we hear that...

sport of kings

Our Royal correspondent Jenny 'Flute' Bond snapped this pic while on a recent trip to the wee but an' ben the Windor's keep at Sandringham.

Apparently on Boxing Day the Family played a friendly football match against the Sandringham Estate workers. Harry, Wills and Peter Philips all featured in the Windsor's line-up ('We get first pick and shoot down the hill' etc) who took to the field sporting the natty strips shown here. (Surely there's a design here for a Huns fourth strip that be of some interest to Ibrox commercial man Nick 'Orange' Peel??)

Asked if he'd ever consider wearing the strip in public Harry said that he'd rather be caught by the press dressed as a Nazi Obersturmbahnfuhrer, complete with swastika armband.

The workers, by contrast, chose as their strip the green and white hoops.

Despite the fact that any Huns leering over this picture might be drooling (even more than usual) at the thought that William might actually be one of 'Ra Peepul', he is, in fact, an Aston Villa supporter. We even hear that on a recent visit to Villa Park he let slip that apart from the Clarrie Blues his favourite team is Celtic.

We look forward to the day when Wills has finally inherited his granny's tiara and rolls up at CP to start a rousing chorus of 'There's only one King Billy and that's me!'

For the record, the final score in the match was Royals 4 Workers 1. According to Jenny 'Flute' Bond, 'If you think the refs are bad when the Hoops are playing the Sons of William, you should see them when William's actually in the team... along with his brothers and cousins!'

Tunes of Gory

We hear that a well-kmown journalist at the Scotsman recently hosted three French counterparts - all first-time visitors - at the Ibrox Old Firm League Game in November. After the tannoy had blared out the usual rabble-rousing anthems (Rule Britannia, The Dambusters, The Great Escape and, of course, that ghastly synthesised flute music) to the baying hordes, one of the incredulous and clearly shaken Frenchmen opined that he fully expected to see extreme right-wing leader of the French BNP Jean-Marie Le Pen to appear on the Ibrox turf, Nuremberg-rally style. Welcome to Ibrox in the 21st Century.

Constructive Criticism

During live BBC TV coverage of Rangers' 'humiliating capitulation/ fourth rate showing/pitiful pedestrian performance' against Auxerre, Commentator Paul Mitchell was loudly interrupted by a clearly audible short-tempered Hun's cry of 'That's absolute shite Rangers!'

Aware that this had been inadvertantly broadcast to the nation Mitchell wryly observed that, 'You can tell that not everyone's happy with developments at Ibrox,' surely one of the great euphemistic understatements of all time.

Seemingly King David Murray (all stand) appeared at one point in a bid to bolster the blue brethren, but quickly disappeared when Kalou scored Auxerre's second and killer goal.

Earwig contacted a grumpy journalist at The Scottish Sun with around 10 minutes of the match still remaining, suggesting the sports headline for the following morning 'Super Kalou Goes Ballistic, Rangers are atrocious'. It wasn't used.

Hun-Bob Swear-Pants

When Hartson hits the net at Celtic Park, 'Big Bad John' rings out over the PA system. During the Huns' 3-0 win over Dundee in December, Bob 'The Autograph man' Malcolm (FTP) scored. We hear there's absolutely no truth in the rumour that the Ibrox tannoy played the theme tune to 'Sponge-Bob Square-Pants'.

FIFA World Player of the Year

On December 20th Barcelona's Ronaldinho scooped this award, with AC Milan's Andriy Shevchenko and odd-man out (i.e. non Champions League Celtic opponent) Thierry Henry of Arsenal as runners-up. Curiously, very few votes (a big fat Zero - helpful ed) were cast for players from fellow Euro 'giants' Amica Wronki, Liebherr Grazer AK, Auxerre or AZ 67 Alkmaar.

PS - We hear that French National Team Manager Raymond Domenech cast a vote for Henrik Larsson.

The tank top returns

'He [MON] is the most successful club manager in Scotland since Walter Smith and some might argue the case that, since he has taken his team to a European final, he might even overshadow the accomplishments of the Rangers boss. That would be a definite maybe.'

This extract from a recent article by Chick Young on the BBC's website would suggest that Chico is warming the old tongue for some more Walter hero worship now that the Great Wattie has been given the onerous task of restoring the Scotland national team to its rightful place in world football (above Burkina Fasso in the FIFA rankings would be a start). And with a European record like Wattie's who would dare bet against him succeeding?

Who can forget, par example, such European triumphs as AEK Athens?

Nor could anyone who managed to get hold of a bootleg video copy doing the rounds at the time ever forget a deleted interview Chick conducted with Wattie in the Ibrox tunnel for the BBC the day after the aforementioned Golden Rose of Montreaux entry.

Chick had the temerity to put it to Wattie that despite having spent a lot of money on Laudrup and Boli, among others, the 'Gers were still making an arse of themselves in Europe. Unfortunately for Chick Wattie took offence at this perfectly reasonable line of questioning and launched into a tirade of swearing and expletives that would have made a Greenock docker blush. In the middle of this verbal assault which had Chick a-shrivelling and a-snivelling, Archie Knox appeared on the scene to raise the tone somewhat.

'Archie, c'mere and hear this feckin interview', says Walter.

'Ah don't gi'e a shite', growls Erchie by way of a response.

'He's just said he wants an interview then he's comin oot wi' worse shite than ever', quips Wattie, a shameful slur on Chick's journalistic abilities.

'Ah'd ram that microphone right up his arse', replies Erchie, the Oscar Wilde of Ibrox at the time.

Obviously relishing Chick's discomfort, Wattie rounded off the interview with reference to the previous evening's game. 'If we had a bad night last night you're havin a feckin horrendous wan the noo!'

The interview with Wattie which was eventually transmitted by the Beeb bore little resemblance to the uncut version as depicted above. Left on the cutting room floor was all of Walter's stentorian language, together with the psychotic stare he had adopted in order to intimidate a wee man who, even then, was one of our true journalistic institutions. It's a whimsical image that always recurs to me whenever I see Wattie adopt his elder statesman pose during his sporadic bouts of TV punditry.

Toodloo the noo

THE EARWIG

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