A nationwide outbreak of lame wisecracks about Paul Scholes coming out of retirement was today being pinpointed by meteorologists as the cause of a minor earthquake that hit Britain yesterday, around teatime.
Although the Manchester United midfielder officially called it a day at the end of last season, he made a surprise return to Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad for yesterday’s 3-2 FA Cup win at bitter rivals Manchester City, making his second debut by replacing Nani in the 59th minute.
Registering at a disappointing 2.5 on the Richter scale, the quake passed largely unnoticed amongst the general public, but a spokesperson for the Royal Meteorological Society told Football Burp that the event opened new windows of understanding for himself and his excited colleagues.
He said: “From what we have observed, it would appear that this earthquake can be directly attributed to the larger-than-usual dispersal of blindingly obvious, football-based jokes amongst the populace.
“You may well have been told at some point in your life that everyone in China jumping up and down at the same time would throw Earth out of its orbit, but while this notion is generally believed to be fanciful, it does in fact appear to be the case that everyone in Britain turning to their mate and saying ‘I reckon they’ll bring Beckham on next!’ can generate sufficient momentum to create seismic waves in the Earth’s crust.
“So if you were one of the literally thousands of people to Tweet or text ‘I see Bobby Charlton is stripping off’ yesterday, you should know that you didn’t just put me off my Yorkshire pudding – you also contributed to a landmark meteorological discovery.”
When pressed for comment, former Red Devils captain Roy Keane quipped: “Even the voices in my head were telling me to leave the ITV studio and warm up on the touchline just in case.”
He added: “LOLZ!!1!!”