It's never easy being the manager of a top-flight fantasy football club. Injuries, contract disputes, dressing-room bust-ups and media battles with players, other managers or your mother-in-law can cause you to forget why you love this beautiful game.
For the majority of the season thus far, two linchpins of my defence have been unavailable for selection. Michael Dawson and Thomas Vermaelen are crocked; and coupled with Glen Johnson's own injury problems, subsequent lack of form and therefore inevitable demotion to the bench, I have for some weeks now, selected a team where 3 or 4 of my defenders could not play (one of the many paradoxes of fantasy football).
The club's medical team worked around the clock to restore Quannegowes to full strength. The team doctor, Jin Ju Ma - actually he's a homoeopath, but gets ansty if you point that out and rumour has it, he has a black belt. I have been unable to confirm this, as usually he wears a long white coat, but basically his excellent posture frightens me - continually revised the return date for both Vermaelen and Dawson. The former, initially responded well to treatment - a rigorous regime of echinacea drops and good vibes.
In the case of Dawson though, we saw no improvement and even administering snake venom and ground tiger penis made no difference. Though in obtaining it, three of Dr Ma's staff lost their lives. Or maybe they were arrested? Either way, the club had to make a sizeable donation to London Zoo to keep it out of the news.
It was only after two months had passed, when Michael came to my office one lazy Monday morning, that I discovered why his treatment was failing to produce any positive results. You see, Dawson had avoided going to see Dr. Ma because a couple of the lads had told him that the doc was a homeo. Being an upstanding footballer and homophobe, I should have realised sooner.
We had gone from first in the tables to sixth and my assistant, Doughnut, implored me to bring in a replacement. Easier said then done. At a fantasy football club, you can't simply buy another player. Not without letting one go. That was a decision I was not looking forward to making.
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Another month went by and our descent into mediocrity was complete. Week after week, we fielded nine, maybe ten players, if we were lucky. There's only one thing that hurts a manager more than his team's rapid decline down the league table; and that's a kick in the nuts. So you can imagine how painful falling into relegation in Mayo South (Div 3a) was. (For those of you, without the requisite anatomy, think of a Brazilian wax, where the strips are pulled off very slowly and the adhesive is dried-on casserole. You'll get no, what would a woman be doing reading this? jibes from me. I'm a twenty-first century man and realise that lots of broad-backed lesbians like football).
After lengthy procrastination, and to Doughnut's relief, I finally made my decision. I'm not going to get into the whys and hows, or the whens and wheres or who did or did not eat my Twix , but needless to say, we had a going-away party for Michael Dawson. He was pretty pissed off about getting the boot and didn't attend himself but Tea Time Express provided a life-size chocolate replica. A sponge of such verisimilitude, that on three different occasions, attendees commented on how quiet (and tanned) Michael was. I didn't correct them.
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