The Tale Of Mike Bashful At Geordie United
By Alan Hill
Mike Bashful’s Diary
Mike Bashful [Photo: Alan Hiill]There’s a story that when I was first becoming a bit of a player in the Sportswear industry, where all the big players were from up North, one of them said, thinking he would frighten me off,
"There’s a club up North and you’re not in it."
Mistake. Big mistake, as Julia Roberts said to the snobbish shop assistant in Pretty Woman. I bought his firm out from under him years ago. There are a few football clubs up there so I bought one of them as well, just to rub it in. I wish I’d never bothered.
Geordie Stripes became the bane of my life but I’ll turn a profit on them yet.
They were all chummy and grateful enough when I presided over their return to the Premiumship but the personal abuse and vitriol my family got when things didn’t go well and I tightened the purse strings was unforgivable. And I haven’t – forgiven that is. Anybody else would have put the club up for sale and got out in the face of all that hassle. I nearly did too but I sold the naming rights to their stadium for a few million quid instead and called it the Cheap Shirt Sport Arena. Canny, man! They went apesh*t. No sense of humour. Must be the miserable cold weather oop North.
My business has turned the corner again since the international financial meltdown (presided over by yet another Northern financial genius), so I don’t have to sell up if I don’t want to. And I don’t – yet. The ungrateful b*stards didn’t mind drinking my beer whilst calling me and Dennis the Menace and Del Boy the cockney mafia. I’ll show them cockney mafia. I even gave them Mary Poppins as manager when they demanded it and what did he get us? One win on the way to relegation. Now I’m going to make them bloody well suffer like they did me, before I go anywhere. They might just wise up and start treating me like a human being again. If not, trust me they’d be better off switching their sporting allegiance to ferret racing.
Meanwhile I’ve amused myself by getting in another southerner as a manager and tied one hand behind his back by filling the team with cheap frogs and bringing back Joe ’Kinnell to lord it over him. Sit back behind my wrought iron gates and watch the sparks fly. It’s not having quite the effect I’d hoped though thanks to the complete ineptitude on display at our red and white striped neighbours.
I call them the Plastic Mackems. They brought in a raving Italian and filled their team with cheap foreign imports. I wonder where they got that idea? It worked for about one game last season and it had to be against my bunch of wasters. I believe they genuinely wanted success. Just shows how inept they really are, unless it’s some kind of insurance, tax or money laundering scam, which I would never get involved with. Now they have just gone and done it again with the Uruguayan.
There are rumours that Alain Depardieu is off to fill the vacancy at Palace. Perhaps I should get their ex Liam Hollowlegs in here. Now there’s a guy who can manage in the Championship.
I had another inspired idea the other day. I have banned the local press from asking questions at our press conferences. If they can’t ask their awkward questions then they won’t be able to print them. Ha! I’ve also found it works if I stick my fingers in my ears and go NER,NER,NER NER very loudly so I can’t hear what they are saying.
I have also banned GUTS (Geordie United Trust Supporters) from fans’ forums for revealing the minutes of previous meetings. I’m all for free and open discussion but of course what is said must remain behind closed doors. I don’t want to risk creating a bad impression.
Saturday 2 November
Oh gawd, we’ve beaten West London Blues at home, despite everything. Didn’t see that coming. That complicates matters. I should have bought North London Whites or the Claret and Blue Cockneys. At least a real London team would get me. Still, plenty of time left to purse that option after I’ve bought up that ugly rusting hulk of a scarecrow statue dominating the skyline up here and sold it off as scrap.
***This article is pure fiction and for your amusement. Any resemblance to any real life situations or characters, alive or dead is purely coincidental***