Sam s The Man

IT might sound like an unlikely career move for a rock journalist, paid liar and freelance drug pusher but nevertheless the whole world of sport will surely rejoice at the news that Sam Snort has been appointed the new manager of the England football team.
Admittedly, the newspapers have reported that the job has gone to an experienced Swede but that s easily enough explained.
Sam has always been of the opinion that it s best to operate on a need-to-know basis, which is why my job application to Lancaster Gate glossed over such irrelevant details of my career as my long years on the road with Foghat, my extensive experience in the porn industry, my sadly doomed venture into politics as a Legalise Horse Tranquillisers candidate, my ongoing interests in South American highland farming and that little stretch I did in Sing Sing sharing a cell with a big manmountain of a crack dealer named Busta but who preferred that I call him Mommy .
All fascinating shit for sure but hardly, you ll agree, the kind of stuff that a busy man like the FA s Adam Crozier needs to be concerned about when he s hot on the trail of an elusive saviour of English football.

Brutal Facts
That was the reason that my job application took, shall we say, certain liberties with the brutal facts of my cv. It also explains why my completed application went in under the name of Samsson Snortsson .
I won t bore you with chapter and verse here but suffice to say that, whilst neglecting entirely to mention how I triumphed in a one-handed joint-rolling competition backstage at the Isle Of Wight festival when I was just 13, my letter made copious references to a lifelong love of football, to a record collection consisting in its entirety of England s 1970 anthem Back Home and, of course, to managerial success with a variety of Swedish, Spanish and Italian clubs.
Needless to say, I saw no reason to specify that the club I managed in Sweden was called Big Bottoms and that the only way the letters FC could possibly have featured in the names of the Italian and Spanish clubs would have been with a U in between and a K at the end.
Otherwise I made sure to fill the letter with all the usual shite and gibberish about 4-4-2, squad rotation, eleven against eleven, get it down and keep it, wall done its job, lads gave one hundred and ten per cent, three lions on the shirt (though tempted, I decided to leave out a gag about three lines on the mirror) and the importance of imposing yourself on the opposition early doors (though tempted, I decided to leave out a gag about a Jim Morrison demo).
Superficially impressive though this Niagara of footballing bolloxology undoubtedly was, I don t really think it s what had the little pointy heads in Lancaster Gate down on their knees chanting my name the second they d finished reading my missive.
No I think it was the postscript that got em, the simple unadorned line: PS Lads, regarding women and football, a subject which I know you take as seriously as I do myself, I just thought I d mention that I have the home phone number of a goodtime Swedish babe with prominent mazoomas who can suck a football through a garden hose .
And before you could say, Good grief, Snort s been pulled off , the job was in the bag.

Congenital Losers
Indeed, so irresistible was this gambit that I may have almost inadvertently stumbled on the key to success at international level for English football.
Clearly, it can have nothing whatsoever to do with what actually happens on the pitch. I mean, there s no hope there at all. The English football team are now such a bunch of congenital losers that short of wholesale bribery and corruption they have fuck all chance of beating anyone other than, possibly, the Faroe Islands, and only then if the game is at home and the Faroes are missing that big lad up front who looks like a tree.
No, England are fucked as a footballing nation. The key to success then is to make sure that no-one is bothered by this fact. Hence, the importance of getting the press onside; if those bastards can be persuaded to stay off the manager s back, the general apathy prevalent in the English game is such that no-one will even notice when another point is dropped at home to, say, Romania or three goals are conceded without reply in Sofia.
And note the entirely intentional bias towards Eastern Europe. For here is the beauty of Sam s cunning plan: if the English FA can organise numerous friendlies in a part of world where the beer is cheap and the hookers plentiful, the boys in the press box won t be long playing ball.
Take some overweight lard-arse from Halifax who hasn t seen his own dick since 1966, stick a big cigar in his mouth and half a bottle of brandy under his arm and send him upstairs to the Velvet Suite for a good seeing-to by a vulgar, Bulgar beauty and Sam guarantees that your man won t be able to summon up the energy never mind the enthusiasm to indulge in any tabloid monstering at the manager s expense.
But, of course, if he needs any additional incentive to do the right thing, the prospect of Mrs Lardarse receiving a video tape in the post all the way from exotic Bulgaria, should concentrate his mind wonderfully well.
Already, irrespective of England s latest ignominious thrashing at the feet of fancy-dan foreigners, you can see those redtop headlines: SNORTSSON STAY IN THE POONTANG.
And so I shall.
Your ever-lovin
Samuel J. Snort esq