998 Words: The John Barnes Rap

A beginner’s guide to premiership football.

It is wildly claimed that England invented the game of football or “the beautiful game” and turned it professional over one hundred years ago.

Today the game is played all over the world and is still going strong in the UK.

The rules of the Premiership league (the top flight league) is played by eleven millionaires per team. Each team is owned by a billionaire or group of business men and watched and paid for by thousands of people who struggle to make their government issue benefits last the week.

£25,000 per week gets you this...

The general line up of any squad must contain at least one goalie (the one who stands around with big gloves on swearing a lot and occasionally spitting) defenders (who scream at each other, spit a lot and kick the opposition) midfielders (who help the flow of the game by spitting a bit more than the defenders which makes the ground slippery and the ball stick to the phlegm on the grass and sometimes score a goal) with the last section of the team known as strikers (these are the main spitters, who also swear the most at the referee and kick the ball in the general direction of the oppositions goal)

Spitting can take many forms and the skills shown on the pitch are practiced by youngsters across the land.

From the simple throat rumble to the elegant nose dive, spitting is now as much a part of British culture as cucumber sandwiches, drug abuse and pre-teen pregnancies.

The main aim of football is to spit more than the other team whilst swearing and being paid vast amounts of money for being quite pretentious and delicate.

The beautiful game - in full 3D-HD

The best example of this is when contact is made by the foot, elbow or eyelash of a member of the opposing team.

When this happens the “abused” player must count to three (if possible) before jumping high into the air, holding any part of their body that has not been touched and then roll around the floor collecting as much discarded snot as they can.

While this is happening the manager or coach of that team is allowed to jump up and down, pushing and shoving the “fourth ref” who stands between the managers looking annoyed.

The manager of the player who has caused the “tackle” must not EVER see the actual incident especially if they are interviewed after the game by reporters.

Once the referee has dispersed the two teams from pushing and staring at each other with their head almost touching but not long enough for their Alice bands to become entangled (but without any real threat of violence to the level of hair pulling and scratching of eyes) the game continues.

"Tuck and Roll Wayne... TUCK AND ROLL!"

To the untrained eye, most of the 90 minutes spent on the field may seem to consist of the ball being passed from one player to another with the opposition occasionally getting hold of the ball and continuing the drama.

This is not quite the case.

The parade of co-operation is in fact a carefully orchestrated metaphor for the modern world, whereby we see very rich, overpaid, over sexed and under educated men pass the ball (or responsibility for their actions) from one to another in the vain attempt that they will not be caught out and found guilty of exposing themselves in a hotel room full of teenage girls with camera phones and a twitter account.

In extreme examples a player may find himself lacking the requisite concentration to deliver a ball to somebody wearing the same colour shirt as him and place the ball into the net their team are supposed to keep empty.

Lung Jam "natures hair gel"

This has become known as “an own goal”.

When an own goal is scored every single member of the loosing team immediately points and shouts at each other, blaming everyone but themselves thus allowing art to imitate life by showing a complete lack of responsibility or blame, regardless of the fact that 30,000+ people who paid to see him fail saw exactly what he did and collectively groaned with disappear the moment it became clear what was about to happen.

This moment of idiocy allows the rest of the viewing world a chance to bemoan about the fact that this player is paid millions of pounds per year to perform a simple task and is unable to complete basic hand eye co-ordination. Pity and sympathy is spread throughout the stands as collectively each and every man woman and child attempts to understand the mounting pressure that must be felt for someone whose job description is “running around for a bit twice a week”

"!!!!"

The fans of each team also have a very important role to play in the theatre of football and do their part by fighting, swearing at their own team and spitting a lot.

The game ends when Manchester United have scored one more goal that the other team, or enough bribes have been taken and all the prawn sandwiches have been eaten in the posh seats.

Most other games end in a draw or the team I follow looses by a long margin.

Every four years the players from each country with the most potential to disappoint are selected to travel somewhere nice and play badly in front of the entire world. And spit a lot.

They also release a pop record. The only one of any note can be seen below.

When not practicing to make themselves better at what they do, players can often be found selling their worthless souls advertising shaving cream, underwear and aftershave.

Beyond this they will be located spuds deep in a skinny tarts hotel room which is usually reported in a tabloid rag of a newspaper.

And that my friends, is football in a nutshell.

Go team!

Next week CRICKET: Standing around in a field with your hands in your pockets for five days until it rains and the game ends in a draw.