A football fan writes...

Dear Players of Grimsby Town FC

I am writing with regard to my absolute astonishment and disbelief as to the sheer magnitude of your complete lack of talent and failure to carry out the job for which you are paid to do. I am not aware of any swear word or other derogatory phrase in my current vocabulary which comes close to a description of your ‘performance’ (and I use that term loosely) this afternoon, but let me just say that you have collectively reached a level of inadequacy and ineptitude that neither I nor modern science had previously considered possible.

In fact I recall a time, in my youth, when I decided to call in sick at work and instead spent the entire day in my one bedroom flat wearing nothing but my underpants, eating toast and wánking furiously over second-rate Scandinavian porn. Yet somehow, I still managed to contribute more to my employer in that one Andrex-filled day than you complete bunch of toss-baskets have contributed to this club in your entire time here. I would genuinely like to know how you pathetic little píssflaps sleep at night, knowing full well that you have taken my money and that of several thousand others and delivered precisely fúck all in return.

I run a business myself, and I believe I could take any 4,000 of my customers at random; burn down their houses, impregnate their wives and then dismember their children before systematically sending them back in the post, limb-by-limb, and still ensure a level of customer satisfaction which exceeds that which I have experienced at Blundell Park at any time so far this season. You are a total disgrace, not only to your profession, not only to the human race, but to nature itself. This may sound like an exaggeration, but believe me when I say that I have passed kidney stones which have brought me a greater level of pleasure and entertainment than watching each of you worthless excuses for professional footballers attempt to play a game you are clearly incapable of playing, week-in, week-out.

I considered, for a second, that I was perhaps being a little too harsh. But then I recalled that I have blindly given you all the benefit of the doubt for too long now. Yes, for too long you have failed to earn the air you’ve been breathing by offering any kind of tangible quality either as footballers or as people in general.

As such, I feel it’s only fair that your supply runs out forthwith. I trust, at this precise moment in time, that Mr Fenty is in his office tapping away on the Easyjet web site booking you all one-way flights to Zurich, complete with an overnight stay with our cheese eating friends at Dignitas. Don’t bother packing your toothbrush – you won’t need it. In the event that our beloved chairman can’t afford the expense (understandable given that he’s soon going to have to assemble a new squad from scratch), then I am prepared to sell my family (including my unborn child) to a dubious consortium of Middle Eastern businessmen in order to pay for the flights. Christ, I’ll drive you there myself, one-by one, without sleep, if I have to.

Failing that, understanding that most dubious Middle Eastern businessmen are tied-up purchasing Premier League football clubs, I ask you to please take matters into your hands. Use your imagination, guys – strangle yourselves or cover yourself in tinfoil and take a fork to a nearby plug socket, or something. Just put yourselves and us fans out of our collective misery.

So, in summary, you pack of repugnant, sputum-filled, invertebrate bástards; leave this club now and don’t you fúcking dare look back. You’ve consistently demonstrated less passion and desire than can commonly be found within the contents of a sloth’s scrótum, so frankly you can just all fuck off – don’t pass go, don’t collect your wages, don’t ever come back to this town again. I look forward to you serving me at my local McDonald’s drive-thru in the near future.

Yours sincerely

A very disillusioned Mariner

More Comparing and Contrasting

Have a look at these two Wikipedia pages relating to current Hearts' manager, Csaba Lazlo - and as you decide which is the truthful one, note the level of citation in each.

Hearts' fans sold another puppy, anyone?

Csaba Lazlo's Wikipedia Page Today

After his appointment as a Head Coach of Uganda, they missed out on qualification for the African Cup of Nations in Ghana 2008 on goal difference in favour of Sudan. Unfortunately, he was unable significantly to improve Uganda's FIFA Ranking, which rose from 99 when he joined to 97 when he left in 2008. 1

He was also accused him of "fail[ing] to oversee the creation of under-age teams to feed the senior side"[2] and "not watching the local league and repeatedly frown[ing] at the idea of putting up youth structures to unearth the next Ibrahim Sekagya"^[3]

Uganda beat arch-rivals Nigeria for the first time in football history and in December 2007, they finished third in the CECAFA Cup. However, they also underwent their longest run without an away victory for seven years, and lost to Lesotho, Niger, Benin (a loss described as a "humiliation" and "inexcusable")^[4] and Tanzania (a "lame-duck display" according to the Ugandan press)^[5].

Csaba Lazlo's Wiki Page just after his appointment by Hearts

His appointment as a Head Coach of Uganda was an incredible boost for the East African nation.^{[citation needed]} After his arrival, they went on their best run in 24 years^{[citation needed]}; missing out on qualification for the African Cup of Nations in Ghana 2008 on goal differnence in favour of Sudan^{[citation needed]} and jumped from 167th to 91st in the FIFA World Rankings.^{[citation needed]} He also helped the development of Ugandan players Noah Babadi Kasule, David Obua and Ibrahim Sekagya^{[citation needed]}.

Uganda beat arch-rivals Nigeria for the first time in football history^{[citation needed]} and in December 2007, they finished third in the CECAFA Cup^{[citation needed]}. Thanks to his charisma and hard work,^{[citation needed]} FUFA (Uganda FA) signed a 1 million USD sponsorship deal^{[citation needed]} with African mobile telephone giants MTN and African giants Satellite Television channel GTV signed a 5 years contract to broadcast the league games of the Ugandan football league^{[citation needed]}. In 2008 Csaba László became the only foreign trainer who has been able to remain as a national team coach of a African side for over two years.^{[citation needed]} He became a cult hero in Uganda;^{[citation needed]} he has been nicknamed "The Miracle Man" by the African press.^{[citation needed]}

Great Site, Daft Name

Bimbogami is the Japanese God of Poverty, Google informs me. If he gets into your house, you will end up poor, dirty and unhappy. It is also the name of a nifty new puzzle website that I've been beta-testing in a desultory manner for the past few months. The connection eludes me, I have to admit.

However, the site - which goes live this weekend - is excellent and comes highly recommended to anyone who misses Puzzle Donkey. Comprised of a linear path through a myriad of puzzles, Bimbogami has, imo, a reasonable difficulty ramping and some very clever and inventive conundrums, many of which require a good deal of non-linear thinking.*

Well done to Steve and his occasional coding monkey Scott for getting it all sorted and ready to roll - all that's left for you to do is join and test your wits against...some Japanese mythical skinflint. No, sorry, I still don't get the connection...

Also, can I just point out that I've been saying exactly this for two years now. It'll give me no pleasure to say 'told you so' though :(

Finally, damn - I just discovered that I missed the deadline by several months for submission to Myth Makers, the DWIN-organised Doctor Who fanzine. This is annoying because (a) it's my favourite source of Who short fiction and (b) I'd stopped my occasional pestering of erstwhile editor, Richard Salter, when he stood down from the editorship and hadn't realised that I should have been pestering newly installed co-editor, John, instead. That'll learn me not to pay attention.

* Hopefully (though I haven't checked) they'll have moved the stupid puzzle with a picture of Big Ben in it straight into the bucket though. That was just daft.

Hope springs eternal

I've just finished watching Hibs beat my team, Hearts 1-0 in the first Edinburgh derby of the season, but oddly I feel more positive about Hearts than I have for some time (which isn't saying a great deal, but you have to start somewhere).

Given that we were missing half a team inlcuding our captain, vice-captain and midfield playmaker, had several players making their debuts and effectively played with a passenger up front, we played the vast majority of the actual football on show. Meanwhile Hibs - the so-called flair team - spent the entire first half booting the ball up the pitch and getting their cumbersome and skill-free new forward, Clayton Donaldson, to lumber towards it like a particularly ungainly sloth.

Hibs were, in truth, a poorer team than I expected, albeit one enlivened in the second half by some flashes from Benji, their Moroccan striker, but otherwise toothless and lacking in ideas. Hearts it has to be said, were equally lacking in inspiration, but at least we were always moving the ball on the ground, and trying to play the game in a way Hibs' fans and the Scottish press like to think the Hobos have a monopoly on. We may have failed to score, but we had some twenty shots compared to Hibs two, which provides a more realistic measure of who had all the pressure.

And let's have no more talk of diving Hearts players following Rob Jones - all 6 foot four of blady serial killer of him - throwing himself to the ground, feigning a foul, to prevent Hearts' five foot nothing midfielder, Ksanavicius - the Man of the Match in any neutral's eyes (so obviously not in those of fervent anti-jambo Steve Lovell, then) from scoring a certain equaliser.

One final thing - how refreshing was it to see a Hearts manager take off two players who were playing rubbish, even thought they were Lithuanian? If the gormless Miko and clueless Beniusus had been hooked earlier we might even have won, but still - little steps to start with. Anyway, a Hearts manager subbing Romanov's red-cheeked love child Miko is usually a precursor to a P45 so it was a pleasure to see our new coaching team arewilling to risk that for the team.

Hi Dave, do you like the review? ;-)

Judas goes to Castle Greyskull

Sad to see that Rangers have agreed compensation with the SFA over their blatant tapping of Walter Smith, our erstwhile manager. While it would have been a source of some tension to have the governing body of football in this country taking one of our top teams to court, it would have made a refreshing change to see the SFA standing up to one of the Old Firm bullies just for once.

It would also have been nice to see the SFA hit Smith with as many problems as possible, because the man is no more than a hypocrite and a disingenious charlatan. I'll ignore with but a passing snigger the fact that Smith lambasted the Hibs contract rebels just last week for attempting to break contracts they had signed to focus instead on Smith's pathetic claim that, had the SFA offered him an extended contract, he'd never have left.

That sounds fine until you read his next sentence, where he says that they did in fact approach him and ask if he wanted a new contract and he said no, he was fine with the situation as it was! OK Walter, if you say so (it's maybe not his fault he makes so little sense - maybe he's growing senile).

I don't really expect Smith to be a huge success, in any case - taking over an already successful Rangers team with far more money than anyone else in the league is one thing, but he was quickly found out at Everton where he had little money to spend and therefore failed to drag the team into the top half of the league and, one fortunate result against France aside, his success at Scotland has been wildly exaggerated IMO. Christ, I'd look good if I took over a coaching job from the utterly inept Berti Vogts.

Meanwhile, and just to demonstrate that my loathing for Judas Smith is not an anti-Rangers thing per se*, best of luck to Ally McCoist, a player I always had a lot of time for.

* Although I actually do loathe both Rangers and Celtic as a shower of bigots, bullies and cheats, supported in significant numbers by knuckled-dragging halfwits. And I admit that I laughed like a drain at the SFA banning Andy Webster, the baby Judas, from turning out for Rangers following his clearly underhand 'tranfer' to Wigan and subsequent loan to the Hun.

Glory, glory to the Jam Tarts!

Well it wasn't the rout we'd all hoped for (plucky little outsiders be damned - I was hoping for 5-0), but Hearts eventually triumphed in the Scottish Cup Final on Saturday, beating Second Division Gretna 4-2 on penalties after the score remained 1-1 after extra time.

Rudi Skacel, our one-time talisman turned ball-greedy spit monster, scored his first goal in fifteen matches to put us 1-0 up just before half-time but Gretna equalised with the world's softest penalty (even Charlie Nicholas, the biased, diamond ear-ring wearing little arse, said it was no penalty) fifteen minutes from time.

We hit the post a couple of times, should have had a genuine penalty ourselves five minutes before the end of extra time and, to cap it all, had our main penalty taker sent off 30 seconds before the end of the game and the penalty shoot out started.

Still - we won, they lost and, to be honest, I have a lot of time for Gretna now - they've got decent owner and friendly fans and they took defeat like gentlemen, unlike fans of the Bigot Brothers (or us, half the time).

Second in the league and winning the Cup is our most successful year for nearly half a century but maybe next year it could all be a little less stressful? Please...