The uneventful life of a retired footballer

I'm Bert Tiddle and you've never heard of me. I played with Sam Allardyce at Coventry in 1984. Every day at lunch, he would punch me in the back of the head while I tried to eat my soup, causing me to spit it all over myself and stab my mustache with the spoon. And every time he did it, he would laugh like a mental patient. Sam Allardyce is a twunt. But a loveably twunt.

Things have not been pleasant at Tiddle Manor these last few days. Old Bert has been absolutely irate ever since I heard the news about my pal Sam getting sacked by those chicken farmers who own Blackburn now. Plus, I just tried to order an adult program off the television and the stupid thing won't work. Great. Now, I have to get Cirrhosis, the youngest of my 18 kids, to show me how to do this again.

What did I say just last week? Football club owners are the worst. The absolute worst. What did Sam do to deserve this shock? And right before Christmas, no less. I happen to know for a fact that he was planning on buying everyone at that club fantastic gifts for the holiday -- really amazing gifts like loads of cheap beer and cigarettes with the filters cut off -- but now he's not. Because giving people things when you've been worked over is not what Christmas is about. Sure, he's getting a £1.5 million payout, but that's chump change to man like Big Sam. Do you know how much he spends on T-shirt with his face on them alone? More than you make in a year.

Anyway, it's not about the money to him. That man is a natural born leader. I once saw him tell his entire squad that he was better than all of them combine and that they're lucky he lets them make eye contact with his dog. His dog is called Dog Sam, by the way. It's a beautiful, slobbering animal. That's not the point, though. The point is that there are bigger and better things in store for Big Sam Allardyce. Replace Jim Mourinho at Real Madrid? Randy Benitez at Inter Milan? Maybe. Or maybe he'll turn around a crud team like West Ham and blow everyone's minds.

It's your loss, chicken farmers. I'm going to change my shirt. 

Photo: Reuters

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