Phallus in Sunderland

Benno (@Benglorious)

Sunderland, or the ‘Black Cats’ as they are called for some unknown reason, were founded in 1879 by a teacher, James Allan, who wanted a way to impress the dinner ladies at his school.  Bitches love association football team founders who are also teachers.  He must have had some success, as his team didn’t join the rest of the proper teams in the league of football thing until eleven years later, by which point he couldn’t walk or talk due to his advanced syphilis and permanent grin.

This leads me nicely on to Vangle.  The teaching thing, not the syphilis business, although with his boyish good looks I would not be surprised in the least.  I mean, seriously: the guy is world-famous, he can wear the shit out of a suit or tracksuit, he’s been to other countries and he’s got a few quid by all accounts.  No wonder he’s struggling with his philosophy at United if he’s being hounded by chicks twenty-four seven.

I’ve lost my train of thought.

Players to watch out for today in the Sunderland team are: box-to-box midfielder Steve Cram; Heather Mills, who’s a bit one-footed, and; Marjorie Dawes, who’s had a bit of an up and down season so far.

Prediction:  With Robin having a well-earned rest after his record-breaking glut of goals, the onus will fall on Rooney and Radamel.  The hitman and her will not disappoint, finally realising that they are world-class strikers in a world-class team in a world-class league in a world-class, erm, world.  Whatever.  The goals will flow and everyone will be happy; even the doubterz and haterz.  Two apiece for the front two and one for Herrera will destroy the hapless Black Cats.  1-0 Sunderland.

The first thing Tyler did to celebrate his new United contract was to visit Bifurcated Towers and regale us with tales of his favourite things.  Top of his list were salmon en croûte, glassblowing and the concept of creative destruction:

Tom (@tom_mcghee)

I have such scant regard for this fixture I feel my time is better suited transcribing Prime’s epic takedown of Megatron in the now classic Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Prime: Megatron must be stopped…No matter the cost *chik-chuk-chik-chuk-chuk* (But more 80s electronic sounding. Its a hard noise to write).

(Prime transforms and rolls out, heading towards like all the decepticons. So ruddy Brave. Takes out Ramjet and Bombshell like a boss. Blitzwing escapes. Drives HEADLONG into fire, leaps into air and transforms back to robot mode, takes out Dirge, Soundwave and some randoms. Megatron turns to find his pals proper battered)

Megatron: Prime!

Prime: One shall stand, one shall fall

Megatron: Why throw away your life so recklessly (proper menacing like)

Prime: That’s a question you should ask yourself, Megatron (Superb banter)

Megatron: No! I’ll crush you with my bare hands!

(Throws himself at Prime, they fight like robot warrior ninjas, its insane. SPOILER: Prime wins. Kinda. Turned out to be all a big spin for Hasbro to introduce the *New* leaders – total disappointment; Ultra Magnus was basically Ed Miliband, Galvatron was just Megatron in a better suit).

Prediction: Megatron would’ve won if he’d used his massive arm cannon. Brett will predict Benno and I ruining everything (Jokes on him). Hoverboards won’t work on water, unless you’ve got power. 1-0 United, Goal scored mistakenly through boredom.

Brett (@bifurcated_mufc)

He was reading an article about how writing in the first person – using subjective opinion, self-interested anecdotes, and colloquial language – has taken precedence over the reporting of actual information, and how it was ruining the craft for everyone. He read that with his eyes on Thursday 26th of February.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need to use subjective opinion, self-interested anecdotes, and colloquial language, to write this preview.

Prediction: Ben and Tom to have ruined it for everyone. 5-1 United.

Ben (Benglorious):

Sunderland are the only team in the Premiership that use the full “A.F.C.” in their name.  Apart from Arsenal when they shorten their name and say the whole thing as an acronym.  Or Aston Villa when they both acronym (verb?) their name and drop the “Villa” bit.  And West Bromwich Albion when they do the same but not with “Villa”; they’d need to drop the “West Bromwich” bit as their name doesn’t contain the word “Villa”.  I checked.

Sunderland are also the only team to play in a red and white striped shirt apart from Stoke.  And Newcastle if their stripes were red and not black.  West Brom may also have a striped shirt but I don’t know how to check that.  The black shorts and socks that Sunderland wear are fairly common so I won’t go in to that.

Sunderland’s stadium is called the Stadium of Light, and a quick Something search reveals that this is in Lisbon, Portugal.  Bit weird as I’m pretty sure Sunderland is in the north-east of England and NOT South America, but this probably explains the poor attendances from the home fans.

Players to watch out for during Sunderland’s visit to our stadium [<<find out proper name, but it can wait until the Mentalist has finished] include Kevin “Charisma” Phillips, Danny “Somehow Transferred To Sampdoria From QPR” Dichio and Niall “Disco Pants” Quinn, whom I’m told has some of his own money in Sunderland.  Most likely in a bank or safety deposit box.

Prediction:  Coming off the back of the best win we’ve ever had with Giggsy as manager, United will be buoyant and looking for revenge on Sunderland for knocking them out of THE premier cup competition in one of the finest penalty shoot-outs the footballing world has ever witnessed.  Rooney has been like a new signing under the new gaffer’s watchful eye, and will add to his brace last week by scoring from 137 yards, opening the figurative floodgates for Mata and Kagawa to grab a cheeky goal apiece, Janozzo to steal in for an even cheekier goal before he’s subbed off for Welbz, who will zup zup in his usual zup-zupping style for the cheekiest goal of the lot.  Giggsy won’t ever be prouder than he will be right then.  1-0 Sunderland.

About the author:  I HAVE been to a football match before.  At least I think it was football.  This guy had sticks on his feet and moved side-to-side down a big white hill.  People were doing that loud happy noise thing they do when they like something, so I reckon it must have been football.

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Brett:

We owe the country this one. There’s no way we can let Paolo di Poyet’s lot gain any more momentum and escape the European election relegation zone. Only yesterday in the news I saw Paolo’s number two Nigel Clarkson being photographed with an egg, who I presume was part of the backroom staff. The punchline is ‘a yoke’.

Following my colleague Bert’s lead, I decided to do my own reee … reeeee…  reeeeeeee… looking up of information that someone has worked out how to store in the web world, and I found a really interesting one word sentence about it. I taped it onto a compact disc player, but there was no hole for it to come out of the internet machine, and there was no way I was going to waste my Thursday night writing it all down here. The History Channel, it’s ‘Ourstory’, but I’ll let it slide … are doing a special on some time that had happened before now, well, even before then, now, and certainly before I’ve written the next word. Even if I wrote now again, it wouldn’t be now.

Prediction: The presenter to walk around a place now, but that was there in the past, and talk about it now, but not about it now, now about its past, and repeat some points he’d made in the past, about some points that were about the past. Though the past points he repeated wouldn’t be as from the past as the initial points about the past he’d made, because he’d made them now, well, then.