International week is upon us. This is what it must feel like when your kids all head off to college and your home, in all its emptiness, suddenly feels like a stranger's house. I liken it to the aftermath of a tornado, one moment you are in the midst of chaos, the next, an eerie vacuum. No shouting, no slapping of arses, no pinning Lucas down and farting in his eye and no Pavlyuchenco leading the boys in a chorus of Iron Maiden's Mother Russia.
As I write this, sitting alone in the vacated dressing room, among discarded bottles of Olay's all over body moisturiser, reflecting on our 42 point haul for this week, again I am left to ponder what could have been.
What if N'Zogbia had played? I knew what I was getting myself in for when I signed him. Only last week, with the aid of a colour wheel, I spent an hour convincing him that our kit was fuchsia, and not bufty-pink as The Sun, that morning had referred to it. But this week our kit manufacturer wanted to try something new and it was the final straw for Charlie.
To some, Ann Summers as kit manufacturer came out of left field, but after long and rigorous negotiations 'Pilot Girl' and 'Gangster Girl' convinced me that ours was a union that would revolutionise the way clubs and their sponsors did business long into the future. I don't know what his problem is, Doyler didn't seem to mind.
I explained to the boys that the benefits are two-fold. Firstly, the reduction in the amount of fabric used to make the shorts is a real money saver and secondly the ladies love it, in fact we are considering a female replica jersey based on a similar principal.
N'Zogbia committed the cardinal sin in football. He refused to play for his team. I told him that his behaviour disgusted me and that he'd be better off playing for the other side. He stormed out, but I didn't have that luxury - I had a game to prepare for. We went out there and gave it our best. We remain first and second in The League of Gentlemen and Mayo Div3a (South) respectively. The shorts had their good points, for one, the opposition were reluctant to mark us tightly at set-pieces, but some of the boys suffered horrendous grass burns.
As a top-flight fantasy football manager, I don't have much time to socialise. We are a privileged few and among my contemporaries there are those I call friend. In times of need, I am a shoulder or an ear or any other anatomical part they need me to be (though with Rafa it was often one of the latter. Glad to see the back of him, when he left for Inter that is).
For example, in my post match glass of Chablis with 'Arry, he was very upset. In an interview he had just done with Sky Sports News, the reporter had referred to him as a 'wheeler and dealer' to which 'Arry promptly told him to 'f@!k off'. But what the reporter didn't know, which 'Arry subsequently confided in me, is that his wife actually ran-off with a used-car sales man. He told me how on the day she left, his missus wished 'Arry "could've been more like Bob (the used-car salesman)." Ten minutes later the door bell rang and she was back at the front door. Their car had broken down on the way to Bob's house and 'Arry, so hurt, so vulnerable, so emasculated, vowed to be ever the wheeler-dealer, if she would give him a second chance. And as Harold was no more, 'Arry was born.
We sat together for some time after that, silent but for the occasional sob, digesting his harrowing tale. I asked what he thought of our new kit, and 'Arry slapped me in the face.
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