Par For The Eagles

‘WELL done Crystal Palace for giving us something to laugh about.

Sponsored by Curchill

What with Sven Goran Eriksson’s cheating and the FA’s inability to think straight – let alone produce a team that can shoot straight – we’d started to forget that football is just a form of fun.

So it’s over to the Sun, where readers can laugh at the new Crystal Palace shirt – or “Chrystal Palace”, as the legend atop the club’s eagle crest says.

“You’d have thought that the one thing they would get right would be the club’s name,” says one fan.

“I’ve feared that we would be the Premiership’s whipping boys since we went up,” says another, who actually bought the shirt.

“But I never thought we’d be a laughing stock BEFORE the season started.”

Good old Palis. The club that has given us Ron Noades, Simon Jordan, Mark Goldberg, the surreal genius of Aki Rihilati and rumours that Colonel Gaddafi was interested in taking charge now deliver their latest joke.

Back in the more prosaic football world, the Mirror says that Patrick Vieira is finally on his way to Real Madrid – well, possibly.

And that Paul Scholes has definitely quit international football – well, until he changes his mind.

Scholes’ retirement from the national team is seen by the paper as being a bad thing. He has “stunned” the football “world”, it thunders.

“This is a decision I have not taken lightly,” says Scholes. ”I have been considering retiring from international football for some time.”

Those of us who saw his efforts in Euro 2004 would be forgiven for thinking that he was already semi-retired.

But now it is official, which means Sven Goran Eriksson will have to spend his time hunting for another gifted attacking midfielder rather just scouting for women who’ll sleep with him.

And you can be certain that Eriksson will be around for some time to come.

The Mail says that Eriksson emerged from his meeting with the FA’s lawyers to tell his friends: “My job is safe… The meeting could not have gone better.”

But not so for David Davies, the FA’s acting chief executive, who, the paper says, is firmly in the line of firing.

As is FA chief executive Geoff Thompson, who is said to be “teetering on the brink of resignation”.

Which could all mean that when the dust settles and the heads have rolled, the only person left standing is dear old Sven.

Cuban heels on his feet and a dolly bird by his side…’

Posted: 4th, August 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink