All Aboard the Complain Train

You know, it’s a pretty bleak state of affairs when people from Russia criticise your country. On paper, they have basically nothing going for them; communist, bursting with nuclear weapons, and covered in freezing snow 99% all the time. Having seen the pasting that Andrei Voronin took earlier this year when he criticised the British way of life, how come Nemanja Vidic also now feels the need to express his displeasure at our fine shores? You’d think these guys would be grateful! Ok sure, you can write Voronin off as a long-haired fairy, but Vidic? The man is literally as hard as a coffin nail, was brought up in Serbia, and played for 18-months in Russia for Spartak Moscow. It seems that Vidic is so fed up with our weather though that he is desperate for a move to sunny Spain.

“I will never stay to live in England, that's for sure,” Vidic told a Russian lifestyle magazine this week. “The climate here is something special! You get only a brief glimpse of sunlight before it's all cloudy again. The winters are mild but in summer the temperatures seldom go higher than 20 degrees Celsius. And it rains, rains, rains!” Not content with just generally riling up English folk, he then took aim at Manchester specifically: “In England they say that Manchester is the city of rain. Its main attraction is considered to be a timetable at the railway station where trains leave for other, less rainy cities!” Harsh, but I think everyone will agree, also fair; that train station timetable is pretty exciting! “In future I would like to test myself in another top league,” he continued. “I'm thinking of Spain. At least there will be no reason to complain about the weather.”

But it’s not just the weather that’s bad in this country, it’s also the joyless way of life we adopt, and Vidic admits he misses the social life he enjoyed with his team-mates in Moscow: “In Russia and Serbia the people's way of life is similar. In England it's totally different. Here they just don't have time to feel the joy of life. Throughout the week they all work so hard. They only talk to people at lunch break. Then in the evening they come home and watch the telly so they can get up early for work the next day. The only time to meet friends are at weekends but for football players it's the busiest time of all. At Spartak after training, one of the players would suggest having dinner together, and in the evening we'd meet in a restaurant.” Wow, that sounds like such a hoot Nemanja, I can see why you’re sad. In fact, do you know what, if you miss having dinner with your old team-mates so much, why don’t you fuck off back to Moscow? Thanks, that’d be great.