Footurology: Dispatches from the future of The Beautiful Game, Part III
It was the great Gazza himself who said “I don’t make predictions, and I never will” and up until today we would have concurred with the daft Geordie tragedy-waiting-to-happen (a description which itself could be construed as a sort of foretelling, albeit of the ‘sun will rise tomorrow’ variety). Then we discovered we were psychic. Our soothsaying is conducted through the obscure patterns left on tactics boards, a form of divination we call VELLIOMANCY, from the Greek for arrows. Pointless arrows…
Have a recap by reading Part II, or delve right in.
17 January, 2018
Having quit football to take his dead Grandmother to bingo, Stephen Ireland regales the crowds at the Limerick Film Festival at the premiere of his widely lauded directorial debut, Jumpers for Goalposts, a neo-noir allegory of totalitarian delirium starring Phillips Idowu and Jonathon Edwards.
3 June, 2018
There’s a low huggermugger of discontent outside the Etihad stadium as some unctuous no-mark management gushspout brassnecks his way through a press conference announcing that Manchester City are to have 19 different home strip designs for the 2018-19 season and that only fans who buy at least half of them will be allowed entry to the games. However, Steve Greaves of CityFans said “We owe them the air that we breathe, so I ain’t mithered by it”.
21 July, 2018
Only 17 public tickets go on sale for the 2018 World Cup final in Moscow on account of the kleptocratic organizers having constructed a media centre covering 99.78% of the stands in order to accommodate compliant lickspittles of mainstream media and blogosphere alike, anyone prepared to ward off seditious stirrings in the masses and sniff out any activity bent on re-appropriating the gigantic booty-divvy that a pissed-up Yelstsin oversaw and Vlad Putin’s pretty chillaxed about. However, at the price of $148m, there is an extra-special ticket available in a caboose on the referee’s back.
28 September, 2018
WAG Studies is offered as a degree course for the first time at Romford and Basildon Polyversity, as well as the Birkenhead Institute of Blag. Emeritus Professor, Danielle Lloyd, convener of the popular Introduction to Mega-Shopping module, squealed: “I’m made up that we’re finally being taken seriously. Being a young, ambitious, working-class girl, pouring yourself into high-street cocktail-type dresses, and draping yourself sluttishly over the furniture of trendy metropolitan bars five times a week ain’t easy, I can telly you. We’re here to provide a shortcut for girls hoping to escape their grotty backgrounds and live a life of credit card joyriding and vapid semi-fame.” Professor of Poutology, Victoria Beckham, had a robot say on her behalf: “It can be really, really hard. Your fella sometimes has to go away for a long time. You have to put up with things like that.”
22 May, 2019
Everton fans stage a 48-hour sit-in demonstration at their new home, the Halton Stadium in Widnes, protesting at the club’s stagnation under David Moyes after back-to-back third-place Premier League finishes with a skeleton squad of just 14 full-time pro’s, of whom four are Byelorussians on the minimum wage, one a blind paraplegic, two schoolboys, and one an anchorite prone to trip over his 7-foot long beard. “We need to go to the next level, like,” said Craig Pike, the pronunciation of his name sounding like white noise.
