He may no longer play for United,

but we have managed to get our grubby

little hands on  the archived, top-secret,

investigations he undertook while he was

still under our employment...

Micky has seen it all. From the depths of despair and depravity on the streets of Liverpool, to the bleak cultural black hole of the North-East.  When Sir Alex Ferguson approached him with the opportunity to sharpen his investigative tools without having football as a distraction, he wholeheartedly embraced it. The champagne lifestyle of an international secret agent suits Micky just fine, but sometimes you have to actually get off your arse, which isn’t much fun.

It was just your typical day before a pre-season tour and I was gathering my belongings together. My passport, travellers cheques and my ‘American phrase book’ were all safely in my bum bag. Oh no wait, I’m not wearing a bum bag, that’s just my bum. Girlfriend, I need to lose some junk from that trunk. I’d packed sweets for the journey, no need to pack any fudge now that John’s gone to Sunderland, but plenty of Werthers Originals for the cherubs (Fab and Raf to you) and boiled sweets for Giggsy. Okay, everything ready. Clothes, check. Papers, Check. Hargo, Check. Yeeeahhhh you heard right. How could I let Hargo walk away (well, hobble) after what happened last month. I wanted to take him along as my new sidekick, every great detective needs a sidekick. Besides his grasp of the American language would come in very handy. “Like, I’m so Canadian Michael, it’s actually, like, very different” “Whatever, whoops!” I gave the case Hargo was stowed away in an all mighty boot totally by accident. “OOuccchhh!” I yelped, I’d stubbed my toe. Agent Linekar had warned me about this debilitating injury.

 I got on the SAF-phone immediately to inform him I’d have to catch up with the tour after a few weeks of convalescence. As I picked up the receiver to dial I glanced outside to see SAF’s head bobbing up and down over next door’s fence. His mouth was grappling so hard with his chewing gum, garden tools were beginning to stick to the side of his face from the gravitational force. I crawled outside. “Micky, Micky!” SAF beckoned me over in hushed tones. “Hold me steady you big numpty” he hissed. “Sorry, I’m not really into that…?”  “Not you Micky… this chocolate fireguard”, he said gesturing downwards to where Mike Phelan was planted, providing SAF with a piggy back. “Now did you get that fax I sent you?” He whispered. “Of course.”

The fax he’d sent was a critical examination of how the game was going down the pan and being put under huge economic threat from wealthy overseas business men buying up shares and then offsetting accrued debts against Premiership clubs assets. I agreed with the sentiment especially when it mentioned clubs like City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea…But STOP THE PRESS!! The article went on to mention our dealings with the Glazers! This was indicative of the negative destructive institutional bias within the press against our exemplary reputation. “Okay, well then you know how important it is to not miss out on the tour, it’s been purposely contrived for you, you you, youuoooooerergh..!” At that point Phelan collapsed, fortunately cushioning SAF’s fall with his face. “Good job I landed on your head, the thickest part” SAF scoffed at Phelan. I returned to the house and had the wife put my poor toe in hot water immediately. Typically, despite having a complete clean bill of health for as long as I can remember, I had a stubbed toe and while I’d been down at the stable earlier I’d felt a little ho(a)rse. But I couldn’t let these ailments get in the way of one of my most important assignment to date. Something had to be done and fast.

 I’d already arranged with our overseas agent, agent Becks via messages in bottles to do some exploratory investigations and he said he had “Obviously got some important information, obviously”. I’d also managed to arrange a lift across the Atlantic with Ben Fogle and James Cracknell. I asked them why it was necessary to do it without wearing clothes. They told me it wasn’t they just preferred it that way.  I plonked down between their legs and we talked about the first things to pop up. In a very short matter of days we were there. We’d had such a lot of fun that we decided to dump Hargo off on the harbour side and just carry on rowing around in the ocean. Our wrists were getting very limp, but we just swapped hands. Hargo insisted he didn’t need any help and we could leave him to it. When we returned a few weeks later he was still there. He still insisted he was very capable and refused any help we offered.

Agent Becks had asked me to meet him in a disused sports stadium after dark and all would be revealed. As I approached I saw agent Becks talking to George Bush, Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher. I looked to the sky again for an explanation. Eric popped from behind a cloud, “Just go with it Micky”. The closer I got I realised I’d been mistaken; agent Becks was actually talking to the Glazers. No wait, now he was talking to Bill Gates, Sepp Blatter and Bono. “Ah, Micky, glad you could join us”, said Chris Martin from Coldplay. This was all too much. Agent Becks pulled me to one side “Obviously, you don’t get it yet Micky?” I looked back blankly. “Obviously, we’re all shape shifting reptilians and obviously the reason Manchester United are obviously exempt from any wrong doing with regards to the Glazers obviously is because the experiment we’re carrying out on your planet is obviously a socio-neuro-eco-physio-biological case study designed to enhance human development through our findings obviously and establish a means of providing the Universe with a more stabilised climate, obviously aiding the perpetuation of the existence of all life forms obviously throughout the solar system. Obviously the Glazers are just a vehicle forming part of the experiment, they obviously aren’t real people. “Could you repeat that”, I asked after nodding off halfway through. “No, obviously”.

Case Closed!

After last month when Chris from Bury, Peter from Firswood and Sally from Hulme forgot to leave ample space outside for their laptops to be collected by Skip-away and destroyed, we would prefer if you just get your cleaner to put your laptops in a black bin bag and dump it in a bin round the corner. That seems to be the preferred method for disposing of sensitive information used by some of the countries most underhand criminals. (Hargo is still trapped in the suitcase refusing help)

I will not rest, okay maybe 40 winks now and then (it’s harder than I originally thought), until the integrity of Manchester United is upheld.

Keep ‘em peeled!