sending scouts to watch two-dozen times capped, four hundred million pound defender (fifty yellow cards and two pre-assists last season. Nineteen games) available at a bargain price"?
Surely this sort of thing has been a scam for decades and especially nowadays with all the media available. It's basically just a nice weekend Euro city-break in Benidorm or Bochum or Brescia for a club stalwart; "Happy Birthday, George, and take the wife (or not); see the sights, do some shopping, take in a show on Saturday night, go to the game on the Sunday and here's a list of the duty-free fags and booze the lads have asked for."
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Well, quite. And the same goes for top managers going to big games "to WATCH Player A." Load o' bannicks.
They're just spending an evening at the match and catching up with some mates; having a kebab and a few strong lagers, just like folk do in any industry. They have the money to be almost anywhere, of course, but having made their names in football, The Football is the only environment in which they enjoy real status. Up West at the opera or the theatre, a Pep , for example, or a Wenger, would be just another mug punter or know-nothing **** with cash. Everyone would snigger at them behind their hands. What's he doing here, they'd whisper. A footballer, my dear! Probably thinks Puccini is a promising young Serie B full-back and "The Tales of Hoffman" is the memoirs of a junior member of West Germany's 1974 World Cup-winning squad lol.
However, at Swindon Town Seconds v Supermarine Reserves, or even at El Clasico, He is royalty. He is of The Elite, The Elect, The Worthy. The red carpet will be rolled out for them.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."