I am furious. No, it’s worse than that. I am outraged. I cannot believe that frauds who are setting up this so called “European Super League” have not been exposed. Indeed, I am surprised they have not been dragged from their beds and hung, drawn, quartered, whipped, water boarded and before before finally being beheaded, forced to watch endless episodes of Keith Chegwin’s Naked Jungle, Naked Attraction and Embarrassing Bodies.
No. Wait. I’m sorry.
Even if they deserve it, that last one is too cruel.
So who have these incompetent oafs chosen to take part in their so called “super” league?
AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur.
It’s a joke.
Where are Drogheda United, Rochdale and Ballyclare Comrades?
Most of all, where is Archibald Albion?
I mean, if they’re looking for legends, they’ll find them in the history of the Archies.
This is a team which, the first time I saw them and in the game which convinced me to become their manager though I knew absolutely shag all about soccer, threw away a 3-0 half time lead by conceding THREE OWN GOALS in the second half.
This is the team which had players whose names are etched into history or, at least maybe, into the trunk of a tree in St Anne’s Park.
And if I could remember them all, I’d recall them here. But I’m 67 and I forget things like that.
But I do know that real football fans talk about the legends of the game: di Stefano, Baggio, Pele, Molony, Maradona and so on.
But I can’t forget the magnificent day we were away to Castleknock Celtic.
Before the game we watched our opponents, in their matching track suits, go through a warm up routine.
As the did, the Albion lads sat on the grass smoking and talking about where we’d go for a pint after the game.
Ten minutes into the game, the referee came over to me.
“I think your full back is concussed. He seems confused. Check him out.”
So I called over the player in question, Manners as we called him.
“The ref thinks you’re concussed, are you ok?” I asked him.
“I’m pissed,” he said, confessing that he’d been drinking into the early hours and hadn’t sobered up.
He played on.
And we won.
Indeed, the Albion won one of the toughest leagues in the world, Division 3 (Saturday) of the AUL.
Winning that league is a something the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United and Real Madrid can’t claim to have done.
Albion actually won a double that year.
Like I say, legends.
And any tournament without them can describe itself as “European” and a “League.”
But it sure as hell has no right to use the word “Super.”
Paddy's World 