Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

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Fri May 16 08:58AM

Chelsea will be denied an open-top bus parade on Thursday if they win the Champions League as the council believe it will cause massive traffic jams.

A Hammersmith and Fulham councillor said: "Holding a parade on Thursday evening is not an option considering that it would bring a large part of west London to a standstill in rush hour." So no change from a normal morning, then.

The council want Chelsea to do it at the weekend or on Bank Holiday Monday, but it seems the club can't be bothered, particularly as most of their players will have scarpered on international duty.

The Blues are predictably peeved, and are considering taking the matter to the desk of London's new fop-haired Mayor who, having successfully located the paper clips after a fortnight in the job, is now ready to make some big decisions.

As a man who perpetrated this tackle on former Germany international Maurizio Gaudino, Boris Johnson clearly possesses a sound grasp of the game's finer points, and will surely view Chelsea's plight sympathetically.

Early Doors doesn't like to disclose too much personal information about itself, lest it gives a useful lead to the several international intelligence services on its tail.

But it does recall a time when it received a letter through its door, complete with a nifty little map, advising local residents of Arsenal's Champions League victory parade.

Amid much self-congratulatory rescheduling of bin collections, closing of roads and erecting of barriers, the council almost forgot to mention that Gunners might in fact lose the game. Which they duly did.

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There is probably a reason why the FA Cup final build-up has focused more on the teams' suits than their football ability.

And who is Early Doors to buck a trend? For the record, Pompey's garb was designed by a Welshman - sheet metal-worker's son Jeff Banks.

After David James's cream Armani fiasco for Liverpool's Spice Boys in 1996, Sol Campbell was handed suit selection duties, a sound choice given his interest in fashion and interior designer girlfriend.

Campbell's squeeze Fiona Barratt is no ordinary WAG, and has risked the wrath of Abi, Coleen, Posh and the girls with these comments about getting on the team bus at the 2006 World Cup.

"I didn't care and got on the bus with my Financial Times and my sudoku. The nonentity WAGs had to walk out first. The higher the profile, the later they were," she said.

"Of course, Queen Bee Victoria came out last, there being at least 10 or 15 minutes before she appeared, and her hair and make-up team were all in the lobby."

Banks praised Campbell's "conservatism" in opting for a navy pinstripe design. If you want a sober, non-flashy suit, Early Doors would suggest ditching the big-name designer and taking a trip to Marks & Spencer's.

This is exactly what Cardiff did for their semi-final trip to Wembley, but they have now ditched M&S in favour of local tailors Woodies Emporium.

Meanwhile, organisers have chosen to inflict not one but two sopranos on us, with the addition of Katherine Jenkins to sing 'Land of my Fathers' in Welsh while the loathsome Lesley Garrett performs God Save the Queen.

Excuse Early Doors if it seems a little pedantic here, but what is the point? God Save the Queen is the national anthem of Great Britain which, the last time Early Doors checked, covers Wales.

If Colin Jackson hadn't kept knocking those flipping hurdles over, it would have been the British anthem playing at the Olympics.

ED doesn't care whether the anthem is sung in English, Welsh or Norwegian, and it certainly has no beef with Welsh involvement in the 'English' FA Cup. The point is this: it hates opera singers and now it has to listen to two of them.

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TRANSFER TALK: Roman Abramovich is set to open his wallet for his first acquisition of the summer - Amy Winehouse. Roman's girlfriend Daria Zhukova wants the pharmaceutical-friendly singer to perform at the opening of an art gallery in Moscow and will pay her £1 million for the privilege.

FOREIGN VIEW:  Appropriately enough for the day before Calamity James takes on Peter Enckelman in the Cup final, there is news of a goalkeeping blunder in South America.

Claudio Bieler capitalised on San Lorenzo goalkeeper's Agustin Orion ball-juggling blunder to grab a 1-1 draw for Ecuadorean champions LDU in the first leg of their Copa Libertadores quarter-final.

San Lorenzo defender Gaston Aguirre passed the ball back to Orion, who flicked it up and juggled with it but then lost control, which allowed LDU's Bieler to touch it into the goal.

BUMPER TALKING POINT: The UEFA Cup final might have been everything we expected and less, but the chaotic scenes in Manchester during and after the game at least sparked a lively debate among the message board faithful.

Good job the Early Doors doesn't come complete with 20 pints of Skol Super and a malfunctioning TV screen, otherwise we could have had a riot of our own.

kevmun82: "Well, now the majority of England and Manchester in particular know why Rangers are so hated up here. Result didn't go your way? Smash the place up. Big Screen TV not working? Smash the place up. No dodgy refereeing decisions to blame the result on? Smash the place up. Not being allowed to smash the place up by Riot Police? Smash the place up and then claim there was no provocation whatsoever from yourselves, that the Police were just barbaric and treated you like animals. Thanks a bunch, you worked really hard to keep up the stereotype of the 'Boozed-up Jock spoiling for a fight' and managed to set us back yet again."

t.nutkins: "40 arrests out of 100,000? Doesn't sound like a riot to me. Sounds like a few pissed up idiots, and of course no other club in the world has these types of 'fans' does it? I think any fans from any club would be p'd off if they went to celebrate their team in a European cup final and then couldn't watch the match on the big screen provided thanks to a technical hitch. Try blaming the council for cocking up the entire day and not being able to handle so many supporters, even though they openly invited every Rangers fan to Manchester for a festival atmosphere."

not_blonde_really: "I was in Manchester city centre last night, and it was absolutely fine. There was a lady who clearly had nothing to do with the football walking her pram through the hoards, and she was loving the sense of camaraderie. I believe the arrests were largely at the stadium, which shows it's got nothing to do with fans without tickets, and incidents involving 0.0004% of the people there should not reflect on the rest of the fans."

Others attempted an impromptu caption competition, or more accurately a 'describe what the photo looks like' competition.

samuelbanks: "The man in the picture reminds me of one of those dads dancing badly at a wedding."

mpasc66: "I know that Phill Jupitus is an obnoxious unfunny p***k, but I'm not sure he deserves the beating he's getting in the photo above - then again, maybe he does."

garethcoletranslations: "Looks like the old guy in the picture has just felt the full force of his fourth kebab with some major follow-through action. The guy in the riot gear on the left is inspecting the damage, while the one on the right is just shielding himself against any aftershocks."

Meanwhile, did somebody just compare Avram Grant to Sir Alf Ramsey? Yes, it's pete.mccrory1: "So Avram Grant is the quiet man ED. I can't remember any bon mots credited to Sir Alf in '66 but he did all right. I know you weren't born then but that is no excuse."

No, no bon mots from Mr Ramsey at all. Other than guaranteeing that England would win the World Cup, calling Argentina 'animals', and his pre-extra time team-talk in the final: "You've beaten them once. Now go out and bloody beat them again." And let's not forget Sir Alf also once said: "There is great harmonium in the dressing room."

COMING UP: It's a welcome day of rest for our million Premier League preview monkeys sat at a million typewriters. Settle instead for some Cup final build-up and League One playoff action this evening.

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