IT’S FINALLY OVER!!  NO MORE FOOTBALL EXCEPT THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL AND THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP WHICH WE LOVE AND THE COPA AMERICA SO IN REALITY THERE’S SOME FOOTBALL BUT IT’S NOT REAL FOOTBALL!!  We asked our handsome and witty internet friends, us, to ask us some questions about the football that happened while we were busy manufacturing the comedy gold you’ve come to worship because we thought we should do a review because all the cool kids are doing them but we only do previews which are like reviews but before the view has been re’d so therefore p=x where x is when I lost my train of thought.

These are the questions that Brett thought best summed up how we could review the season with the most minimum effort required:

1. Favourite Baller of the whole term?

2. Favouritest ball in the net shot?

3. Favourite home shirt colour?

4. Best Phil Jones moment that actually resembled a real football manouevre?

5. Best thing you saw happen with your own two eyes that wasn’t just a thing you heard about on the internet and then talked about until you actually believed you’d witnessed it yourself?

6. Why were the Thundercats loose?

7. Match you hated least?

8. Who is this?

9. Best stolen tweet?

10. Best Sepp Blatter?

m

 Benno (@Benglorious)

Are we writing answers here or under each question in different colours/with our avis, can we use videos and how do we add videos and why do we bother?

m

m

 Tom (@tom_mcghee)

1. I have to say, the Best of the Beatles.

2. When Mata scored the goal that looked like his legs were scissors and it was against that team that didn’t make Champions League

3. Pantone 1664 TPX

4. [FOOTAGE NOT FOUND]

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

6. They weren’t so much ‘loose’ as they were fleeing the total destruction of their home world, Thundera. Surviving in stasis thanks to the noble sacrifice of Jaga, who piloted the ship until death (and then went very Obi-Wan with Lion-O. Can’t believe LucasFilm let that slide to be honest), the Thundercats eventually arrived Third Earth and were then ‘loosened’ upon discovery that they were not only followed by old mutant enemies but also under threat from Mumm-Ra, the ever-living. Although that was misleading because it only seemed to work if he slept for like 5 days at a time and never really did much.

7. I enjoyed the little flurry of results where we beat Spurs, City and The Steven Gerrard Tribute team. So those.

8. I’ll never tell

9. Has to be Lucia’s. Damn that Scott fella for making me confess.

10. Sepp Blatter. Has to be.

Also, can we change my picture back? I look like Matt Lucas after the weight loss.

m

m

    Brett (@bifurcated_utd)

1.  Paul.

2. The one where it was a kick and then it went in the side, and then we were all like “get in!”, and then it maybe wasn’t in, cos no-one was celebrating, and then we were all like “why is no-one celebrating?”, and then it wasn’t in and we were all like “Lol, I was sure that had gone in the net and not in the side!” and then after about some more minutes there was still someone who was all like “was it a goal or not?” and we were all like “shut up!” and they were all like “no” and then we were all like “yes”.

3. N/A I only like away shirt colours.

4. His name bit.

5. I didn’t see anything. The next thing I knew the jury was on fire.

6. Contrary to Tom’s theory on the origin of the term ‘loose’ with reference to the aforementioned Thundercats, it was in fact composer of the theme tune, Bernard Hoffer, who did something I haven’t made up as true. Thundercats creator Tobin Wolf was probably none too pleased when he heard it for the first time, but he probably grew to like it, eventually. He had it played at his wedding for the first dance with his wife – the cartoon actor who played Snarf irl, and at his funeral. Probably.

7. I just love all of them a lot.

8. Him.

9. @uptownbridal: Today we’re obsessing over Rachel & Doug!! The cake… the greenery… the stolen glances! #uptownbridal 

10. Angela Lansbury.

m

m

 Benno (@Benglorious)

Oh.  I see what you’re doing.

1. Gotta be Roondog.  Captain supreme.  Led by example and that’s not Example the rapster whose real life name is EG, I’m talking about the good example.  BURN.  Roonface never missed a game even when he’d been knocked up by Gnarls Bardsley that time and then fell over on the grass.  Does that make him cray-zeh?

2. Charlie Adams’s’s’s’s’s’s’s goal against Chelsea was very good and I expressed this quite eloquently on the Twitter:

However, the correct answer is any goal scored against Liverpool by any player at any time in history.

3. I’m colourblind so I find this question extremely insensitive, as well as being impossible to answer.  Red.

4. He took a corner.  For Manchester United.  In a real match.  He wasn’t the only player on the pitch.  He took a corner.

5. I’m no grass.

6.  My scroll thing has stopped working and I can’t remember what the other questions were.

7. The Desert Rats.

8. Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

9. Deep midwicket.

10. The Hamburglar.

m

m

 Tom (@tom_mcghee)

That was the season that was.  Pretty sure it had a 4 and an apostrophe in it somewhere.  We’d like to thank all three of you for reading our stuff week in, week out.  I’m only sorry that there’s not more games in a season so we could keep doing the same jokes even more.  Please direct all complaints to my personal twitter account which is linked above twice and is also right after this colon: @tom_mcghee I put it in italics because I clicked something and I don’t know how to change it back.  All compliments regarding anything should go to Brett: @bifurcated_utd because everything is his idea and he’s got that gun.  All the money should go to Benno: @Benglorious because he’s the comedic mastermind behind the very best of @bifurcated_MBM when we aren’t stealing jokes.  Just look at the amount of effort that went into this virus tweet:

Pure fire, I’m sure you’ll both agree.  Weren’t there three of you a minute ago?  Who is this?

m

m

FIN

Written and directed by Brett A.

Additional writing by Tom Mc.

More additional writing by Benno L.

Art direction by Hieronymous B.

Catering by Burger K.

Post production by Photo S.

Casting by Plaster o’P.

Score and musical selection by Chuck D.

Soundtrack available on 3.5″ floppy disc from all good floppy disc retailers

No animals were harmed during this production because we don’t class people as animals

© MCHAMMER

m

When are we getting bark-chippings installed?

To the foot stomping outrage of some fans, there exists statistical evidence which points to the fact that United don’t concede less, or win more penalties at home than other clubs, so we can finally put the myth that refereeing decisions favour the big clubs to bed can’t we? The stats say so. Night, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite … *alarm clock*

From my own perspective what the endless, ‘yes they do’/’no they don’t’ repetitions in this particular line of discourse (discourse being a polite way of saying petulant bickering) fail to address, for the most part, is the actual problem (although I wouldn’t say that this failure is in any way exclusive to this debate in particular, unfortunately).

I have no doubt whatsoever that the ‘bigger clubs’ get preferential treatment, as, as a general rule, the bigger the club is perceived to be the more fans they will attract and have in attendance for their matches. Those fans in turn will make considerably more noise than those of the visiting ‘smaller club’ (or at least be in ownership of the potential to be louder, when called upon). Why would we imagine that in any given situation a borderline decision wouldn’t go in the favour of the majority, i.e. those who shout the loudest?  Before you start picking holes (holes I’ve left there intentionally of course) that’s not my entire argument, and not even the real argument, so nerr.

The ‘bigger clubs’ also, by their very nature, attract the ‘biggest managers’. Those managers with the biggest reputations, biggest egos, biggest celebrity and therefore the biggest opportunity to sway opinion with choice words. Again, why would we imagine that in any given situation a fifty-fifty wouldn’t go in favour of Sir Alex and Manchester United; knowing full well that if it didn’t then SAF would make damned sure the world knew about it?

"Excuse me! I refuse to speak to Bifurcated.co.uk ever again."

Despite a curious public perception, referees aren’t autonomous, they are employed and trained by the footballing authorities.  Referees are human beings like some of us, they’re someone’s son or daughter, their primary functions, wants and needs are similar to ours –  some of them even have feelings. Imagine being trapped in an enclosed space with twenty four people who had no respect for you or what you represent. In addition, at least 80% of those people will be completely impetuous arseholes with a propensity towards violent acts. Just to make things a little trickier, why not imagine that all your exit points from this uncomfortable space are being guarded by 50,000 people, who not only empathise entirely with the arseholes, but encourage them.

I asked myself this (tongue in cheek) question a while back for another article, the working title of which was, ‘Why is the game still entirely at the mercy of the whim of a select few, often unhinged, unquestionably unfit, pathological egotists often found in excruciatingly tight black shorts (a subtle attempt by the manufacturers to remove them from the gene pool)?’ Although not overtly apparent from that particular sentence perhaps, my conclusion was that I absolutely feel that referees are the fall guys for the inadequacies of the governing body’s outdated and unedifying maneuverings (with no intention of insinuating that I’ve stumbled across some new revelation, which again is part of the problem).

Football bosses have not empowered referees, or supplied them with the correct tools to deal with football and all it’s nuances and intricacies. They show no support before, during, or after events, even washing their hands of flash points entirely on occasion. They just leave them firefighting, at the mercy of whoever wants to take a shot. With such a shocking display of abandonment of their duty of care to their employees, I’m surprised more referees don’t strike or even sue.

"I'm not listening, I've just super-glued my hand to my head?"

There is a faction of the political left that have politely bastardized a Gerald Massey quote, which equates to, “Take the truth as authority, not the authority as truth”. When super-imposed over the problems we encounter weekly with effectively officiating the game from top down, or bottom up, it makes sense (as it does politically) and enables those charged with refereeing to be afforded a fighting chance. Currently the authority in football provides us with our ‘truth’. A decision is made based on their rules, with no flexibility to adjust when things occur beyond those rigid parameters. The conclusion (or ‘truth’) in this instance does not provide justice, and so to approach it differently; when you discover the truth about any given incident in football, whether that be during, after, two weeks after, or two years after, you respond appropriately, you allow the truth to lead the action that deals with the event (forming the authority).

It’s very simple. The grey areas that make the above seem like the unrealistic ramblings of a pleb,  are only grey because the laws aren’t strong enough in one sense, yet are entirely inflexible in an other. MAKE THE LAWS STRONG ENOUGH IN ONE SENSE, AND YET FLEXIBLE IN ANOTHER! Eradicate the grey by re-writing the rules which confuse and contradict. Replace the ones that don’t make practical sense. When they’re good and ready they could even consider making it even easier, and fairer, by introducing technology.

In the current footballing climate, if I were a referee, I know what I’d be telling the governing bodies to do with their whistle.

I’d like to ask all of you to watch the Yves Hinant, Eric Cardot and Lehericy Delphine 2009 documentary entitled, The Referees before entering into any ‘my gran could do better’  hackneyed grumblings in the future. It’s a true testament to just how difficult the job is (you can also have a good old titter at Howard Webb’s short-comings if that’s what you’re into).

There is also an alternative theory: Ssssshhh … It’s a conspiracy