takes an interest in the sport. The less successful kids will be forced to pretend to like the talented kids and put up with consistent taunting.

A boozy Bobby Charlton, who was once an excellent footballer, shouted that his idea will revolutionise schooling. He said: "It's like illegal downloading. We all know it's going on, lets get it out in the open and make some fu**ing money out of it." His scheme, which is already being heralded as the Spotify of football will no doubt have it's detractors at first but I foresee a glorious day when it just becomes normal. There's a good chance Britains first Doctor of Football has already been born and is crawling amongst us at this very moment.

Roy Keane moves to Ipswich.

The 37 year old singer-songwriter Roy Keane has been appointed as the new boss of Ipswich. Roy (short for Roymond) has already made one of his classic blunders, mispronouncing the word Ipswich at his very first press conference. He screamed: “Citizens of Biscuit. Hear my words. I am Roy Keane. And I bring you FIRE!” To everybody’s surprise a low-budget pyrotechnics display began climaxing with Roymond setting light to an F.A. rulebook and hurling it at the journalists.

 It’s certainly a bold statement and I for one think this is exactly what “the Nippers” need to launch them into the Premiership.

Origins Of Football

If you, like me, like to talk about football, which I do, then it may interest you to find out a bit more about how the game began. (It's certainly of interest to me.)

The name is two words put together. "Foot" and "Ball". This is because when the game was first invented a ball would be kicked with a foot to score points. The game has remained largely unchanged, unlike other sports named in a similar way. Rugby (a joining of the words "Rug" and "Bee") was once a very different sport, devised by the Earl of Digby after spilling a jam sandwich on a picnic rug, thus attracting a wasp.

The original balls were made of porcelain and were extremely fragile. They were hand painted and very ornate. The players had to be incredibly careful when moving the ball as they were incredibly expensive to replace. These porcelain balls were used for the first hundred and thirty years of the sport and not a single goal was scored during that period.

The move to leather bought with it goals and of course headsies, now a staple part of any game. With all these goals flying about along came the dreaded referees!!!!!!! Dressed in black they had the legal power to giveth and taketh away goals and in some extreme cases, human lives. Until 1900 the referee was also able to carry out a wedding as long as it was on the pitch and during the 90 minutes. It was this rule that led to the famous "Match Made In Heaven" in 1886 where a linesman and a goalie met, fell in love and wed before the end of the first half.

Other than that, the rules have remained the same. God bless Football, may it always rule our lives.

New Season. New Dreams

So The Footballs is back after the mid season winter interval. Let the goaling commence.

It's always a quiet three months after Christmas as the players enjoy a well earned rest. Traditionally all sorts of swapping and transferring takes place. Here's a quick round up of some of the biggest news stories from the past three months.

Derby County and Doncaster Mainline swapped football grounds in a deal estimated to be in the region of several hundred pounds. the fans went haywire and lobbied to have the grounds swapped back. It emerged later that when "The Counts" found out they would be having to swap back they all left "reversies" in the toilets. A technique involving sitting the wrong way on the toilet and leaving a deposit on the porcelain. Geoff Cornets even performed a Tankie, which involves 'depositing' in the toilet system.

In a bid to engage a slightly geekier audience, Newcastle United were involved in one of the most unexpected signings of the Christmas break: David Duchovney. He played football in college to a fairly high standard although it soon became apparent at his first training session that this had been American Footaball when he picked up the ball, punched Alan Shearer and screamed random numbers at everybody on the pitch. His debut match is on Saturday and it's rumored he'll  be lowered onto the pitch from a flying saucer. His catch-phrase, "I want to believe.. in goals" is already being banded about the Newt's dressing room.

The winter break also saw the first straight civil partnership between two footballmen. Amidst accusations of homophobia in the sport the gorgeous Lampard married the enormous Ledley King on the pitch in front of booing fans. The couple (who are both straight) claim it's a massive step forward for the sport and plan to adopt in the summer.

Respects should be paid to the great Dennis Lambert who died age 89 on New Years day. The horribly racist footballer is commonly credited with having invented the coin toss at the start of the match. Before him the two captains would wrestle for the honor in bouts that would sometimes last several days.

So that's it readers. Any predictions for the new season?

Menace

Does anybody else find themselves totally hypnotised by how greasy Gavin Ronaldo's face is?