Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard is not yet aware that last night’s text from Roy Hodgson inviting him to captain England at Euro 2012 was in fact a total wind-up, according to Burp sources.
The West Bromwich Albion boss looks to have beaten off competition from bookies’ favourites Harry Redknapp, Ray Winstone and Pippa Middleton to land the national job, the FA confirming yesterday that he is as of yet the only person they have approached about having their respectable club record torn to shreds by the English press right from the moment it becomes clear that he’s not going to suddenly make footballing nonpareils out of a group of players that has never made it past the quarter-finals of anything, ever, most likely not even on FIFA or Football Manager, that is if they happen to spend their spare time immersing themselves in a fantasy world based on their own lives, which they probably do and all.
Formulating an amalgamation of various accounts from a pal, an onlooker and a scruffy dog that no-one realises can actually speak and understand English – although they do tend to sense that something’s not quite right when he articulates “woof” in the the matter-of-fact manner of an old-school BBC announcer – Football Burp understands that Hodgson intends to toy with Gerrard’s emotions as a swift and decisive payback for chasing him out of Anfield last year with a Phil Collins LP and a series of powerful shots from distance, many of which cannoned off a defender and went out for a corner that amounted to absolutely nothing.
The pal/onlooker/super-intelligent canine said: “I/we can confirm that last night Steven Gerrard, a Gemini, was the ecstatic recipient of a text from Roy Hodgson containing words to the effect of ‘no hard feelings lad, come and captain the Golden Generation to long-awaited glory in Poland and Ukraine this summer’.
“However, what Steven doesn’t know yet is that Roy has arranged for a barbershop quartet to arrive at Melwood as soon as he’s officially installed in order to sing: ‘Ste Gerrard, Gerrard! You can’t play with Frank Lampard! As publicans say, ‘You’re barred!’ Ste Gerrard, Gerrard!”
They added: “And then a blimp bearing the legend ‘DICKHEAD!’ will pass slowly overhead. It’s all very tactically astute, informed no doubt by his many years’ experience of management both here and abroad.”