Danny Chips Returns!

Just as the sleepiest field mouse wakes himself from hibernation in order to hunt out tasty springtime treats, and long-dormant volcanoes suddenly start vomiting piping-hot magma onto the defenceless towns and villages of the Pacific rim, thus I begin to gently arouse myself from my winter slumber to preach The Gospel According to St Chipsy, Bk.69, Ch.69.

And now, my grubby illegitimate spiritual children, for the reading: “Hear, O Seconds: for the GROUNDSMAN hath spoken to me thus – ‘Bring no more vain oblations;; the calling of a match at 2.30 on Saturday is iniquity, you can play at 1.30 or on Sunday if you like. Please confirm by midday tomorrow. What sayest thou of thyself?’

So spake the GROUNDSMAN, chaps.

Anyway, despite the fact that his chat is an abomination unto me, whosoever agreeth to the new time shall be rewarded in Paradise; for he shall get to start, and anyone late is obviously going to be on the bench. Meet at the plodge at 1. Iesus Chipsus dominum tuum.”

Chipter and verse

Now I’m not trying to make out that I write all my football emails in the style of the King James Bible, and I’m also not saying that I am the Son of God (although admittedly that’s probably one for you to think about at home). What I am saying, however, is that the above passage represents just one of the ways in which I’m trying to spice up my midweek administrative correspondence with a little dash of lexical curry sauce.

And I really have had to start trying. It seems that some of the players have become a little bit unhappy with me over recent weeks. Whereas last term most of the Seconds players seemed to gobble quietly and contentedly on their weekly ration of Chips, eagerly consuming my salty warmth with loyalty and pride, now very few want to take even a nibble at the crusty old portion I appear to have become. Doused in unnecessary burger sauce and left on Orgasm Bridge for some depraved Fitz student to piss all over during his bleak and interminably long journey back from Sunday Kuda, I am The Chips that Nobody Wants to Eat.

Eat me..

Last week someone did a shit in the kit bag. My collection of signed James Beattie photos got stolen from my room and returned the next day with all the eyes scratched out (why?!). The email sign-up list is now a desolate New Mexican wasteland of empty space only punctuated by shitty tumbleweeds of abuse – under my name, for example, a certain Bio-NatSci has posted a picture of two flies fucking inside a test-tube, accompanied only by the caption: ‘Danny’s banter’.

The sole consolation I can draw from that particular gibe is that I’ve heard Martin O’Neill experienced similar episodes of cyber-bullying whilst being forced out of Sunderland last season, but that his experience was made all the worse by Wes Brown’s famously vile imagination and peculiarly advanced photoshopping capabilities. Still, I remain dejected.

‘How the mighty have fallen’, you might say, but this is worse than that. Though traditional narratives occasionally allow the mighty to fall gracefully, permitting them some kind of release from the pain of their demise, I on the other hand am tortuously compelled to keep on organising never-to-happen fixtures, and each batch of mocking replies from my own team feels like being repeatedly karate-chopped in the dick by an expert gang ofmerciless black belts specifically trained in making me feel sad. These are miserable times for St Chipsy – ora pro me.