The Fence Of God

Winners

Had enough of John Motson? Fancy eating David Beckham for breakfast? Well you need not be cannibal to have your heart’s desire. Peperami has fashioned a series of six celebrity fanimals, its sausage-shaped mascots. As well as Motty and Becks, you can rip into Wayne Rooney, Gary Lineker and Ian Wright. And Sven Goran Eriksson, although we’ve had our fill of him.

The Pope will support Germany for one half of tonight’s semi-final and Italy for the other. Benedict XV was born in Germany and supports Bayern Munich. He lives and works in Rome. His personal secretary Father George Gaenswein says: “His Holy Father is always impartial and so he will be tonight. His heart is with Germany and Italy.” And his money is on..?

Race horse owner Gary Martin had his horse Ronaldo gelded in an act of revenge on the Portuguese winger. “It would have given me much more satisfaction if I could have had the real Ronaldo’s nuts cut off. But this is the best I could do,” says he.

Losers

England have scored just one of their last five penalties in shoot-outs, and one of their last five kicks taken in normal time.

Former France forward Youri Djorkaeff told his paymasters at the New York Red Bulls soccer team he needed time off to deal with a family emergency. "We were told by Youri on Thursday that he had to leave the team and attend to an unexpected, serious family matter in France," a spokesman for the team, formerly known as the MetroStars, said in a statement. "As with any player in a situation like this, we granted his request with the understanding that he would rejoin the club immediately after the personal matter was resolved.” And that personal matter? The cameras panned the crowd at France v Brazil and there was Yuri. Oops.

For all his apparent lack of desire and skill, Sven Goran Eriksson’s England team created four good goal scoring changes to Portugal’s one. Should we blame the Swede for failure? Or Rooney for getting himself sent off?

Posted: 4th, July 2006 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink