Lawrie & Lactation

Subdued salutations, my most exasperated mates.

You don’t need me to impart the fact that a lot of yammer’s been spewed about a certain Sanchez, L., Mister. With this is mind, I fancied I might wield some of my newly found words to fashion my four farthings worth.

Thing is, when I spluttered up to Mr Jewry’s stall, all proud and beaming, to show off my little discoveries, he gave me a right terse ticking off. In fact, afterwards I felt a little shrivelled. He said I should handle superior words with caution, and be careful not to obfuscate, whatever that means. He said that some folks could interpret my immature doggerel as a touch patronising. That it could appear snooty, even from a gutter-dwelling chit like me.

Well, I’ve still got the flea in my ear now. Just shows how even the most innocent of intentions can get misconstrued, eh fellas? And that brings us roundly back to Mr Lawrie.

He may be a stern, bespectacled martinet, but in management terms he’s a tyro, and his future remains a guessing story to the best of us.

Granted, as a relative greenhorn he remains a going concern rather than a racing certainty, but needs must when the devil drives. And if it appears I’m alluding to Mr Harrods Al Fayed as a devil, then it’s in strictly the most endearing and chubby-cheeked sense.

Some insinuate that the little giblets he’s purchased to date aren’t the butcher’s best, and that he’s therefore something of a lickpenny. They wonder will he be able to perform the same acts of alchemy that he’s done previously, and make straight fires from crooked logs.

Some sorts even insist on crucifying him for his playing past. Be honest gentlemen, would you be content for a mature boudoir performance to be judged on an adolescent alleyway fumbling? It seems that old sins cast long shadows.

I can understand the frustrations and the need to vent. We all need a little release from time to time: our passions are liable to get pent-up when the object of our affections goes a little limp.

It reminds of me of that rather rum story by Mr. Maupassant - An Idyll - the one about a heavily-lactating woman on a train who only gains relief from the pain of her milk-swollen breasts when a fellow passenger offers to imbibe some of the offending liquid, direct from source you might say. He hadn’t eaten in three days, so it suited both parties!

No! I’m not asking you start suckling your neighbours at the game, St. Ivel preserve us! Although when those replica shirts come off, there’s some chaps that certainly look capable of providing a little half-time refreshment.

What I’m saying, is that we can hector and chide ‘til our temples pulsate – in fact, I bust yet another pair of braces meself this last Saturday - but where’s the percentage in aspiring to champagne tastes on a ginger beer budget?

Our travails might seem like water off a lame duck’s back sometimes, but I’d wager a gusset-full of plums that beneath that reasoned veneer, he’s as troubled as we are. He does, so far at least, appear to possess a splash more acumen than most. He certainly presents a more austere mien: I can’t see him sharing a lager bath with his players and scrubbing their backs with organic leeks, post-defeat. I reckon he just sits in a corner, leering menacingly over the top of the latest copy of Business Today, punching digits into a calculator. Maybe even drawing a sinister finger across his neck, slowly, from ear to ear.

We all agree that it’s time for success to get it’s collar felt ‘round our way, and I ain’t just talking about winning the Intertoto one time. But sometimes, as we all know, football can amount to little more than a squalid raffle. Goals that are not goals, leads that are no longer leads.

In those instances, we just have to accept that we are mere ears of corn, in thrall to fate’s force nine. It’s sometimes better to yield a little, than risk suffering widespread structural damage.

In conclusion, based on the evidence thus far, Your Honour, I’d probably give Mr. S. the name of my tailor.

And if he’s still with us in the New Year, I’ll give him the phone number too!

Until then, as Mr. Jewry often remarks, “don’t count your headless chickens before they hatch.”

Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!