Arise, Sir Frank Lampard!
Okay, he’s not been given an actual knighthood – but he has been made an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours.
It’s officially for services to football, but our Frankie’s got more strings to his bow than that. Here are some other things he could have got an award for…
1. Services to children’s literature
Lampard has a series of children’s books called Frankie’s Magic Football. They’re about a guy called Frankie who has a football. Writing about what you know was obviously a good formula for Lampard – the books are actually pretty good and have encouraged plenty of young football fans to get reading. That’s pretty award-worthy.
2. Services to the technology industry
If it wasn’t for that goal that never was against Germany at the 2010 World Cup, goalline technology may never have been introduced and thousands of jobs in the industry would never have been created. Give that man a gong.
3. Services to the tourism industry
Admittedly it’s the Slovakian tourism industry, but still.
4. Services to politics
Mirror reports Frank Lampard has turned down offer to be Tory candidate for Kensington & Chelsea. Wonder why. pic.twitter.com/NjC6aIfHdi
— David Singleton (@singersz) March 3, 2015
By not standing at the last election he probably did us all a favour.
5. Services to the film industry
Lots of footballers go into the movies after their careers have finished – Vinnie Jones, Eric Cantona and Frank Leboeuf are some examples. But they’ve got nothing on Lampard, who along with Rio Ferdinand and Kieran Dyer appeared in a low-budget movie when he was still making his way in the game. If you’re wondering why you’ve never seen it, it’s a little bit specialist – and they’d probably rather everyone forgot about it.
6. Services to international relations
Lampard did his bit for Anglo-American relations back in 2001. He and Chelsea team-mates Jody Morris, John Terry and Eidur Gudjohnsen were fined for drunkenly abusing American tourists at Heathrow the day after the September 11 attacks. According to reports at the time the players also stripped naked and vomited, but they later denied having been abusive to individual Americans.
Awkwardly, Lampard is now off to play for New York City FC. At the time his move was announced, the story was retold in the press in the Big Apple and the locals were not impressed.
7. Services to caption competitions
Source: SNAPPA
