Why we knew Van Bommell was a thug in clogs years ago....Vuvuzelas....apologies overdue to South Africa and more Nigerian scams?
Luckily I managed to see the World Cup final the day before my hyperactive three-year old son decided to crash a Wii remote onto my 32" LCD TV screen (as a result it now resembles a dead giant spider decomposing in a rainbow - it is currently up to a quid on offer on ebay for spares or repair!). Not a classic, so as often the finals are not but Spain were worthy winners as Holland basically tried to kick them off the park! At the end, the sight of Marc Van Bommell screaming in Howard Webbs' face provoked a wry smile from yours truely - we Leeds fans remember what a dirty bugger he was when he was at PSV. During our UEFA Cup tie with them at the latter part of Terry Venables reign he made Lee Bowyer look like an angel - if you can bare such a thought of Bow with a halo, wings and a harp.
The media hype this week over Mandleson's book, BP and some trigger happy Geordie nutter may have been the reason why an apology to South Africa was not forthcoming? In the years leading up to the World-Cup, we were led to believe that anyone who dared go out there would be mugged, raped. tossed in 11 herbs and spices and then shot. The fact of the matter was anyone who did go was no more likely to come to any harm as back in the day when Man City away involved a visit to the notorious Moss Side district. As far as I am aware no one perished and the pre-tournament scare mongering was on a level comparable to killer mutant bees and swineflu. Funnily enough in 2002 when I worked in Manchester during the Commonwealth games I do not recall similar media hysteria about gullible tourists becoming prey to the Gooch!
As for the dreaded vuvuzela horns, I had to laugh at the good old Daily Mail - the horrible rag which leaves many an elderly lady trembling with fear usually over asylum seekers - one front page screamed that the plastic trumpets were potentially a menace to our hearing - what on the TV? couldn't we just turn the sound down? Yet again, people with darker skins are an affront to middle-England! However one admits that unlike the Mexican wave, I hope vuvuzelas are not imported en-masse to our shores next season!
Finally, we have all had one of those emails from Nigeria, in fact I have had two. Basically some government official will contact you with some blurb about a wealthy dignitary being wiped out in a road/plane crash, with no surviving relatives and his assets frozen. Cunningly you could get rich quick overnight by providing your bank details so that your account could be filled with millions of dollars, usually there is a catch and there will be a last minute hitch and to overcome this the scammers will demand "a loan" from you to bribe officials to release the dosh.....interesting the Nigerian's feeble performance against the Greeks in the group stages came under scrutiny on BBC's Newsnight prior to the final, where according to a German journalist FIFA were alerted to the fact that the Super Eagles were "vulnerable to manipulation" eg: match-fixing. Maybe the Nigerian 419 scam as it is known has become tired and lets face it, the Greeks are hardly flushed with disposable income at the moment!