THE BOTTLE OF BECKS
Comedian Rob Newman ridiculed former England manager Graham Taylor in the early ninties by assuming his comical accent and uttering “we mustn’t underestimate the Estonians”.  In response to his own character assassination the funnyman countered that we must underestimate the Estonians: send out slx players, not even wearing the proper kit and in flip flops.

Clearly no one told Steve McClaren – who built the Balkans up to be the second coming of Brazil ’70 – therefore allowing David Beckham’s two assists and Michael Owen’s goal to render them living legends.

“You can see it, you know it and I know it: he’s immense,” said McClaren of the former England captain, as the Estonian central defence directed traffic out of the stadium car park.

“David Beckham is a very, very good player and deserves to be in the team. He got a knock early on but didn’t want to come off because he realized that playing a team of lumberjacks and plumbers was a great chance for him to look better than he really is,” McClaren kind of said.

With underwhelming competition for the right-wing slot, including Subbuteo figure Aaron Lennon, Lord Becks reckons he can play until Brooklyn is old enough to substitute him in his final game.

“I believe I can play for many years to come,” he said, while banging Los Angeles in to the Google Maps search engine.  “I have already said [LA] Galaxy will do everything possible to help me play for my country.”

We’re giving it six months, tops.

RATIONING COMING TO NORTH-EAST
Newcastle fans rejoiced for a single paragraph today after reading* that charming Chairman Freddy Shepherd is flogging his stake in the club to Flash American Mike Ashley – before it was revealed that he will remain in the ample-sized chairman’s, uh, chair.

As if local restaurateurs weren’t under enough pressure feeding Freddy, news that banquet season-ticket holder Mark Viduka is to roll along the Northern line from Middlesbrough in a huge barrel, has sent them off to purchase the new Sub Zero Pro 48 fridge-freezer for storage purposes.

“I’m over the moon,” he said, trying to take a bite out of its cheesy surface as he passed over it.  “I want to win things and Newcastle United is a club that has all the ingredients to do that, especially with Sam coming in.   Mmmmm.  Ingredients.”

Oh God.  We’d forgotten about Big Sam.  This won’t be pretty.

* Obviously when we said “reading” we meant that their care workers read it to them.

PLEASE DON’T BID FOR MY STRIKER.  OH, GO ON THEN.
As clubs line up for Thierry Henry, you have to wonder how long Blind Arsene Wenger will keep up the pretence that the biggest ego in London (and it’s up against stiff competition when you consider the proximity to Ashley Cole) is not for sale.

As Barcelona, AC Milan and, um, Liverpool all wink seductively at the smooth va va voomer, Blind is doubtlessly having a good think about the unmotivated, shoulder shrugging, sulking antics of his star striker and thinking about how many non-league French teenagers he can buy with £22m.

And sure can’t he rely on Emmanuel Adebayor to put those easy chances away?  The Togolese striker thinks so.

“”I need to work on my finishing, but I’m not so shit in front of goal,” Manny sobbed to a giggling Four-Four-Two journalist.  “You can’t just watch Henry 100 times and copy it, you must communicate.  Thierry tells me where and when to run, how to score one-on-one. He says, ‘You have to put your foot here’.”

A career in coaching awaits the insightful Henry we reckon.

+++ TIGHT SHORTS +++
Lots happening in the world of football.  West Ham, who are aiming to sell mediocre self-professed legend Nigel Reo-Coker, have replaced him in advance with 26 year old former Charlton, Chelsea  and Newcastle journeyman, Scott Parker.

Replacing the journeyman at Newcastle will be Man City’s former Street Fighter character, Joey “M Bison” Barton.

Chelsea boil Peter Kenyon did a great impression of a pot denouncing a kettle as black when they said they’d report Real Madrid for illegally approaching Arjen Robben.

Nani today passed a medical at Manchester United.  Didn’t they sign him weeks ago?

Hibernian won the Scottish Women’s Premier League title in style with a 6-4 victory over female giants Glasgow City.  Seriously, they are giants.  Have you been to Glasgow recently?

+++ TWAT OF THE DAY +++
“The decision of the player is to go to Los Angeles, he has always been a great professional, but a player who has such an important contract with another club, we cannot count on him. He is not going to play any more.”  Yep, it’s an old quote but with David Beckham a driving force behind Real Madrid’s nine wins in ten games and England’s first convincing competitive performance under McClaren, Fabio Capello sounds like a bit of a twat five months on.