Counting the cost of football coming home

Mum of three teenage girls, Mandy Middlemarsh woke up this morning dreading the cost of England women's team winning the European football championships on Sunday night.

Speaking exclusively to Newsbiscuit, Mandy explained that whilst she is all in favour of her daughters having role models it costs a bloody fortune everytime a new sport is flavour of the month.

"First up is was Elle Simmons which wasn't too bad seeing as none of my girls can swim anyway so they didn't really want to follow in her footsteps. Plus all those early morning would have killed our Chelsea as she really loves her bed. And it wasn't too bad when that Fallon Sharrock won a few darts games against the men as all I had to do was mark out a line 6 ft down the hall way and let the girls throw darts at the kitchen door. Not that that fad lasted long"

"Then things started to get expensive. When Victoria Pendleton and Laura Kenny started smashing it in the velodrome, well of course they all wanted state of the art bikes that are all now rusting in the shed. Then there was the women rowers a few years back at the Olympics, well I don't think they realise just how difficult it is to store three canoes in a 6th floor flat or get them on the roofrack of a Nissan Micra to transport them to the local canal."

"And that Emma Raducanu, don't even mention her. Just winning seven matches cost me an arm and a leg with her carbon graphite racket and different shoes depending on whether she's playing on grass, hard court or clay. And none of my girls got a contract with Dior out of it I can tell you."

"Last year it was Skye Browne and skateboarding and I lost count of the number of trips we made to A&E for innumerable bumps, bruises and breaks. Now it's all about the female Lions and the cost of a different home and away kit every two seasons."

"And as if that wasn't bad enough then that Chloe Kelly had to go and put her foot in it by whipping off her shirt and suddenly all three of mine are demanding fancy sports bras and I just know even though she is only 12, my Shirley is gonna have massive tits so that's gonna be expensive isn't it. Unless they sell them in the middle aisle at Lidl."

Image: Pixabay/Jarmolunk

England fan admits the women's game is "the real thing"

After weeks of disappointedly saying "Oh, it's just birds" whenever he turned on the TV and saw the England women's team playing, football fan Dave Concrete has grudgingly admitted that the women's game might be the real thing after all.

This change of heart is thought to have come when he realised the England women's team were doing rather well, and were in fact more likely than their male counterparts to win a tournament anytime soon.

However, this newfound respect for the women's team doesn't seem to have translated into knowing anything about them, as Concrete remarked that he "really liked the blonde one with the ponytail... no not her, the other one... hang on, are we the ones in white?"

However, the female referees at the tournament have come in for criticism for their habit of giving out red cards and responding to player protests by turning away, arms folded, and saying "Well if you don't know what you did, I'm certainly not gonna tell you."

image from pixabay

England Euro 2016 Squad 'copied from Panini Sticker Album'

England manager Roy Hodgson admitted today that his Euro 2016 squad was copied straight from the double-page England spread in the popular Panini Euro2016 Sticker Collection.

Speaking at a press conference at the formal squad announcement, Hodgson announced: ‘These guys at Panini have been doing it for 30 years, they know football inside out.’ ‘I looked at the 20 England players they had selected for the album, and although there were a couple of names I didn’t recognise, mostly they were spot on. It was as good as anything I can come up with.’

An avid Panini sticker collector himself, Hodgson indicated that he had already completed most of his album, including all the England page, and had at least 10 swaps of Luke Shaw.

When challenged that at least four of the players listed on the England pages were injured and would miss the Euros, Hodgson defended his decision arguing, 'I have to balance injury considerations alongside the aesthetic feel of my Panini album, which would suffer if players listed didn't actually travel to the tournament.'

Hodgson also asked if anyone could help him with a swap of Berat Djimsiti of Albania (number 70), as this was still a ‘need’ for him.

photo: https://pixabay.com/users/milldesign-40702/