Sports Personality of the Year: Don’t Push It

Unfortunately the Badger is not actually proud of you, Tony McCoy, for finally winning the Aintree Grand National. Any man who commits so much dedication to a diet that consists of peppermints and chewing gum deserves no general recognition whatsoever. You sit up there beating a horse with a stick, and then take all the plaudits for winning an acclaimed historic race.

The Badger is going to praise the real champions in all this. Congratulations, Don’t Push It, you are the University Observer Sports Personality of the Year and thoroughly deserve the award. You throw yourself over ridiculously tall mounds of shrubbery, and courageously agree to carry these midget freak people on your back at the same time. Well done: you are a worthy winner.

Best Footballer in the World, Literally: Lionel Messi

Forget your Ronaldos, your Gerrards, your Lampards and your Drogbas of this world, Lionel Messi is undoubtedly the best footballer to grace our green earth at the moment. He is going to cap off an excellent season, which has seen him score 40 goals in all competitions, with a flurry of mesmerising performances on the high veldt this summer, and possibly lead his side to World Cup victory.

Pain in the Arsène of the year: Arsène Wenger

For this season and the many previous, football fans have had to cope with the constant mumblings of Arsène Wenger. His unrelenting accusations that players, referees and managers were out to get him have nagged the Badger for long enough now. Therefore, Wenger is the comprehensive winner of this prestigious award.

Thankfully vindication came recently when his side took on an in form Barcelona team that was in no mood for his ramblings. After years of protesting that Arsenal play football the right way and other teams should not disrupt it, he taught his team to be a collective bunch of hypocrites by trying to kick Barcelona out of the game. He was humiliated for his tactics as Barcelona embarrassed Wenger and his world-class selection of super toddlers.

Sub-awards

The Graham Rowntree Cauliflower Ears of the Year award: Martin Johnson

The Bowyer Ex-Con Footballer of the Year award: Marlon King

Cheat of the Year (sponsored by the Ashley Cole School of Adultery): Ashley Cole

Bottlers of the Year: England 2010 World Cup squad

The Badger doesn’t normally like repeating himself, but he may make an exception for this one and very last time. Anyway before the end of the next paragraph he will sum up the first part of the story.

In the early 2000’s, the Badger moved Down Unda and signed for Maroubra Soccer Club. Although the club was small in size, “literally”, it had big aspirations. There was much hype about his arrival and the Badger had a huge reputation to live up to.

After the bitter failure in the Badger’s first game for Maroubra, yours truly was due a big performance to catapult this illustrious club up the league. Some people highlight a particular game against the Mascot Kings as the turning point for the club’s fortunes.

Playing on a typically mild 35 degree celsius Australian day, this game turned out to be anything but a normal game of soccer. Defying the written laws, it was agreed between the two coaches that the game would consist of four quarters so as to incorporate more water breaks, while also playing on a pitch with smaller dimensions to minimise running.

You really can’t fault the Aussies’ health and safety concerns, but as for their morals of the game, they were completely out of check. After 28 minutes, the Badger was the only factor holding the game at a steady score of 9-0. However, by the 32^nd minute, a tenth goal was almost inevitable, and the Maroubran coach knew as much. So with no intention of seeing his side lose by a league record margin of 15 goals he called across the touchline “Oi Mate, first to farteen yeah”. His call was greeted with a confident nod, and left this Badger an unhappy camper.

With his team now losing goals by the second in order to reduce the chance of a player dropping dead from dehydration, the Badger was now amounting a serious cache of rage and pondering his next action. The game was far out of his individual reach, so like any raging footballer who was losing by a hefty margin, he began to time his tackles dangerously late, or more like Lee Bowyer late.

Coincidentally, this is in fact the origin of the name, the Badger. An animal renowned for breaking people’s legs, this particular Badger began to hunt down his prey at the start of the second quarter. A small nippy right-winger with blonde highlights was the Badger’s target and with one foul swoop, the Badger was determined to do some serious damage.

Most of the opposition’s play was going through this right-sided midfielder and within a minute the Badger had his perfect opportunity. With his opponent running at full flight with the ball, the Badger dove in two-footed and carefully shattered the youngster’s leg and life of walking unaided with a precise blow to his left femur.

Obviously Maroubra went onto lose the tie 14-0 and fulfill the forfeit, with the fourteenth goal being scored in the 35^th minute. The last thing the Badger remembers hearing emanated from an Ambulance, as two paramedics frantically discussed which leg to amputate first.

To the discredit of all morals in football, the Badger escaped any form of punishment for the tackle, meaning he was eligible to take part in the New South Wales five-a-side Indoor Championship. Held in the one of the many stadia erected for the Sydney Olympics, the tournament was a developmental stage for some of Australia’s most talented youth players to demonstrate their skills to the onlooking Socceroos coach Frank Farina.

To this day it is not known why the Badger in fact wound up playing in this tournament, but nevertheless, the story must continue. For the tournament, the Badger was deployed in the newfound role of destroyer. The position is self-explanatory, with the Badger being entrusted to disrupt any fluidity in the opposition’s play.

It was in this elaborate position that the Badger cemented his nickname as he terrified opposition players after a series of leg breaking tackles left many crippled for life. This ruthless aspect of his play guided his team to the final and although the comprehensive 8-1 defeat didn’t reflect the flow of the game, the Badger was hugely chuffed with his yellow card that he received for a neck breaking tackle from guest referee Dwight Yorke

Even the Badger will admit that the aforementioned reference to Dwight Yorke may be a tad obscure, but even more baffling was the sudden invite to the Australian under 13s soccer trials. Scheduled to be held in Lane Cove National Park, the Badger was delighted with his sudden international status and felt vindicated for all the work he invested into his game.

To wrap up a long winded story, the Badger never in fact made the Down Underers’ under 13 team. He was deported exactly four hours before the trials with the Aussie authorities citing the lack of a Visa, passport and possession of performance enhancing worms the main reasons for the deportation of the acclaimed saviour of Australian football.

Did you know that there was a time when the Badger nearly made the Down Underers’ under-13s soccer team? It’s an interesting story, as the Badger contests Aussie Cup finals, has a run-in with Dwight Yorke and causes bodily harm.

In the early 2000s, the Badger found himself residing in the Oceania region of FIFA’s broad world map. At the time, Australian soccer was at an all-time high of monotonously qualifying for the Oceania vs CONMEBOL World Cup playoff game that continuously pitted the Socceroos against Uruguay. Unfortunately they lost out 3-1 to Uruguay on aggregate in the 2002 FIFA World Cup playoff, but the Aussies took immense pride in their remarkable 1-0 home win at Cook’s Harbour.

This content attitude that sees the Aussies satisfied to nearly qualify for the most prestigous football competition sums up the entire ethos of the nation – and, to be honest, it took the Badger by surprise. When this young bruiser took the long 23-hour flight down under, he was expecting to see a country full of over-exuberant and cocky weight-lifting sports nuts.

At first this is the profile which the Badger was met with, and from the start incessant attempts were made by Aussies to intimidate him using their confidence developed through greater physical disposition. (Their true identity was to soon shine through, though, but back to the story.)

Upon his arrival, the Badger signed for Maroubra Soccer Club, a relatively small club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, who play their home games in Coral Sea Park. The club was in dire straits at the time as during the 2000 season they had suffered multiple relegations. All 15 age grades at the club – from the senior side to the under-6s – had suffered relegation, with every side finishing last in their league.

After signing for Maroubra, there was a lot of hype surrounding the impending arrival of this international signing from Ireland. This hysteria was typified by the turnout at the Badger’s first training session for Maroubra. Upwards of five vibrant fans showed up in the scorching heat to see the Badger display his skills, and he did not disappoint.

Playing for his place in the team amongst thirty other 11 or 12-year-olds, the Badger lined up in his typical playmaker position and gave a masterclass in the art of box-to-box midfield play. The stats didn’t lie and depicted the sheer quality of the Badger. Over one-hundred passes completed, assisting three goals and hitting the cross bar on two seperate occasions, the crowd was in awe at the Badger’s skill set. The only reason the Badger didn’t win the Man of the Match award because his side lost 6-2.

The coach blew his whistle to bring the first training session to an end and naturally began sorting the players into the respective A, B and C teams. The Badger’s name was first to be called as he was drafted into the under-12 B side, a team who had not known the sweet taste of victory since February 1999. But the Badger was going to change that.

After impressing consistently in training and making the strongest claim to be awarded the number 10 jersey in an Argentinian-esque Maroubra side, the Badger made his first start in a Sunday fixture against the Maccabi Hakoah. Now the Badger can be sketchy on the exact details sometimes, but he is definitely sure that he made his debut on a Sunday, only due to that fact that Maccabi are an all Jewish team, and due to their commitment to some religion, refused to play on a Saturday. Wimps.

Although the fans did not appreciate the result, they were optimistic about the overall display from the team, but more importantly the Badger.

Pick up the next edition of The University Observer to catch the second half of this exhilarating story.

B’jaysus. Portsmouth Football club are in one hell of a mess. The Badger can’t remember seeing any entity managed worse than this disgrace of a football club. Everyone at Pompey should be ashamed of themselves that they’ve let the club’s situation reach a newfound low. Some teams should really know their limits and just settle for the status of ‘Championship relegation contenders’, and save us all the bother of worrying about them.

The entire club has just turned into a parasitic cash-sucking charity that approaches you in the middle of the street with their clipboard and asks you to sign-up to a direct debit payment of €30 per month for the next 26 years. Normally when these kind of humanitarian simpletons advance, people put their heads down and ignore the situation, but the Badger isn’t regular folk.

Everytime they interupt his day with “Hi, how are you? Would you like to support the global war on cancer?”, or “Support victims of solar flares in Tahiti!”, the Badger likes to remind them that they are as useful to society as used toilet roll is at curing tuberculosis. Unfortunately many of these exuburent individuals are popping up around Belfield at the moment, and the Badger is getting really sick of them.

So as always, he has taken it upon himself to fix the entire problem and one by one sort out each charity in order of patheticness. Obviously he will start with the giant elephant in the room – that is, Pompey FC. Hypothetically, if the Badger was in charge of the club, things would naturally be running a whole lot smoother. The first point of order would see the Badger adding some wealth to his name with a stereotypical Abu Dhabi twinge. Sheikh Halal Badger Yum! has a nice Middle Eastern ring to it and would be the instigator of much change at Fratton Park.

In a clean swipe, Sheikh Halal Badger Yum! would get rid of the deadwood hanging around the club. The smelly man who incessantly rings his bell throughout games, Mr Portsmouth Football club, will be driven from the club and have ‘The Saints” tattooed across his forehead. The Badger cannot confirm that this man actually smells, but he has the smelly look about him that Russell Brand also possesses.

Next on the agenda is more deadwood in the rigid shape of David James. Being literally the only surviving member of the England under-29 team that competed against Scotland in literally the first ever game of football in 1887 BC, he is starting to stink the place up. These two alterations to the core of the club will create a positive breath of fresh air and optimism throughout the set-up, and allow for the final stage of the masterplan to begin.

One point that is constantly raised in every article maligning the Badger’s latest prized asset highlights the fact that Portsmouth do not have any corporate boxes in their dilapidated stadium. Well, the Badger sees it differently. When he looks out on the pitch he doesn’t just see grass and white lines, he sees an opportunity. Out on that pitch, there are, in fact, eleven portable corporate boxes ready to be snapped up by the highest bidder. In short, the Badger will be auctioning off places in his club’s team and give the overweight oil barons of this world the chance to see their heroes up close and personal.

No doubt this ingenious innovation is going to bring in billions of revenue that will boost Pompey back to the good days of 2008. This can then be reinvested in the club’s squad, opening the door for ‘Arry Redknapp to return, be allowed squander the generated revenue on needless signings, reach a meaningless cup final, leave the club and its overpayed players behind, and then… well… the club is right back in the same position of nearly going out of business. Funny how life goes in circles.

Sent from The Badger’s  iPhone

Since the Six Nations has restarted, the Badger has had many restless nights. He has been tossing and turning in bed (a king-size bed in a five-star sett, naturally) pondering what it must be like to be England’s illustrious and celebrated World Cup winning hero, Martin Johnson. Some dedicated rugger fans call Johnson a charismatic leader and a commanding presence on and off the field. Others praise him as the defining light of English rugby.

Now the Badger isn’t normally one to disagree with others’ opinions, but he doesn’t really agree with these Anglo-centric views. In the Badger’s superior opinion, Martin Johnson is a cauliflower-producing machine that shares many common characteristics with a tree. Like a tree, Johnson cannot devise a tactical rugby system that is capable of convincingly winning a game. Like a tree, Johnson would struggle to carry out any other profession than blocking sunlight in his surrounding area. Finally, like a tree, Johnson is unable to hear anything that people say because he has the second largest cauliflower plantation in the United Kingdom growing in his ears (second only to that of Graham Rowntree, of course).

The Badger is being very harsh on the King of Rugby, Martin “MJ” Johnson, and feels that people should know of his embarrassing disability. Poor Johnson is lambasted with showing a lack of respect to our prestigious President, Mary McAleese, when Ireland faced England in the 2000-and-something Six Nations Championship. Being the England captain at the time, he led his team into the wrong area of the pitch, which forced McAleese to walk on the grass.

His supposed ‘intentional’ move was slated by pundits across the world and until now, no one has spoken out in defence of the man-tree – meaning that the Badger will have to do so himself. Johnson is, in fact, colour-blind; he is cursed with the worst condition of colour blindness that anyone can suffer from, known as black-, white-, green-, blue-, mauve- and mango-colour blindness. Leave the poor man alone.

******

You go, girls!

On another quick note, curling is not a sport. Of all the non-sports in the world – classic examples being wife-carrying, extreme ironing and bog snorkelling – curling is the lowest of the low. If darts is a sport for men who are good at throwing pins at a board, then curling is a sport for women who are good at sweeping the floor.

The Badger couldn’t be bothered researching the proper scoring system for this game (hey, you try using Wikipedia with no opposable thumbs), so he’ll just give you a very basic, uneducated and condensed overview of what he thinks the game is about. A person throws a brick of granite over some ice; for some reason it slides; two (maybe three?) people then frantically clean the path the brick will follow; then the brick stops.

Did you wet yourself with excitement reading from that commentary? The Badger did, but like most people who compete in curling, he suffers from OAB. Look it up. On Wikipedia. With your thumbs. You cretins.

Your average football fan colloquially uses them in discussion. They are some of the most common sayings down the pub, and even Jamie Redknapp has invented his own. Football clichés are a scourge on society, most often projecting those people who use them as fools with no grasp of common sense, let alone football.

There are particular hackneyed phrases that the Badger detests, and your TB-ridden chum enjoys picking on people who try and adapt them into their frivolous debates against the all-knowing and perfectly faultless Badger (well, perfect apart from the aforementioned traces of the consumption).

Racking his brain for 800 words on the most common clichés, the Badger cannot place them in any sort of inane order, let alone pick which of the many Proverbs for Dummies he hates the most. Many maxims involving Liverpool Merseysiders rile the Badger. One mightn’t think that a badger would have many friends who are Liverpool fans, but being constantly reminded that Mali’s epic comeback versus Angola in the African Cup of Nations was similar to “that magical night in Istanbul” doesn’t exactly rub the Badger up the right way.

It is no coincidence that this first cliché is directly associated with the Badger’s most hated club, and it is their most closet-inhabiting self-loathing fan, the Beeb’s very own Alan Green, who is the next target. Any speech picked up amidst this commentator’s intermittent spitting is usually an uneducated pile of horse porn, for the most part fabricated from his knowledge of the Norn Iron Anti-Taig All Protestants Windscreen Wiper Fluid Premier League.

What the Badger is, paradoxically, trying to portray is that Alan Green is himself a cliché: a lifelong monologue consisting of ridiculous statements inciting conspiracies like, “I bet you Platini loves this result,” and other daft remarks such as “who cares about the UEFA League or Europa Cup?” The world will be a better place when he finally admits his allegiances don’t just lie with Glentoran or Linfield, but with Liverpool.

Getting down to the real clichés and not just the Badger’s most hated football personalities, the Badger is particularly peeved by everyday English phrases like “typical forward’s tackle”, “he’s lost the dressing room” and “at the end of the day”. Please explain to this naïve old fool what possible definition “he’s lost the dressing room” could accurately hold: in recent weeks has longtime amnesia sufferer Rafael Benitez being wandering around the corridors of Anfield, desperately trying to find his mislaid changing room? Similarly, a “typical forward’s tackle” stereotypes all attacking players with the inability to dispossess an opponent for no reason.

Don’t forget, however, the cliché rolled out come win, lose, draw, or general buffoonery: “at the end of the day”. One would wonder what Steven Gerrard does with the hours of his day between 9am and 11pm because according to the Liverscumlians’ captain, everything occurs just before the day ends: “At the end of the day, we need to concentrate more”… “at the end of the day, John Terry is a great guy because it is usually around midday he cheats on his wife”… “at the end of the day, our fans rob our houses when we play away matches”.

A fitting end to an in-depth look at clichés in football would be appraisal of a God walking among us. Men want to be him, women want to be with him. He wears tight trousers to show off his masculine bits. Jamie Literally has literally created a new saying that has lamentably become a common word in most football cliques.

Strutting his stuff on Sky’s Super Mega Awesome Smashing Sunday With Ford football show, Redknapp has obviously misunderstood his primary school teaching on adverbs, and circumvented basic grammar to create his own meaning for a word that is in no way open to interpretation.

With Redknapp’s aversion to detail adding to the overall experience, we should never forget that the ball is “literally” glued to Messi’s boot, while the new football being used in the Premier League this year has the potential to “literally” explode off a player’s foot. Sometimes Jamie’s attention to detail delves too deep, into areas of the game that evade common public knowledge. Your average football fan, for example, could not be expected to know that Ashley Cole had to cut back inside onto his left, because he “literally” hasn’t got a right foot.

Really, where would we be without Jamie Redknapp? The Badger speculates that we would be “literally” sprawled out on the floor, literally dead, literally not breathing, literally soiling ourselves until we were literally covered in it, literally.

Who knew when Sepp Blatter promised our poor country moral compensation that it would involve an all expenses paid midweek trip to London at the beginning of March? This is the reality – and now to top off the luxurious getaway, the virtuous neo-fascist hardcore socialists from Kentaro have agreed to organise the whole event.

The Kentarian leader, Kentara, gave a masterclass in media relations and spoke about her delight of high profile international fixtures taking place under their stewardship: “At the time of going to print, there was no one available to comment.” Normally a cynic about general topics such as sunshine, lollipops and hugs, the Badger has no major gripe with this loving family-based company.

Don’t get the Badger wrong; he has tried to find fault with this agency and to date has humiliatingly failed. As the pre-eminent “House of Football”, Kentaro’s quest for absolute control over every aspect of the Beautiful Game and take all of the profits for themselves is quite a heartwarming story and brings a tear to the Badger’s beady little eyes.

Sometimes the Badger questions the morality of people when they donate their own hard-earned cash towards unnecessary charities such as UNICEF, and seem to neglect these passionate multi-national corporations (MNC). In a final plea to convince the public’s mind on where they donate their excess cash, let the Badger explain the motivations and actions of Kentaro with a simple simile.

Kentaro are like the driver of a car that sees people walking beside a giant puddle near the curb. Their natural reaction to this situation would be not to drive through the puddle at a high speed, thus splashing the puddle in the direction of the helpless pedestrians. Kentaro are the kind of comforting MNC that will carefully mount the curb at a high speed and plow down all of the people without even making a dent in their bumper.

~

Another issue that was in no way getting the Badger annoyed over the Christmas break was the lack of football at certain times, and the increased coverage of darts on his expensive digital TV channels. There are many people who claim that darts is not a sport; however, the Badger’s politically correct view is that fat people need sport too.

Though admittedly darts is a high-class professional sport that requires a strenuous diet and excellent grooming technique to fashion the most trailer-trashy facial hair possible, it must be differentiated from other pretend sports that are based on crap like athletic ability and relative applicable skill. It may be unrealistic to consider darts as an Olympic-worthy sport, but maybe as apart of a modified three-day tetrathlon event, it may seem that bit more appealing.

The Badger proposes that the bastardised competition begin with the most physically and mentally draining event, as opponents test the strength of their own arms against one another, the aim being to pin the other opponent’s arm onto a horizontal surface, with the winner’s arm over the loser’s arm.

Day two will see a further significant test of the athletes’ strength, as they are required to show their wife throwing ability in the first outdoor activity of the competition (though if all other options have been exhausted, wife throwing can be a converted indoor sport). Though the two previously mentioned sports would be considered a pivotal part of the event, they would only be preparing the stage for the main event: darts.

Predictably, Phil “The Power” Taylor would be favourite to win the first Olympic Gold in the Badger’s revised tetrathlon; maybe Kentaro could lend a helping hand to get this innovative idea of the ground. “Fast. Creative. Experienced. Efficient. Tet-fat-hlon.”

Screw the World,
The Badger

With games coming thick and fast over the festive period, the Badger’s biological football clock has been thrown into disarray as the fixture list becomes overcrowded. Whether it be six matches in fifteen days, twenty-six games in seventy-two hours or 2.45 matches a day for eight days. In between sleeping and creating every dish possible to make use of the leftover turkey, it is difficult to fit in all the football. These are the stories which have perked the Badger’s interest in the last few weeks.

Premium League

Roberto “winner by default” Mancini was drafted in to win and that he did. A thoroughly comprehensive win by his Manchester City side over Stoke has kept the naysayers at bay but, for how long can the poor man’s José Mourinho realistically keep the hounding press off his back.

Mancini’s appointment was hardly as sleek and smooth as his general physical presence. With Manchester City’s Chief Executive and all-round bad guy, Gary ‘Crook’ managing the situation, it is unfeasible to think of the process taking a more coarse route. ‘Crook’ hardly covered himself in glory following Mancini’s appointment as he seemed to take a page from Stephen Ireland’s book in the art of back tracking.

Why the alleged marketing genius, ‘Crook’, felt the need to blabber to the press that Mancini was touted by Liverpool as a possible successor to Benitez is mystifying. However, to then have Mancini completely contradict his comments in an open press conference just added salt to the wounds of the much maligned executive.

With the press now thinking that any controversy beyond this point is merely the cherry on top, the bemusement continued as Gary Cook protested that Mancini had not been lined up to replace Mark Hughes before the Tottenham fixture. His original claim was that Mancini had not been interviewed prior to the 3-0 loss to Tottenham. Well, this lie only lasted as long as Roberto Mancini’s English vocabulary when he revealed that he met the chairman two week before the Tottenham game.

As the Badger reads between the lines of Crook’s reply to the barrage questions after Mancini’s inability to deal with a situation bereft of pressure, his general message was, “well I suppose everything that I told you was a complete lie”. Meanwhile sweet Roberto sat there looking like a wax figure and completely free of pressure related wrinkle’s on his tanned Mediterranean face.

Alright the Badger will admit that he has a slight crush on Roberto Mancini, every person is allowed one.

Major League Strikers

Imagine the sight of David Beckham and his fellow Galactic superstars picketing outside their home ground, the Home Depot centre in Los Angeles. Well, if a deal between Major League Soccer and the Player’s Union cannot be struck, this could become a reality.

This issue revolves around the current situation which sees the collective bargaining agreement between both of the previously

MLS commissioner Don Garber

mentioned parties expiring on the 31st of January 2010. Collective bargaining is a system which has caused a problems in major American sports in the past, with both the National Hockey and Basketball leagues being involved in strike actions, lockouts and the cancellations of seasons.

Collective bargaining in Major League Soccer (MLS) creates a situation in which the clubs do not own the players that play for the club. These players are owned by a single entity (in this case the league) who pay for their wages. Therefore, a player can be conceivably uprooted from any club at any stage and moved to a different club without consulting the player.

In the renegotiating of the collective bargaining deal, the player’s union have sought to appease this situation by giving the players more power over their club movements. However, MLS commissioner Don Garber is refusing to back down over the

issue and has reputed calls that the deal he is looking to put in place defies FIFA’s regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, which states: “A contract between a professional and a club may only be terminated upon expiry of the term of the contract or by mutual agreement.”

The MLS season commences on the 25th of March 2010 and this feud between both parties could possibly delay the start of the season. However, even if this situation is resolved, tensions could boil further as the Player’s Union seek address the salary cap imposed on MLS clubs, which restricts the amount that clubs can spend on wages.

This is considered an even more contentious issue in some corners of America’s soccer scene, as some players playing first team football can be paid as little as $25,000 annually. A situation which sees some players having to resort to sharing small apartments with as many as four other teammates.

On a final note the Badger will leave you mulling over a tad bit of controversy. At this point in time, the salary cap stands at $2.3m per annum however, the previously mentioned Don Garber is about to be offered a new four year contract to continue his role as commissioner on a yearly salary of $3m. Hypocrisy in abundance in the land of the free and underpaid.

If you wish to view the salary information for every player plying their trade in MLS, it is freely available on the Player’s Union website.

Last Wednesday evening’s moment of ‘Sacré Bleu’ drew even the most sullen Irish football fan, stuck in their cocoon from 2002 or perhaps even 1990, back to life. ‘Cheat’, ‘coward’, ‘scum’ and even the F word – ‘French’ – are all terms that Irish fans have been using in the last week to brand Thierry Henry as a player who deserves no respect.

In the off chance that you’re a hermit with no contact with the outside world, or happen to be one of those people who had your house washed away during the Great Flood of 2009, the Badger will update you on what occurred. From a free kick just inside the French half, Florent Malouda hit a ball long into the Irish penalty box.

With the ball gracefully penetrating the air and flying into the Irish penalty box it appeared as if it might have gone straight out for an Irish goal kick, and put down as yet another mishit French pass. In the onside sector between Irish defenders and goalkeeper, the French player from the France region of France (as opposed to Guadeloupe), Thierry Henry, majestically guided the ball with an extension of his lower, lower shoulder to keep the ball in play.

He then, perfectly legally, hit the ball across the face of goal for William Gallas to tap it into the back of the Irish net. This goal sparked huge uproar from Irish players and management alike as they protested that Henry had actually used the lower, lower, lower, lower extension of his shoulder, which under FIFA’s ‘Fools’ Guide to Anatomy: Edition IV’, classifies as the “hand”.

Now sometimes the Badger can be accused of being a bit conservative and argumentative, but in this situation, it is the Badger’s opinion that Irish fans should really get over the entire situation. They should be happy that bigger nations are going to the World Cup instead of Ireland, and be pleased with being allowed play football with prestigious players like Henry and Sébastien Squillaci.

The Badger is also sick of all the hate being sent FIFA’s way over the situation. So in an attempt to resolve the fragile relationship between our small insignificant nation and FIFA, the Badger has written an email.

To: ScrewIreland@FIFA.com

Cc: Michel.Platini@UEFA.eu

My name is The Badger. I am not actually a badger. I am writing to you in relation to the France v Ireland World Cup Qualifying Playoff fixture. In the aforementioned game, an incident occurred which made Irish people act very angrily towards French football captain Thierry Henry for an alleged use of the lower, lower, lower, lower extension of his shoulder to keep the ball in play.

The Badger is sure you have been lambasted with a multitude of letters, messages and petitions to have the fixture replayed, and commends you for not buckling under the pressure asserted.

It is The Badger’s opinion that Irish people should be happy that a more marketable and better team are going to the World Cup next summer. The Badger also feels that Irish teams and other equivalent small nations should be ordered roll over for, per se, bigger nations in the future.

Though your system of not allowing small teams into your prestigious competition is efficient, there are some flawed aspects. The Badger recommends a revised form of the seeding system under the following specifications:

In this new method for UEFA World Cup Qualifying, there will only be two pots, the first of which containing 13 teams, the other containing 40. The teams in pot one will be pre-determined and consist of Spain, England, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Turkey and Switzerland. Teams in pot one and two will never be subject to change.

Every four years, one month before the World Cup finals, football officials will draw from pot one, 13 teams. The teams drawn will automatically qualify for the World Cup and claim all thirteen UEFA spots at the World Cup.

This system is only to be applied to UEFA World Cup qualifying, but can be easily adapted to different regions.

Yours sincerely,

The Badger

In a completely original idea, The Badger has decided to look into his crystal red beach ball, to map out the Scousers’ calendar up to the midpoint of the season:

21st November: Moneybags fly into town, and in a smash-and-grab movement will leave the Kop in shock.

24th November: You think it’s all over? It is now. While Harry Redknapp Jr sits in his chair preaching to Eng-er-land that “Ya know what, this Torres kid ain’t bad at all. I tell ya, he must’ve been watching Theo Walcott a bit”, Liverpool will be conceding goal after goal in the Puskás Ferenc Stadium. The Merseysiders will be out of the Amalgamated Platini Cup.

29th November: The derby that means so little to footballing folk outside the realms of Merseyside spawns more bad luck for the Pool. There is pride at stake, and Liverpool are bottlers. Result: draw.

30th November: Rafa clocks out, citing a “lost” dressing room as the prime reason for his departure. Kenny Dalglish steps in to fill the globular void.

9th December: They thought it was all over… it was back then, and still is. Liverpool fans flock to Florence thinking their side still has a chance of progressing through to the next round of European Cup. They will not be happy when they realise that the fixture is actually being played at Anfield, and that all pubs in the cultured city will be showing the Inter Milan crucial match against Rubin Kazan. Benitez, meanwhile, is still wandering around Anfield looking for the dressing room.

19th December: Christmas has come early for Manchester United fans as Portsmouth overtake Liverpool in the Premier League, though somehow Liverpool are still in with a shot of claiming the title should they win the rest of the league games 3-1.

2nd January: Liverpool draw English 34th Divison Sunday League side “Glasgow Celtic” in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, and are beaten in a brutal encounter in the shock of the tournament. King Kenny’s position looks precarious.

10th January: A new look Liverpool will take on Spurs as the season meets its midpoint. New signings such as free-scoring centre forward Clinton Morrison and box-to-box-to-box midfielder Kevin Nolan do little to improve Liverpool’s form.

11th January: Morrison and Nolan are released after a clash of views with the management. Rumours spread that the two players wished to enjoy success and challenge for trophies, contrasting with Liverpool’s ambitions for failure.

Note: All above predictions state the worst-case scenario, which usually corresponds with Liverpool’s luck.

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We are just under two months away from football’s own January sales, and The Badger can let you in on some of the big deals taking place during the window.

Since the CAP (that’s the Court of Arbitration for Platini) overruled UEFA’s transfer ban on Chelski, expect the left-wing Londoners to stock up on players before another ban lands in their laps. Liverpool will also be on the lookout for a substandard, Spanish-speaking misfit to prance around moaning and unplayed for eighteen months. A hero’s return for Antonio Nunez?

Meanwhile, Manchester City will be continuing their usual hiring policy – “if Spurs want them, we’ll buy them” – to appease their opponents’ Premiership success, while Bandwagon United will pull off the real coup of the window by finally – seriously! – managing to offload Nani.

Unfortunately, Rangers’ mid-season bid to bring the formerly talismanic Christian Vieri to Ibrox will fail, as no bank will accept the cheque for his £200k signing-on fee.