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THE ANTI NEWS - THE MISSED PENALTY ISSUE 19-2-07
Toby Higgins
It's been a fairly turbulent week for the Anti-News. What with Craig 'rat features' Bellamy attacking John Arne Riise with a golf club, Britney's shaven noggin, twelve year old alcoholics and teenage gun crime in London, the Anti News is feeling somewhat disillusioned with the world.
Surely though, the most stunning, depressing and heart wrenching moment of the week was on Tuesday night, when Yakubu missed not one, but TWO penalties in the space of an hour.
Of course, he would then have to go and ruin this week's opening paragraph by scoring one against WBA on Saturday.
Anyway, let's do this...
"It's an unlicensed boxing match. It's not a tickling competition. These lads are out to hurt each other."
After missing not one, but TWO penalties on Tuesday night, Yakubu spent most of the next day looking long and hard into his crystal ball before predicting that Boro would win a penalty on Saturday, that he would take it, and that he would score.
"I am still the Boro penalty-taker and if we get one against West Brom, I will take it. Not only that but I will score", he said, before sending the already giddy crowd into hysterics by predicting that later in the week, Britney would shave her head and that Craig Bellamy would attack John Arne Riise with a golf club.
"As a striker I want to score as many goals as I can and taking a penalty always gives you a great chance. My first miss was down to a lack of concentration. Maybe their keeper put me off. It wasn't very good", he said, making one of the understatements of the season.
"I felt very bad and that is why I didn't really celebrate my goal too much. The second was a bit unlucky, I was never going to go for the same type of penalty but maybe it was just a bad day for me. I won't let it affect me."
And he didn't.
"In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary... come again?"
Stewart Downing believes that Jonathon Woodgate and Mark Viduka are crucial to the future of the club, and hopes the pair will still be wearing Boro red in August.
"For me, the two of them have to stay", explained Downing during the adverts of Ex-WAG Boutique.
Of Woodgate, Stewy said, "He's been doing well and he's been injury-free, which is probably a big thing for him. I don't know what's happening with Woody contract-wise but I know he's happy", before a long haired, mysteriously hooded, injury-free stranger allegedly yelled, "Yeah, nailing your sister".
Downing went onto add that, "Mark's out of contract in the summer as well, but as you have seen this season, there are times when he's been absolutely unplayable", as Anti-News pondered when exactly this phrase, once used exclusively to describe bowlers in Cricket, crept into football. "If we lose him it will be someone else's gain", he finished.
Downing was also keen to quash further speculation linking him with Tottenham, but because we're as bored of this rumour as we are of the about David Beckham's return to the England squad, we're not even going to give you any quotes. So there.
"It's a fucking anti-aircraft gun Vincent."
Following Gary Neville's declaration this week that agents should be removed from the game, Gareth Southgate also took it upon himself to stick his sizeable nose into matters not concerning him.
"It is unlikely to ever happen because of the way the game is now. When I started, very few players had agents", said Southgate, remembering the days when a good tackle meant a broken leg and diving was reserved for the summer Olympics.
"But I can also see lots of players need some sort of representation, whether it is a lawyer or an accountant or somebody to help them to negotiate contracts and to look after the money they make", he said as Adam Johnson, Lee Cattermole and Andrew Davies began rallying around Rockcliffe Park in their brand new, privately number plated, Range Rovers.
"In a short career, they have got to try to make sure they do not waste the money they earn", he finished, as Andrew Taylor lit a cigar with a £20 note, paid £14,000 for the Artic monkeys to play to him while he's in the shower and instructed his agent to buy him a new house, because his was dirty.
"Oh, you bastard! I fuckin' hate pikeys!"
Boro produced their fifth draw in their last eight F.A. Cup ties as West Bromwich Albion fought from behind twice in an entertaining game at the Riverside.
A rare Julio Arca header had put Boro ahead before Mark Schwarzer allowed Diomansy Kamara's shot to creep through him, and while Yakubu, as he predicted, levelled from the spot, former Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips scored a jammy equaliser.
"Today was a tough game and West Brom played very well," said Southgate, going through the motions.
"They are a good attacking team, a good footballing side and they were able to come back twice which says a lot for their character. On another day we might have taken them but I think a draw was fair", reading from the autocue and saying absolutely nothing controversial.
Anti-News would love to meet the guy who does these interviews. What sort of uninteresting, bland, mild mannered question prompts this sort of uninteresting, bland, mild mannered response? Get in there and ask the questions that people want answers to.
Another howler from Schwarzer, are you going to drop him? Yakubu knew he was going to get a penalty, can he really see into the future? Your choice of match day attire, what the fuck?
And with that.
BACK TO ANTI NEWS INDEX
TOBY HIGGINS' ROCKLIFFE FILES COLUMNS CAN BE FOUND HERE
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