Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

The Gallowgate Massive

Fri Apr 25 08:56AM

Newcastle United want to sign Thierry Henry, if today's papers are anything to go by. 

And Early Doors wants to ride a unicorn through the centre of Hounslow without local chavs attempting to nick its horn, but that isn't going to happen either.

While the Toon Army whip themselves into a frenzy, Henry takes a somewhat different view: "There's only one team in England for me. Everybody knows the love and affection I have for Arsenal."

What is it about so-called 'massive' clubs like Newcastle and Spurs that makes them think they have any chance of pulling this kind of thing off?

What makes them ignore bitter experience in favour of such naïve optimism (and no, Michael 'Damaged Goods' Owen doesn't count)?

Look at Manchester City's obviously fruitless pursuit of Ronaldinho. It is an agent's dream. They have loads of cash and ideas above their station - the perfect stooges to drive up the eventual price paid by Milan or Inter.

It seems some clubs, like plankton attempting to take down a great white shark, refuse to accept their place on the food chain.

So, to help them out and save them the bother of fruitlessly chasing players who are out of their league, Early Doors has compiled a definitive Massive List.

Now for the science bit. Early Doors did an internet search for each team name followed by "massive club" and saw how many results it got.

The table makes happy reading for Rafa Benitez's summer war chest, while Reading crash into the Champions League places. Possibly because they share their name with a popular pastime and life skill.

As in real life, Newcastle find themselves in lower mid-table while Manchester City have their sights set on Europe.

But the real shock comes at the wrong end of the table, with a team that are linked with more unrealistic signings than any other languishing in the relegation zone.

Tottenham Hotspur are 19th, with just Derby between themselves and the bottom of the pile. No wonder Rivaldo opted for Milan and sent Glenn Hoddle a nice letter instead.

The Massive List

1- Liverpool: 12,400
2- Chelsea: 11,500
3- Arsenal: 11,100
4- Reading: 10,900
5- Everton: 10,200
6- Manchester United: 9,860
7- Manchester City: 7,730
8- West Ham 7,400
9- Portsmouth: 6,260
10- Fulham: 6,100
11- Newcastle United: 5,860
12- Middlesbrough: 5,750
13- Aston Villa: 4,890
14- Sunderland: 4,730
15- Blackburn Rovers: 4,170
16- Bolton Wanderers: 3,560
17- Birmingham City: 2,330
18- Wigan Athletic: 1,020
19- Tottenham Hotspur: 1,010
20- Derby County: 633

- - -

Nothing against Rangers or anything, but Early Doors doesn't have the stomach to dissect another train wreck of a European semi-final.

Fair enough, Rangers had a lot of players out and have made the whole goalless draw at Ibrox thing work in the past. But when both teams are playing for a nil-nil it's never going to be easy on the eye.

All in all, it has been the kind of week to make Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford say this: "Twenty20 has the potential to be the most popular team sport in the whole world in maybe less than 10 years."

Clearly Stanford is madder than a bag of cut snakes, but Early Doors found itself coming round to his point of view as it watched Shane Warne seal the Rajastan Royals' dramatic victory over the Deccan Chargers by clobbering consecutive sixes off the last two balls.

Now all Stanford needs is to get continental Europe, the US, South America, Africa and East Asia on board. And by 'on board', Early Doors means he could start by at least making them aware that cricket exists.

If anyone has Stanford's number, let ED know as it has a cunning plan to make cheese-rolling the most popular sport in the world by 2020.

- - -

COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA OF THE DAY: "North Korea has fully prepared an Olympic Games torch relay in Pyongyang that will be high-quality, outstanding, safe and successful. It will astonish the world." Early Doors just wants to see Kim Jong-Il repeat his first-ever round of golf which, if North Korean authorities are to be believed, saw him drain 11 holes-in-one and finish 38 under par.

COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA OF THE DAY (2): Ken Livingstone boasting in the London mayoral debate that he hates sport and only bid for the Olympics as a "con" to get money to regenerate the East End. Having seen the three frontrunners in action on Question Time last night, Early Doors is seriously considering voting for that Christian fundamentalist bloke.

MICKEY MOUSE SPORTING EVENT OF THE DAY: The Tampa Bay Rays last night completed a three-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays in the first Major League Baseball games to be played at Disney World. Incidentally, the Rays have a third baseman by the unfortunate name of Evan Longoria.

CONTROVERSY OF THE DAY: "Kolo Toure last night warned Arsenal captain William Gallas: I want your job." Or so says the Sun. However, Toure's quotes singularly fail to back up this assertion: "It doesn't matter if I have the armband or not."

DISS OF THE DAY: kenshin22up on Thursday's Early Doors: "who wrote this bunch of junk? seems like the only thing the writer got going for is his stink mouth."

TALKING POINT: It took him the best part of 48 hours to come up with it, or read it off another website, but laurence.odea made ED chuckle with this: "John Arne Riise was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday morning on the M56. Apparently he was heading in the wrong direction."

And as for a commentator's gaffe, ED couldn't resist this from samuelbanks as it purports to be from giant-haired kids TV legend Pat Sharpe: "Borussia Moenchengladbach. Now there's a weak side if ever I saw one. But I tell you what, you wouldn't want to play them at scrabble."

Today: Which club has the biggest delusions of grandeur?

COMING UP: Big weekend previews, Fantasy Football, you know the drill. Also, live coverage of snooker, F1, tennis and the biggest team sport in the world.

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