Bad Twin

Travel back in time almost 16 years exactly and jump across the pond to Caeser’s Palace in Las Vegas and you will find yourself at Wrestlemania IX, one of the greatest events in the history of sports entertainment. Why is this relevant you might justifiably ask? Well it’s relevant folks because Sir Alex Ferguson thinks it’s relevant as he has clearly been watching the video over the last few days for ideas.

You see, in this historic wrestling extravaganza evil clown Doink was able to pull a fast one on oversized opponent Kona Krush by producing an identical twin from underneath the ring to knock seven bells out of Krush while he was incapacitated. Ferguson isn’t even oblique about his evil plans: “We have two great Brazilian defenders in Fabio and Rafael and it’s impossible to distinguish who is who. My dream would be to start one and replace him with the other without anyone noticing. They are extraordinary.”

Having already tried this scheme with the purchase of Nani, to swap Ronaldo on and off at will, Ferguson seems now to be confident that he has two players who are actually good so it’s full steam ahead. Of course by joking about this with the press he probably couldn’t get away with it in a proper game, but hell, it’d sure make a great pitch for a high concept sitcom.

Do You Want Chips With That, Love?

Manchester United are so relaxed these days that, rather than actually make their players train during the week, they allow them to just get stoned and appear in the occasional programme for MUTV. While previously this was an egotistical mish-mash of reserve games and masturbatorary player profiles, MUTV has now evolved into a fully-functional media node, producing its own entertainment shows with a view to have a film development department up and running by the end of the year.

Those of you lucky enough to have both a subscription and a free Sunday night were this week treated to the premiere of Red Devil’s Kitchen, in which United resident chef Romain Camos helps footballers prepare a fancy meal. “Traveling all over the world with United, I wanted fans to go behind the scenes and see what I see – a different side to the player and the manager,” enthused Camos. “RDK is a very relaxed programme. I make sure we have some good football banter while we’re preparing the food. And as you might expect when you’re cooking with professional footballers, all the recipes are healthy!”

So in last night’s episode then, first guest was Frenchman Patrice Evra, who was given the opportunity to make his first ever meal for himself. Advisedly not starting with something easy like cheese on toast, Evra plumped for lobster ravioli: “It wasn’t easy but I am very happy. I made the dish with all my heart. It was very funny and a good experience.”

Other Manchester United personalities scheduled to appear on the show include Denis Irwin, Bryan Robson and Sir Alex Ferguson. In anyone needs me I’ll be right here, on the edge of my seat…

Sit Down. Shut Up.

The football world is going increasingly mad. When you go to a game these days you can’t stand up, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, and now apparently at Middlesbrough, you can’t actually make any noise. At Saturday’s bore draw with Wigan, supporters of the free-falling team were handed out letters telling them to only cheer when the team scores. Seriously. Consider then that Boro have failed to net in more than eight hours at the Riverside, which would obviously render the stadium all the atmosphere of a morgue, or worse still, The Emirates.

The circulated note (uncovered by our good friends over at The Spoiler - click above to enlarge), was sent from safety officer Sue Watson, also asked fans not to stand up too much during games: “I am receiving more and more complaints from our own fans about both the persistent standing and the constant banging and noise coming from the back of this stand. Please stop. Make as much noise as you like when we score, but this constant noise is driving some fans mad.” Stunned supporters couldn’t believe it when the letter was dished out at the Riverside Stadium before Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Wigan. The written request was given out by stewards to fans in the stadium’s South East corner, where many specifically moved last season to create a singing area.

Furious fans have since set up a Facebook group calling for Watson to quit, with one fan intoning: “The letter’s an utter disgrace. The anger and resentment it’s caused shows what a PR disaster it is.” Another supporter told journalistic juggernaut the North East Gazette: “Are they going to give us prompt cards to tell us when we can sing and when we can’t? You would think that given our current league position, the club would be wanting us to help rally the team and get behind them. This is a working class sport and it’s a passionate sport. When we were at Ayresome Park, if you weren’t at the game you used to be able to hear the crowd from the town centre. We need to bring back the Riverside Roar!”

Despite this, last night Boro’s chief operating officer Neil Bausor maintained that the club did still “encourage passionate and noisy support,” adding: “we understand the strength of feeling on this issue and we accept the letter could easily have been misunderstood. We apologise to any supporters who have therefore been understandably annoyed.”

This anti-atmosphere campaign comes just months after the Premier League’s most famous fan, Mr Portsmouth FC, was told to stop singing so much and ringing his bell at Fratton Park because it was disrupting other fans’ enjoyment of the game. Whatever next? A coffee ban in Starbucks? A nudity ban in Browns??!!

Chantelle Makes Radical Breakthrough To Cure Broken Bones

There’s something just so right about Jermain Defoe and Chantelle Houghton. He is a shameless reprobate willing to put his dick in literally anything, and she…well, she got her start in modeling after her mother took some topless pictures of her in a local park. Stars clearly aligned somewhere because this is truly a match made in a sordid North London motel car park. Having shrugged off accusations of a life of lonely prostitution with fellow Big Brother reject Chanelle Hayes, Chantelle seems to be forging quite a career for herself, and maybe (just maybe) she will one day be referred to without the “ex-Celebrity Big Brother contestant” epithet.

Anyway, it might’ve escaped your attention that our Jermain is currently out injured, having tragically fractured a toe trying to perfect the reverse wheelbarrow position. Rather than waste time seeing specialists or attempting physiotherapy, he’s done the sensible thing and gone to sit on a beach in Dubai with his balloon-chested brain donor of a girlfriend. It is kind of a celebration for her though so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt; I know that when my girlfriend upped her cans from 32B to 32DD I definitely wanted to whisk her away for horseplay on a beach in the Middle East too.

One onlooker, who is reportedly unable to stop touching himself at the moment, dribbled: “Chantelle looked absolutely stunning in a bikini and Jermain certainly noticed. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her as she wandered around. And when she came back to the sunbeds he couldn’t keep his hands off her.” Thanks for that, really great contribution. Anyway, as you can see from the pics, Chantelle certainly had no idea the cameras snapping as she frolicked in the sea, under the public shower and next to Jermain on a sunbed.

In other thrilling news, Chantelle recently admitted that Jermain is “the one,” which apparently sent him into the stratosphere because you just know that when girls like that say things like that, it means one thing. Anal.

I’ll Cut You First Blud

You don’t need me to tell you El-Hadji Diouf is nasty piece of work, and the cynical amongst you will probably suggest that his quick-fire move from Sunderland to Blackburn last week might’ve been predicated on some kind of falling out with the Maccams’ staff. And you would be right too! This is just a harmless bit of spitting or drink-driving though; this time Diouf really excelled himself by having a fight with Anton Ferdinand and threatening to actually stab him. What a lovely guy!

The bust-up took place at a post-match meal following Sunderland’s 1 - 0 midweek win against Fulham. A secretive ‘senior’ player told The Sun: “It was worse than anything I have ever seen and when they were pulled apart El-Hadji shouted that he would stick Anton with a knife.” Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, Diouf ensured that the bust-up continued the next day in training, leaving boss Ricky Sbragia no choice but to sell the Senegal striker to Blackburn the next day.

Another mysteriously unnamed source said the pair accused each other of a lack of effort on the field, and then the tear-up continued after the game in the dressing room: “It started during the game but El-Hadji clearly felt it wasn’t finished. It all kicked off. But the fight escalated extremely quickly and became very violent. At first we thought it was best to let them get it out of their system. But it became so vicious we feared that Anton could end up with serious injuries and El-Hadji was pulled off him. The squad was left stunned by what we had witnessed. Nobody spoke. None of us were surprised when we heard El-Hadji had been sold to Blackburn.”

In an ironic twist, Anton’s better-looking brother Rio is a well-known campaigner against knife crime, launching a truly successful anti-weapons initiative in London last year called ‘Respect your life, not a knife.’ Catchy, eh?

Remove Dignity Before Entering

Sometimes the focus on football-related stories on STT gets a bit lost, but please excuse the somewhat tenuous connection here and instead just wallow in a truly amusing story of low self-esteem and pathetic prostitution. You might recognise ex-Big Brother tart Chanelle Hayes from her several previous appearances over the last year or so, mainly through her MENSA-worrying friendship with fellow reality TV ho-bag Chantelle Houghton, but their shameless desire for fame apparently knows no boundaries.

You know things are bad when someone like Chantelle can still feature in The Sun’s Bizarre column on a regular basis ahead of you, but how truly bad must they be when you are prepared to just have sex with whoever is most famous fleeting-celebrity-of-the-week to make sure people remember your name. Chanelle then hit a new low last night by bedding Celebrity Big Brother ‘star’ Verne Troyer; yes that’s right, the guy who was Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies. I’d ask what the hell she was thinking but I think that’s a somewhat self-defeating question.

The pair apparently spent all night flirting and smooching in a night club, before leaving together in the early hours for a good old-fashioned “sex and booze rampage.” Chanelle’s clearly intelligent gal pal quipped: “She (Chanelle) now knows size doesn’t matter. Verne may be a little fella but he knows how to have big fun!” I really despair sometimes. Chanelle herself helpfully added: “Verne is a real ladies' man and certainly knows what to say to the ladies. He may be small but to be honest he has really cut my other boyfriends down to size.” Ok, enough with the shit size-related puns, this is just getting embarrassing.

2’8” Troyer was enjoying a pretty standard night of his bodyweight in vodka (genuinely not that hard) but when Chanelle arrived a source tells us “he ditched the vodka and made sure he was introduced to her.” Wide-eyed and aggressively horny, “he was like a Jack Russell on heat,” whatever the hell that means. The pint-sized actor only had this to offer today: “I have plenty of inches where it matters.” Thanks for that.

Cover Up. Please.

In case you haven’t realised by now, the Rooney family are a pretty classy bunch. Current STT favourite is cousin Natalie who soared into the public consciousness with a not-at-all-inappropriate bit of flashing at Coleen’s glamorous 21st birthday bash last year.

Never one to have more than three original thoughts a year, Natalie decided that last night it was about time she bought herself a bit more tabloid coverage by doing exactly the same thing again. Only this time she wasn’t alone. She dragged along her reprobate cross-dressing brother Stephen to the closing night of Trannyshack at the Soho Revue Bar and got him involved as well.

Failing to realise that literally no-one in the world wants to see that, Natalie was genuinely surprised to hear one onlooker comment: “This is possibly the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” Harsh but fair.

Italian TV is Great

So it’s a pretty tough gig being England manager. Sure expectations are high but ultimately everyone knows we’re going to fail, so in reality there isn’t really that much pressure. Oh, you also get more than 300 days off a year, and those 60-odd ‘working’ days involve basically just watching football at glamorous locations around the world.

You can understand then that sometimes current boss Fabio Capello needs to take some time off to relax. He is currently in Milan chilling out, but managed to squeeze in an appearance on local show Chiambretti Night (think Politics Today with less talking and more incongruous soft-porn) to presumably chat about the fractured European economy and the media embargo of Gaza.

Out of the blue though, the good producer-types decided to throw him what appears to be an impromptu stag do by bringing out a stripper to serenade him as he desperately tries to bend natural law and climb through the back of his chair. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look this uncomfortable while facing a perfectly formed gyrating rump.