Pick On Someone Your Own Size!

Apologies folks, we’ve let you down; you see, in compiling our ultimate rundown of footballers’ Christmas parties earlier in the week we missed off one vital event. Former Chelsea player Tony Cascarino recalled to The Independent recently what went down in 1991 when amazingly Vinnie Jones was left unchecked to organise things. The location was a West London pub and the theme just a good old fashioned lock in; players only, no other staff, and training pre-emptively cancelled the next day.

So what ace did Vinnie have up his sleeves? A dwarf-tossing contest inside the pub. Yes, you read that right: an inter-team competition to see who could throw a vertically challenged adult the furthest. However, when only two dwarfs walked through the door, Vinnie was unsurprisingly perturbed: “Oi, what's your game? We've paid for three, not two!” One of them replied: “Oh, the other one got injured when he was thrown into a load of chairs at a gig the other day.” That is a sentence I definitely thought I’d never have to type.

The Chelsea boys apparently just cracked up, with a couple reasonably suggesting: “What about Wisey [Dennis Wise] making up the third one!” Anyway, faced with having to accept that explanation, Vinnie pointed at one of the dwarfs and said: “Ere, I fucking recognise you, don't I? You were the one I met when I appeared on that television programme, weren't you?” Apparently he was spot on, as the dwarf replied: “Yes, Vinnie, you were the one who tried to throw me in the water!”

The dwarves’ next step was to erect a bouncy castle, which had a sticky velcro wall, and put a mattress on the floor. They then reportedly strapped themselves into velcro suits and prepared to be, ahem, tossed. Cascarino remembers some of the players having difficulty getting the dwarves to stick to the velcro wall after a couple of jars. “They were heavier than I expected,” he quipped.

Why doesn’t this kind of stuff happen these days still? Damn you health & safety and political correctness!

Oh Fuck Off, It’s Christmas

Inspired by this simply amazing photo of young Giovanni Dos Santos charming all the ladies at Spurs’ recent Christmas bash, we endevoured to dredge through the history books and dig out some of the more famous incidents from the past. Thankfully though, The Mirror had the same idea, so what follows is pretty much just ripped off from them. Still guys, I guess at least someone might read it now eh?

Celtic (2002)

After their 2001 party ended with Neil Lennon unceremoniously smashing his head on a kerb in Glasgow, Celtic decided to head south of the border this year in “an effort to avoid attention.” And it was all going so well too, until that is a load of photographers turned up at up-scale Gateshead eatery Buffalo Joe’s, and Neil Lennon, Bobby Petta, Johan Mjallby and Joos Valgaeren decided it was time to punch someone. Subsequently the four spent the night in police custody.

Leeds (2001)

Remember when Leeds were both full of young British talent and also good? Well if you don’t, it was around this time. On paper this sounds literally perfect – a 10-hour Wild West-themed fancy dress pub crawl – and the execution certainly didn’t disappoint. The club hired five security guards to follow the 30 or so players around the city in an attempt to prevent any trouble, but never fear, you can always count on Robbie Fowler to kick off. He duly cracked a photographer and smashed his camera. Good lad.

West Ham (2001)

I doubt anyone actually knows who Hayden Foxe is, but all you need to know is that he’s ginger and Australian. Anyway, after dropping the best part of £2,000 in the VIP section of London’s Sugar Reed bar, Foxe decided he was too famous to be bound by stupid conventional labels like ‘lounge’ and ‘toilet,’ so promptly took a huge piss all over the bar. Pretty smooth. He was let go by the Hammers soon after.

AGF Arhus (2004)

Stig Tofting is a truly great name, and he more than lived up to its scrapping promise by having a rather good time out with the AGF Arhus lads shortly after joining them. After a mix-up where his shirt got torn, Stig decided the best way to bond with his new team-mates was to start throwing punches. He subsequently knocked four of them spark out. What a legend.

Liverpool (1998)

As STT’s favourite ever photo of Parrott Crouch proves, the Liverpool lads love a good dress-up, and even in the pre-Crouch days they didn’t mess about. A decade ago Jaime Carragher really outdid himself though by dressing as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, covering himself in strippers, and then covering all of them in whipped cream. Incredible. According to a genuine report in the NOTW at the time, Michael Owen just stood uncomfortably in the corner, while Paul Ince chilled out with the DJ looking “concerned.”

Leicester City (2001)

I just love that no-one thought that a Christmas piss-up involving Dennis Wise and Robbie Savage might end badly. It kicked off when Wise allegedly presented Savage with a teddy bear impaled on a dildo and told him: “Take this, because you're the only prick in a Leicester shirt at the moment.” Pretty strange comment, but I think the intent was clear. Not one to back down, Savage responded by smearing chocolate on Wise’s face and suggesting that him and Dave Bassett were, ahem, special friends. Wise duly responded with some crude sexual remarks about Savage’s then-girlfriend before it was fisticuff time.

Manchester City (2004)

In a quite famous and much-lamented incident, Joey Barton had a pretty good time at this bash. Word is that the ever-charming Joey was going around boasting about his hugely inflated wage, and attempting to make holes in the other players’ fancy dress costumes with a lit cigar. Youth player Jamie Tandy strangely took offence to this and tried to light Barton’s outfit with a cigarette lighter. Barton’s reasonable response? Stubbing said cigar out in the 18-year-old’s eye, almost permanently blinding him. He’s a sweetheart isn’t he?

Manchester United (2007)

You have to do something pretty special at a Christmas lash-up to get your boss to officially ban all future festive parties. And that’s exactly what Manchester United managed to collectively do last year. Conceptually it was just perfect: the night started with a 15-hour pub crawl and Rio Ferdinand was left in charge of organising entertainment, a task at which he did not disappoint by hand-picking 80 (eighty!) tarts to accompany them. First of all Wayne Rooney, while strumming a pretend plastic guitar, unknowingly chatted up a journalist with the immortal line: “I'm dressed like Justin Timberlake tonight – and you can be Beyonce.” What does that even mean Wayne?! Anyway, things kind of turned when the party went upstairs to the rooms and one of the bevy of beauties described a “vile” orgy, during which the men shrieked “like hyenas.” Oh, and 19-year-old Johnny Evans was also arrested on suspicion of rape. To be honest though, I’ve never had a bad night out that’s ended in accusations of sexual assault.

One Month To Go

As silly-dressing-up season dawns on us, we at STT are looking forward to more hilarious Christmas party antics involving superhero costumes and gang-rape. Now most teams produce Christmas cards to mass-mail out to all club members, but Middlesbrough this year have pushed the boat out somewhat and produced an absolute cracker. The eagle-eyed viewers out there will notice Robert Huth as the tree, David Wheater and Emanuel Pogatetz as the elves, Justin Hoyte as the present and Adam Johnston as one of the reindeer.

One previously great effort was the above Spurs Christmas card from the mid 90s, where once again, those of you with keen eye-sight will be able to spot Justin Edinburgh , Dean Austin, Steve Carr and Andy Sinton clad in suits, Teddy Sheringham, manager Gerry Francis, assistant manager Roger Cross and Garry Mabbutt as the Beatles. Darren Anderton also makes an incongruous guest appearance next to them as Superman.

The bar is always set pretty high by individual efforts for Christmas bashes too, so enjoy some of our personal highlights shown below. The subtlety of the English language is unable to capture the feeling of joy I get from seeing Peter Crouch dressed as a huge parrott.

Truly Terrifying

The thing about amateur porn is that normally if your eyes stray from the, er, main attraction, you tend to see stuff in the background that sort of ruins the mood. You know what I’m talking about. You’re watching some guy’s behind-the-scenes cheerleader trials home movie when all of a sudden something catches your eye and it’s game over. From what I hear from my friends, this tends to be mouldy food, an animal carcass, or some pretty sinister drug-injecting paraphernalia. Other times though, it’s just the sheer depravity of the location, and its low budget implications, that feed the rising tide of guilt and make you actually worry if the girls you’re watching are ok and not just being exploited for crystal meth. As I’m sure you’ll all agree, these kind of thoughts have no place in a man’s head.

Personal inflection aside, what’s the point of this you might justly wonder. Well, The Spoiler has uncovered some truly breath-taking amateur porn(ish) photos of Czech defender Tomas Ujfalusi and his wife Katerina, where they are posing amongst tattered cardboard boxes and a rather fetching old fence.

Mystery shrouds these shots, but what is clear is that after the football dries up for Tomas, a prosperous career with his wife as a serial killer couple surely awaits.

Bayern Munich 2008 Jersey : Das Musikal

What’s the best way to unveil your kit for a new season? Obviously you get your most high profile players to just chuck the shirts on and do keepie-uppies while the press take photos, right? BUZZ, wrong. The correct answer is actually get a load of female models on stage in full kit to prance around doing what I’m reliably informed is called ‘interpretative dance’ while people around just look baffled. This is the approach that the Bayern Munich staff misguidedly took, and as you can see below, the results are bizarre to say the least. It all starts to get good about 1:25 in as a couple of the girls really start spazzing out, but unfortunately it doesn’t end, as it probably should, with any kind of strip-show…

The Touch of Gavinity

No not a thinly-veiled ineuendo of what I threaten girls with at weekends, but a rather sharp pun that intriguingly sets up what follows. Earlier this year then we ran a rather excellent piece looking at religious footballers and the surprisingly unselfish ways several famous stars from around the world currently donate part of their salaries, and also plan to spend their retirement. That article was inspired by Fenerbahce’s Mateja Kezman, who recently decided that life as a monk was for him when the goals eventually dry up.

The latest figure to join the evangelical ranks is the BBC’s own Gavin Peacock, former Chelsea and Newcastle midfielder-turned-TV-presenter, who apparently plans to move to Canada after Euro 2008 to pursue a life in the church. After finishing work in Austria and Switzerland in June, the 40-year-old will up sticks with his family to Calgary to begin a three-year Masters course in Divinity at Ambrose Seminary, a leading theological college. Peacock will then become either a pastor, vicar or minister, depending on which denomination he chooses to follow, although STT is not quite sure of the difference. Which one was Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die again? His life may be in mortal danger if he chooses to be a Bishop.

Peacock has apparently been a frequent visitor to Canada in recent years and, having dropped a fair amount of mescaline there, has said that he finds the Rocky Mountains to be a deeply spiritual place. Furthermore he has studied for a BA in Theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, since last September to prepare himself for the life. Abstinence from pretty much everything fun is a serious undertaking, but from the age of 19, Peacock has been readying himself to take the plunge. IV-drips of vodka, three smokes on the go at all times, and prostitute-filled sexy parties have come to define the last 21 years of his life in an attempt to get it all out of his system, and now finally, he has reached the stage where literally he couldn’t drop another pill if you paid him; we know, we tried.

Since his formative Queens Park Rangers days, Peacock has hosted a Bible study group for footballers in his spare time, been a frequent speaker at his local church events, preached at his Anglican church in Kent, and even broken up his football commitments with presenting Songs of Praise. Back in the mid-90s, he was also part of a book project with local friend Alan Comfort, who dropped out of the game to become a Chaplain. Never Walk Alone is the clever title of the ditty, charting the life of the two sportsmen as they deal with being Christians in a competitive world. Admittedly I haven’t read it, but its probable high percentage of God-bothering makes it a bit rich for my tastes, even for journalistic purposes.

Peacock is a role-model for many young Christians in the modern game over here, with Linvoy Primus and Jermain Defoe often cited as high-profile examples. Quite how Defoe’s religion aligns with what we hear about him most weeks in the press is up for debate, but there can be no doubting Big Linvoy’s faith. The lion-like defender reportedly leads a prayer session before every Portsmouth match, as there are a high number of Christian players in the squad and also in the backroom staff. Rumours that Jesus himself played a vital part in Pompey’s FA Cup victory a fortnight ago have yet to be denied, while slow motion footage released today clearly shows the S.O.G (Son of God) standing offside when Utaka’s shot rebounded to Kanu for the winner…