A former Premier League manager approached us here at GSITM and asked that we publish his diaries, so he could show the public what life is like out of the game. His only request was that he remained anonymous. Below is this week’s entry:
It’s been three weeks since my last entry on this website. A lot has happened in those three weeks: Manchester United have been through and recovered from a crisis; Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are now all suddenly crap and a lot of highly charged political stuff has happened which my editor has advised I should not reference.
So much has happened to me personally in that time as well. I was encouraged by the boss on this site to write about it each week, but I was far too busy to spend time on some silly little blog. Instead, I waited until my schedule quietened down and then crammed everything into this one post. I hope you find it as entertaining as I did when living it.
Some new additions to the family
Carol and I decided it was finally time to extend the family. No reader, I’m not talking about children, I surgically blunted my bullets years ago. We have enough children; between one and three is enough for any couple.
We decided instead to adopt two little kittens, one black and one ginger. I called them Clive and Jason, after Clive Mendonca and Jason Euell, two of my most trusted players. Carol was less than happy with the names, saying that naming a cat after a convicted human trafficker was disrespectful to the cats. I showed her Clive’s exploits in the 1998 First Division play-off final and to show more respect towards him. This kept her quiet.
I will be honest, I care too much about the pets. As a manager, I could often be overly friendly with my players. It wasn’t uncommon to find me turning up uninvited to a parent’s evening to make sure my player’s children were up to scratch. Richard Rufus, in particular, didn’t enjoy it when I did that, but that might have been because his kid was a little s**t.
If the cats are out of my sight, I start to panic. To counter this, I decided to purchase a cat leash so that I could see them at all times. This has been troublesome around the house, as they often suddenly rush across the room, meaning that the leash catches all manner of things and drags them to the floor. Carol isn’t best pleased (she’s lost several vases to the leashes) but I’m sure that in due course the cats will learn not to be so destructive.
More problems with Wedrap
So far, Wedrap has been more of a problem than a solution to my problems. After shooting a Brighton and Hove Albion defender who was filling in as a goalpost, I decided to bust him down to the lower leagues. Sadly, this didn’t improve matters.
Down at Lincoln, he managed to break the siren that blares before every corner. Rather than simply replace it, he told the club that all they needed was a ‘saucy bird to stand in the corner’ as ‘they make the same noise.’ This struck me as strange considering he was from America, why would he use the phrase ‘saucy bird’?
While up north in Middlesborough, he got lost in an old mine and tried to shoot his way out, triggering a minor gas explosion. During his meeting with Tony Pulis in the immediate aftermath, Wedrap ate all of Tone’s stash of Kettle Chips. This threw Pulis into a furious rage which resulted in Alan spending the night in A&E. Tone loves Kettle Chips.
Worse than all of that is his expenses. The man seems to drink a large Starbucks coffee every fifteen minutes. I tried to have a word with him about overclaiming, but he was so wired that nothing seemed to be getting through. If his behaviour doesn’t improve after his visit to Sunderland, I might have to take my punishments to the next level. I’m talking about minor violence.
A guide to late-night Netflix binging
After a busy day at work, I like to kick back and binge through a Netflix show. However, I can’t watch one that is too intellectually taxing. I don’t have time for your Making a Murderers, your Staircases or your Stranger Things’s.
By the time I’m turning Netflix on, it’s often well past half ten, my appointed bedtime. Carol is fast asleep, so it’s just me and the new cats. What I need is a comedy. But not a good comedy like The Good Place, or a classic like Arrested Development. Due to their high comedic content, they require my full attention. No, I need a comedy that averages at the very most, two laughs a show.
Enter the perfect show: Maron.
I have no problem with Marc Maron as an individual; I have even listened to a few of his podcasts featuring famous people talking in a garage.
However, his TV show is somewhat lacking in quality. It regularly forgets that it’s a comedy and neglects to include jokes (Editor’s note: Just like this column). But it’s most egregious error is being so unrealistic. This guy is a millionaire living in a beautiful house in LA. During the series, random, sexy, young women throw themselves at him. Yet, in every episode, we have to hear about how terrible his life is.
He doesn’t know he’s been born! My cats destroy most of my house during the day, my new employee is trying to destroy my business and the management consultancy appointments seem to have dried up in the last three weeks. But this guy has the temerity to complain about having sex with insanely attractive twenty-eight-year-olds.
Screw you, Marc Maron.
