On The Fall Of Fabio Capello.
AND LO!
The kingdom of Ing-er-land was in ferment and distress and everywhere the people were afflicted by pestilence, the Danes, the Germans, the Franks and even the Andorreans! For no great King could be found to lead our brave albeit somewhat overpaid useless and stupid lads to any effect in battle!
Many years ago in the year of 966 it had seemed that Ing-er-land would be swallowed whole by the barbarians, and King Sir Alf the Great was forced to live in a boggy hole and live on a diet of burned cakes! And yet with the Will of God he rallied his reeves, thanes and lampreys and in a tactically astute wingless formation routed the invading Teutons at the Battle of Wemberly (4-2) and Ing-er-land was TOP NATION!
But then sad years of decline followed, for King Sir Alf The Great became old and frail, and no Good King could be found to replace him, and the land was wasted and there was no harvest of cups and trophies, but only failure and non qualifications! Oh folly!
Oh the groans of the Ing-er-lish to be afflicted so! My son!
And so the Witan, which is the Council of so called Wise Men of the FA, meaning “those who were blazers”, did convene again and again to choose a new King who could rescue the land of the Ing-er-lish from despair and yet ever their choice was unrighteous and ill counselled! For no man could be found who could be King and manage the lads.
For their first choice was Ron of the Green Wood, but he was too fat and had no personality at all.
For their next choice was Bobby, Rob’s Son, but although he was brave and noble, he was most unlucky in battle, and they betrayed him, and yet he became much beloved of the Common Wield when he grew old.
For their next choice was Graham the Tailor Man, but he was castigated by a plague of turnips, and grew sad and old. But once again he became beloved of the Common Wield.
And then there was Glenn the Confessor, in whom much promise of technical kingship was spoke of, but he devoted himself the Religious Way, and it is said that he made his Household Troops pray 23 hours a day, and wear strange and mystical symbols, and he was accused of WICCA CRAFT and deposed!
And there was Terry the Disqualified, who although cunning in battle was sly, and prone to [illegible].
And there was Kevin, Prince of Scunthorpe, who had been a valiant warrior in his youth, but died of a surfeit of shell suits and nerves.
And all the while the Danes and Germans and Franks and Brazilians went freely where they wished in our penalty area and scored when they wished and took our silver and there was no one to contest them on the field of battle. And the Land was sad!
For when the ball was in the midfield our midfielders were in their penalty box. And when the ball was in our penalty box our players were in the midfield! And so great silver was granted to others and none to our lads!
And worse still, in all this time the country was effected by a plague of ill luck. Omens of evil in the form of fiery dragons of storms smote the land, there were blood red sunsets. And this proved true as we won not one penalty shoot out, for there was evil in the air, and the people were sore afflicted.
AND so it came to pass that there was no Ing-er-lish man left to lead the country of Ing-er-land! And the so called wise men of the Witan at the FA donned their blazers and ties and at last chose a foreign King, Sven the Boneless from Scandinavia, to heal the country. And yea, he was smooth and oily, and both men and women did fall prey to his Scandinavian charm. But as a former weather girl discovered, he did promise much and yet deliver little, and when battle was truly joined he was found to be dull and uninspired, and sod all use, frankly, and once again the nation of the Ing-er-lish were put to the sword.
And for all this the Witan of the FA did pay a great price of silver and gold known now as “Sven’s Geld”. And every man and woman in In-ger-land did pay much.
And so in disarray did these so called wise man turn to an Ing-er-lish man, Steve the Wally, but it was no use, and he was sent into exile in the land of the Dutch.
And so once again the land of the Ing-er-lish was in turmoil, and once again the Witan of the FA turned to a foreign king, Count Fabio of Tuscany, and a huge wagon of silver, nearly 400,000 pounds in weight, was raised and sent to persuade him. And he came with great ranks of advisors and there seemed to be no end of their number and of their number there were too many to be counted. And all were to be paid!
Duke Fabio was stern of countenance and had proved strong in war. And yet when he was King he treated his men with disdain, and he was Tactillium Fuckwittardus, which means from the Latin that he did not set his team up right, and unnready, which is in Old English “ill counselled”, “bad counselled”, and unwilling to speak in the tongue of the Ing-er-lish, his subjects and those who paid him tons! Oh unhappy people!
And when his men went into battle against the hated Teuton they were massacred, and the nation groaned. And he spoke not in Ing-er-lsih yet.
Yet curiously of this the Witan of the FA said nothing at all . But when his Captain, John of Chelsea was accused of calling someone “a nasty little Mercian sh*t” there was a great furore, for there can be no worse insult than calling someone a Mercian. And at last Fabio behaved with honour and defended Terry, who had as yet been convicted of no offence.
And yet it came to pass that having spent all the Gold and Silver on these ill counselled Kings, the Witan sent Fabio into Exile. With more gold!
But by God’s great mercy, there strode forth Harry Ironsides, a mighty warrior and chirpy son on Ing-er-land who had been undergoing a little difficulty about the small matter of £183,000 in an offshore bank account.
The king is dead. Long live the King!
VIVAT! VIVAT! VIVAT!
Gildas the Monk
-
1
February 9, 2012 at 08:50 -
I thought I was at home when I read this…!
-
2
February 9, 2012 at 09:05 -
You made I larf again.
-
3
February 9, 2012 at 09:22 -
Gildas – you are a genius. Need to clean coffee off my damn screen again!
-
4
February 9, 2012 at 10:21 -
The Venerable Bede could take lessons from you !
-
5
February 9, 2012 at 10:33 -
Peace on you, Fabio.
-
6
February 9, 2012 at 10:40 -
Bravo! *applause*
-
7
February 9, 2012 at 11:11 -
Yea verily, there is much joy and rejoicing among the scribes of the great annals, and amongst the sayers of sooths known as ‘pundits’ for they have now something about which to say sooths. Yet I fear that when all is said and done, there will be much more said than done.
Shall Harry of the Red Knapp, smiter of the Licencsed Leeches, be the leader to take ‘our lads’ (that motly bunch of overpaid over-rated wazzocks) to glories great and long-lived in the memory?
Who knows. Who cares? Who cares who knows. But at least it’ll keep the overpaid sayers of sooths and punditry happy for a bit.
Anybody see the Ireland- Wales oval-ball clash on Sunday? Now that was a battle worthy of heroes…
-
9
February 9, 2012 at 11:36 -
Brilliant Gildas, but Harry the Cheery? Surely not, arrgh….
-
10
February 9, 2012 at 11:40 -
Thanks all. Bits of this are actually taken with a little bit of licence from the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (for those of you who may be history anoracks, like me!)
-
12
February 9, 2012 at 13:13 -
Just going off on a tangent….
So Fabio was on £6m/year. For a very productive part of society – not. Sport is only entertainment. Yes it does keep a lot of people employed, but the top level don’t create stuff.
All the hand wringers are saying that taking a bonus of £1m for doing something productive is extortion and immoral and do their best to stop people entitled to them from taking the bonus.
Why aren’t they clamouring for the top level actors and presenters to refund their enourmous salaries. Why? Because most of the entertainment are lefty-lovey-dovey and the plebs need to be kept entertained so that they don’t question the state of affairs too much. And you can’t be seen attacking your own team either.
But be a business person who earns tons and you will be vilified. Unless you are a cheeky chappy like Branson and Sugar.
-
13
February 9, 2012 at 14:28 -
SBML
How right you are, its called “Bread and Circuses”.And most (not all) businessmen who earn lots of money have done it whilst creating lots and lots of jobs for the man in the street, unlike sports personalities.
So hands up, all those who have had their job created by a poor person.
-
14
February 10, 2012 at 10:08 -
I don’t have any problem with self made businessmen like Sugar and Branson earning their millions. I do object to the employees in financial institutions in this country paying each other millions in a self serving circle of greed. The most disgusting part of which is that these fuckers actually believe they deserve their pay and bonuses.
You are quite right regarding other ‘professions.’ We pay Cappello £6 million a year for fuck all. His predecessor gets sacked and paid off the rest of his contract. Millions for nothing. Football will go broke one day, the sooner the better.
And all the luvvies and movie ‘stars’ raking in millions. Disgusting hypocrites preachy their leftie shite. You can watch them on telly every year giving their services for nothing (other than free publicity) demanding that the hoi polloi dig into their wallets. Fuck off!
-
-
15
February 9, 2012 at 14:18 -
Here in Northumbria, we also have A National Disaster: http://bit.ly/wFfmII
Read it and weep, people. -
16
February 9, 2012 at 14:37 -
Does anyone have a translation of what Fabio actually said that brought down the wrath of, among others, the Prime Minister?
-
19
February 9, 2012 at 15:44 -
Thinking of the Middle Ages, might it be time for a Mowbray?
-
20
February 9, 2012 at 16:05 -
‘Appy ‘Arry could sign his England contract “Rosie 47″. That way when the England team flop, he can always say, “wasn’t me Guv, honest”.
-
22
February 9, 2012 at 18:42 -
So… Now it came to pass that the Great Oracle foretold that Harry Ironsides would arise… King of Ing-er-Land, having… by some uncommon miracle, by some casting of spells and weaving of magic (thereto appearing unto The Learned Court and unto the assembled Judiciary to be ‘a foolish and knavish oaf’, unskilled and unlearned in the ways of the Text and the E.mail and of uncommon ignorance in all matters of the Written Word) and having thereby extricacted himself (by God’s Great Mercy) from the clutches of the ‘Godless Men of Revenue’ and from being thereby committed by them and the learned Judiciary to The Chokey… This Man, this Harry, he is THE ONE, who will lead Ing-er-land to Glory?
Methinks not, for it is written that ‘thou cans’t not not Polish a Turd’, and a great Turd is the sum worth of the men of Ing-er-land who wear the White Shirt with the Three Lions Rampant, for they are not worthy of the Trust of the people, for they worship at the altar of Mamon and devote themselves to Drunkenness and the ‘Spit Roasting’ of nubile wenches and with general Debauchery and Lecherousness… and great will be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth of the assembled populace, there gathered; the great beast Disappointment will stalk the land and will bring woe upon the multitudes foregathered.
-
23
February 9, 2012 at 19:07 -
Amen, Frankie!
-
24
February 9, 2012 at 19:44 -
Frankie!
Come into my parlour little one. The mighty Gildas hath met his match. Keep going, don’t stop there……-
25
February 9, 2012 at 20:56 -
Quite so Frankie! By the way I loved your work with “The Saturdays”…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2098403/Frankie-Sandford-dines-Wayne-Bridge-Mayfair-The-Saturdays-work.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
-
-
-
28
February 9, 2012 at 22:04 -
Saints preserve me but I thought I didn’t really know how many legs a football team has, then it turned out I recognized all this gruesome crewsome.
Excellent.
-
29
February 10, 2012 at 21:52 -
But lo ! many have been harsh and did say cruel things about Count Fabio, yet he did win two-thirds of all his battles, which was greater even than King Alf in his pomp. And if those knaves and villeins who served him had actually done as he bade and commanded, then perhaps he would be lauded as a great hero. And if the Frankish knight, Lampard, had had his vital thrust against the Saxons recognised, then who knoweth what may have unfolded …
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }