The ShirleyMush View - Analogy Alert
Thursday, 9th Sep 2010 11:58 by ShirleyMush

Another great piece where the man who doesnt like to be called Surely delivers some important lessons on sex behind Weatherspoons

Regular subscribers (both of you) may have got the impression that I am a bit of a snob. You’d be right. I am a snob. Like many middle class Englishmen I have an insidious sense of self-loathing but also an unhealthy superiority complex. I only listen to indie records no one has ever heard of and I choose to earn what can barely be called a living as a teacher, just so that I can scoff at more successful people. There is no area in which my snobbery is more intense than that of association football. I sneer at armchair fans from the pedestal of my miserable, unrewarding loyalty to Southampton Football Club. I’ve already used this column to have a pop at football journalists, who I self-righteously styled as philistines who don’t properly appreciate the game. Believe you me, I’ve got it in for Christ knows how many others who will be in the crosshairs of impotent weapon of constipated rage the moment there’s a slow news week. This week, however, is not a slow news week. This is the week Saints are apparently going to appoint Nigel Adkins as their new manager.

As well as being a snob, I am a vain egomaniac. I have an unrealistic assessment of my own worth. Like most men, I fantasise about women who are wildly out of my league, mapping out absurd situations I which they would have it off with me. I also apply these pathetic delusions to my football club.

Adkins has worked wonders at Scunthorpe, a club who are probably most famous for Kevin Keegan playing for them and Ian Botham supporting them. Scunthorpe are a division above us, so in theory we should be flattered that such a talented manager should contemplate stepping down a league for us. We’re not though. Or at least I’m not.

I have no personal truck with Adkins. In fact I’m sure he’s a very nice man, and herein lies part of the problem. Adkins seems like an everyman. Sid Vicious once said “I’ve met the man in the street. He’s a c*nt”. Well Adkins doesn’t strike me as a c*nt. He strikes me as the sort of down to earth bloke who gets his round in at the office Christmas party, likes sausage and mash for his tea and fucks his wife with the lights off. A thoroughly decent fellow. Unfortunately, I have a sophisticated and finely developed sense of vanity that I have projected onto my club, and as such, I feel uneasy about its potential relationship with Nigel. I’m not sure Nigel is good enough for Saints. Nigel looks to me like the kind of man whose wife would fuck off with some cad with a year-round tan and a very silly, very expensive car. Some cad like Phil Brown.

When Alan Pardew got the sack I had nightmares about Phil Brown getting the Saints job. Phil is a braying, vainglorious fool. An overbearing spiv who thinks he is miles better looking than he actually is. And yet if I was married to Nige, I could see myself having my head turned by Phil. Brash, self-confident, swaggering, bollock-wagon Phil. A walking mid-life crisis with a deafening sweater draped preposterously about his shoulders and a toothsome grin on his stupid face. A man so egotistical that he publicly humiliated his own players in front of their travelling support just so he could pass the buck. Yet also a man who miraculously guided his Hull side from League 2 to the Premier League in about two minutes.

Perhaps deep down I know that Nigel is the safe bet, that Nigel would be solid, dependable and decent, if not particularly spontaneous or romantic. He’d do right by us. Not like that bastard Phil, who would be like a rat up a drainpipe the minute some floozy like Tottenham flashed her tits at him, just like she did that tosser Glenn all those years ago. Nigel has maintained a dignified silence throughout the courtship. Phil has kissed and told- told the bloody Daily Echo no less, the biggest gossip in town. The Echo has been leaning over the garden fence with a fag hanging out the corner of its mouth telling anyone who’ll listen that we’ve been seeing Phil. Phil is all bravado and overpowering aftershave. Nigel is into long walks and some discreet hand holding. Nigel would never, under any circumstances, try to finger us behind a skip round the back of a Wetherspoons. Phil would. And he’d do a bloody good job of it, too.

Is there a third way? An option that doesn’t involve years of domestic drudgery with Nigel or a dirty weekend with Phil? Clearly Saints aren’t going to get a Martin O’Neill- Martin will end up with some blonde bombshell like Manchester United or Liverpool. Saints are more of a seven-out-of-ten from a good family that has been through a hard time but might still scrub up alright with a bit of TLC. We are a slightly pathetic Bridget Jones type who need a knight in shining armour, but unfortunately we’re our own worst enemy.

We divorced the uncommunicative Alan because our mother, Nicola, didn’t like him, and now we’re on the scrap heap. Nigel must know he’s batting above his average, otherwise he’d never countenance putting up with that interfering mother-in-law, who it seems didn’t like the cut of Phil’s jib. She might turn out to have done us a favour there. Yet I’m not sure setting us up with Nige is going to be the answer. I give it a year.

Photo: Action Images

Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.