MARTIN SAMUEL: Chelsea's Peter K, even funnier than the original

06 July 2009 15:08
Chelsea are said to be furious about Manchester City's audacious bid for their captain, John Terry. Now we can all laugh about this, but there is a serious point to be made. On second thoughts, scrub that, let's all just laugh. This is the club who were caught sitting down for what was described as 'general chit-chat' with Ashley Cole, while he was still an employee of Arsenal. The club who paid £5million for two Leeds United youth players rather than face investigation by the Football Association over alleged illegal approaches. And they are now upset over City making a formal bid, in writing, for Terry. Oh, go on, if Peter Kenyon went on stage at the Palladium with this stuff, nobody would ever pay to see Peter Kay again. Chuckle brothers? The Chelsea chief executive and the real Peter Kay (right) make a fine double act General chit-chat was the phrase used by Cole to describe his meeting with Chelsea while a contracted Arsenal player in his hilarious autobiography, which is sadly now quite hard to find, although apparently if you look hard enough you may discover a warehouse with the odd one or 200,000 lying about. The transfer was later completed, but the negotiating process was handled so ethically that, before the deal took place, Chelsea were fined £300,000 and their then manager Jose Mourinho £75,000 for tapping up. Cole was fined £75,000, while his agent Jonathan Barnett was fined £100,000 and suspended for 18 months. Then there was the case of Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo, two Leeds youngsters who moved to Chelsea amid accusations of illegal approaches. A complaint was lodged with the Football League and passed on to the Football Association. Chelsea always disputed the claim, insisting an offer in the region of £200,000 was made. The fact they then settled on a compensation agreement of £5m, however, would suggest the club did not fancy going through that pesky investigation procedure again. And what value for money. Woods featured in two FA Cup games in 2007 for Chelsea (he was trusted to come on for 11 minutes when Chelsea were 4-1 up at home to Macclesfield Town and for 12 minutes when they were winning 3-0 against Nottingham Forest), while after an unsuccessful loan at Port Vale, Taiwo was last heard of trying out for Seattle Sounders in Major League Soccer. So a good bit of business for the club and the boys there. What has provoked Chelsea's anger this time is that City scheduled a meeting over the transfer of Daniel Sturridge (a young player who City nurtured but who has now joined Chelsea) and used that to make a formal offer for Terry. When this newspaper found out what had happened, Chelsea went on the record in the strongest terms dismissing City's interest. Privately, they are hopping mad at City's brazen behaviour, having already turned down a bid last season. Yet what is so different? City are a club with an ambitious owner and vast wealth who want to get to the top in football and know this requires the best players. Sound familiar? Wasn't that Roman Abramovich's stance after buying Chelsea six years ago? Was he not meant to have made an equally gauche offer to Arsenal for Thierry Henry, the one that David Dein equated to 'parking Russian tanks on our lawn, and firing £50 notes at us'? There is so much new money in football that maybe Chelsea think of themselves as old money now. Maybe they feel that, having been around since 2003, Abramovich's regime is in a position to lecture and disapprove and take a moral stand. And maybe Garry Cook, the City chief executive, does have a little to learn about the way to conduct transfer business. But all Chelsea have to do is keep saying No. As for City, just tell Kenyon it was general chit-chat. You can be sure he will understand. Carlo Ancelotti will find his audience all ears when he is finally unveiled as Chelsea manager today. It is now widely reported that Luiz Felipe Scolari's struggles with English were behind his failure at Stamford Bridge, and the pressure will be on Ancelotti to show mastery of the language. Actually, from the start, Scolari spoke better English than Fabio Capello, the England manager, who is a national hero. He probably still does. Results were Scolari's problem, not lack of linguistic skill. If Ancelotti wins football matches, he can communicate in Klingon and still be loved. For years, Rod Stewart has marked his concerts by kicking footballs into the crowd. It is a tradition that began when he was lead singer in The Faces. Now a woman has successfully claimed £12,700 in damages, saying she was concussed after a ball rebounded from the rigging and struck her. Leaving aside the fact that Rod must have been a pretty lousy shot if he initially missed an audience of 8,500 people at The Point in Dublin, this opens up a whole new area of potential liability for football clubs. No wonder Tottenham Hotspur are looking to get rid of Darren Bent. He could end up costing them a fortune. Numbers don't add up, WayneThere is one important aspect of Cristiano Ronaldo's 42-goal season for Manchester United that goes unappreciated: he did not mean to do it. Oh, he practised like a maniac to see if he could, he spent extra hours on the training ground perfecting his finishing and his free-kick technique, he put his body on the line in matches, read attacking situations perfectly and maintained an athletic peak in the hope he would become the most potent match-winner in the modern game. Setting goals: Wayne Rooney celebrates scoring - something he has promised to do more often next season Yet at no time did he announce with certainty he could score at such a prolific rate. There are some things in sport that just happen. American television networks, for instance, are obsessed with a final day charge by Tiger Woods in major golf tournaments. If he is off the pace by, say, six shots they will devote hours of pre-emptive coverage to whether he can shoot the 65 needed to get close to winning. Woods never does. US Open venues are not set up so that a player can shoot 65 if he has to; indeed, try to force a score by taking chances and the course kills you. That does not mean a low number is impossible, but the perfect round occurs organically, not by standing on the tee planning death or glory. So when Wayne Rooney insists that he can carry on for Manchester United where Ronaldo left off, it is for the best that Sir Alex Ferguson smiles benignly and then goes out and buys another striker, just in case. Rooney may well score more goals for Manchester United this year, but a player waking up each morning making frantic calculations to see how close he is to matching a total that was truly exceptional (and which even Ronaldo could not repeat the following season) is under too much pressure and doomed to failure. Rooney is a wonderful talent and crucial to United's success. He should not have to force it - nor does he need to. AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... To coincide with the Ashes series, a concept album about cricket has been released. The Duckworth Lewis Method is the brainchild of Neil Hannon, who was the lead singer with The Divine Comedy. I'm sure his new group are lots of fun, but they will have to go some to surpass the greatest cricket song of all, namely Kick Down The Stumps, by the sadly underrated I, Ludicrous, which contrives to reference both Kick Out The Jams by the MC5 and the type of batsman who is never out in his own mind. We all know at least one. ● I, Ludicrous are Will Hung and John Proctor. A sample lyric: Let's reconsider, let's get this right I was on the front foot, it hit me on the thigh The ball was travelling down the leg side In a one-day match, it would have been a wide. Chorus: Look at the scorebook Look at the scorebook, son Will Hung lbw Proctor 1 Genius, I think you'll agree. Psycho rabble! The usual gloss was put on the achievements of the England Under 21 team, but the way Stuart Pearce's players exited the European Championship was unimpressive. Stuart Pearce: In Psycho mode The victorious penalty shootout in the semi-final camouflaged a serious problem. Namely that, from being 3-0 up against Sweden, England drew 3-3, then lost 4-0 to Germany in the final. That is 7-0 in open play. From the time of the first Swedish goal (68 minutes), to the time of the German fourth (84 minutes), is 136 minutes, including semi-final extra time. That is one goal conceded every 19 minutes and England did not even have a shot on target in the last game. Fabio Capello would have been appalled. It is not enough to blame absentees and suspensions. Pearce appeared unhinged on the sidelines, so how can he instil control among his players? Passion is no mitigation. All coaches have passion. Successful management is having the wit to stop your team losing 7-0. If we just required managers to look as if they cared, we could employ actors. Nicky Henderson, the Queen's trainer, will be breathing a sigh of relief. The panel report into the doping case surrounding his horse Moonlit Path found that he asked his veterinarian, James Main, to inject it with a banned substance, tranexamic acid, on the day of a race at Huntingdon. Tranexamic acid stops bleeding and the panel discovered Henderson had been using it on his horses for years, although the details were omitted from the yard's medication book. He pleaded ignorance, as did Main, who also declined to give evidence. This act alone should see him lose his position as senior vet at Newbury racecourse, as well as his status on the British Horseracing Authority's counteranalysis advisory committee. Anyway, why would Newbury want a vet who does not know the rules? In the circumstances, Henderson's ban of three months is extraordinarily light. It is said he was treated gently as a long-time ambassador for the sport. Nothing to do with knowing the Queen, of course. Amr Zaki, the striker whom former Wigan Athletic manager Steve Bruce called the most unprofessional player he had worked with, is back in Egypt after his loan and, surprise, surprise, missing the Premier League. 'I really wanted to stay and still do,' says Zaki. He shouldn't have returned late from international duty on five occasions, then. No doubt it will be a lot easier to find his way back to El Zamalek, his current team, in Cairo. A headline caught my eye last week. 'Salary cap would benefit Premier League, says Arsenal chief executive.' Translation? 'Salary cap would benefit Arsenal, says bloke who runs Arsenal.' Charles van Commenee, the head coach of UK Athletics, snubbed an interview with the BBC at the European Team Championships in Portugal, in protest at a comment by analyst Steve Cram. After sprinter Rikki Fifton pulled up with a hamstring injury in the 4x100 metre relay, Cram said that making him run demonstrated poor team management. It was a mild criticism, but enough to provoke a tantrum from Van Commenee. For a man who prides himself on tough talking, he seems a tad over-sensitive. The last thing British athletics needs in 2012 is a big girl's blouse.

Source: Daily_Mail