Oliver O’Connor was ostensibly caught recording a Boro training session, prompting the FA to replace Southampton with Boro in the Championship play-off final and O’Connor to radio ‘mission accomplished’ back to base.

He said: “Come on. I was ‘hiding between a tree and some bushes’? How shit a spy do you think I am?

“The whole plan was to get caught, admit it, and boost Middlesbrough into a play-off final they could never have reached by fair means. False flags aren’t just for incidents of white men doing terrorism!

“Southampton had no idea I’d been turned by their rivals, but Boro could offer me inducements no South coast club ever could. Cheap oil and a lifetime’s supply of parmos.

“Job done. Southampton ruined. Middlesbrough now only have Hull City to beat and they’re in the Premier League. No way will they do it.”

Southampton manager Tonda Eckert said: “This should secure us at least another two seasons in the Championship, thank Christ. We’d get the shit kicked out of us in the Premier League.”

Julian Dicks (senior career 1985-2002) 

Roses grow from shit and have thorns that can f**k you up, so would adequately represent the West Ham legend who starred in a 1989 game against Wimbledon described as a ‘disgrace to football’ and even whose testimonial featured a 17-player brawl. Floral notes should include beer, mud and testosterone.

Duncan Ferguson (senior career 1990-2006) 

Want to grow a rose aphids will be afraid to go anywhere near? Then breed a variety named after Big Dunc, who still holds the joint record for red cards and served three months inside for an on-pitch headbutt in 1994. Would deter burglars because its namesake has hospitalised two, in two separate incidents.

Michael Owen (senior career 1996-2013) 

Not every rose can be interesting. Some roses, while theoretically exceptional, offer little in terms of visual appeal or scent and are largely just there to fill the borders out and provide a backdrop to the other, more exotic roses. Such a rose could be named after prodigy-turned-journeyman Owen. Should not flourish in any soil outside of the Merseyside area.

Kevin Keegan (senior career 1968-1985) 

Flowers, as any gardener can tell you, promise a great deal they then fail to deliver. Year after year they fail to bloom, lose all their petals overnight, or manage a few sickly ones and it’s never their fault, it’s always the weather or the pruning or being overwatered. The Kevin would exemplify these failures, but trying to make it work would be fun.

Harry Maguire (senior career 2011-ongoing) 

The perfect name for a solid, dependable rose that might not be the star of any garden but will grow without fuss. Not especially attractive blooms. Rose-coloured. Scent: rose. Head perhaps a bit too heavy for the stem.

Become an ultra

You’ll never make the team, but you’re more committed than any mere player or board member could ever be. The intensity of your love borders on criminal: tattoos not just of the club crest but specific goals, a life built around their away games, emotions dictated by their league standing, and only dating women who support Yeovil Town. So single, then.

Play over-competitive five-a-side

Haven’t turned your passion into your job? Then it can be a hobby you take far, far too seriously. Treat your casual park meet-ups with the reverence and rage they deserve. Is everyone on the team committed to coming top of the league in the South Gloucester area, or are you going to have to start f**king screaming?

Be bitter

Vocalising your resentment every time you see a footballer who made it but didn’t deserve to, whether for Chelsea or in non-league, helps remind everyone that you’ll never get over it. Loud sighs, shouted insults, and a tirade of vitriol will be both cleansing and energising, and social media will join you in a community of broken resentment.

Start a podcast

As the adage goes: those who can’t, podcast. You have the knowledge, the passion and the need to prove yourself to wang on about every match, player transfer and manager beef for hours, and there are many out there who’ll listen just to hate you a little bit more than they hate themselves. It’s the therapy nobody involved accepts they need.

Play fantasy football

What could be closer to being an actual football manager than being a pretend manager forcing your whole office to take part in your power fantasy? They’ll all realise how nakedly important this is to you and how little anything in your life – your job, your wife, your children – is in comparison. You won’t win and will cry.

Make your kids play football

Every child needs a little direction from their parents, and living your unfulfilled dreams through them really makes them work for your love. It needs dedication, so restrict all non-football related activities, chat and ambitions until your child is good enough to go pro or old enough to go no-contact.

Get into rugby instead

Switching sporting allegiances is a big life decision and, like converting your garage or telling your wife you preferred her hair before, it’s irreversible. And worth bearing in mind that rugby has its own range of clinically disappointed wannabe pros, they’re big lads, and when they’re shitfaced they get fighty.

Sabastian Sawe, who made history by completing the London Marathon in one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, credited his achievement to being faster, because he is a professional athlete.

He said: “Pacing yourself, staying hydrated, and having friend and family cheer you on? Not, it turns out, as important as putting one foot in front of the other repeatedly lots of times really quickly.

“It’s weird so many marathon runners leave this out. Instead it’s all about training, energy gels and plasters over your nipples, which aren’t nearly as effective as running faster over this distance than anyone else in recorded history.

“Other useful things to keep in mind if you want to smash the two-hour barrier like me are not stopping, and making sure that you’re running in the right direction. Oh, and check there’s actually a marathon on, otherwise you’re just a man in traffic.

“Having two legs, being young, and not being dead are all helpful as well. But I really can’t stress that it all comes down to going fast. Maybe write it down so you don’t forget.”

Marathon runner Tom Booker said: “I don’t know. I still reckon endlessly droning on about running a marathon to everyone in the office plays a crucial role.”

Grace Wood-Morris, handbag rentier: “I’m dressing as a two-bedroom flat in Dalston available for only £1,685 a month, in the hope the crazed hordes chasing me will spur me on and improve my time.”

Emma Bradford, industrial cleaner: “Sexy Sir Olly Robbins. What? Well nobody told me the rules are different from Halloween.”

Jim Bates, dog trainer: “I’m raising £7,500 for motor neurone disease dressed as the late Professor Stephen Hawking and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”

Donna Sheridan, flare tester: “My costume is of a woman who loves her husband and children but needed to train for six months to prove something obscure to herself, not to avoid them or anything. It’s my running clothes.”

Will McKay, inker: “Where are we on blackface for this one? Still no?”

‘Was Robbie Savage’s ponytail cultural appropriation?’

Robbie Savage, a midfielder for Leicester City in the dark ages before the dawn of woke, had a ponytail even though he was not indigenous, except to Wales. Was he wearing Native American culture as a costume, teamed with a Walker’s Crisps logo, and was his surname racist? Yes on both counts. Cancelled, 2000 League Cup medal confiscated.

‘Does the carbon footprint of penalty shootouts make them unsustainable?’

Penalty shootouts extend a match by up to ten minutes, meaning floodlights and televisions are on for longer and the planet ten minutes closer to extinction. They’re also stressful and for millennials, that’s trauma. They should be replaced by trawling through both teams’ social media to see who has given the most support to the marginalised.

‘Should the 1966 World Cup final be restaged?’

England vs West Germany was a hideously white final. To ensure racial equity, Football Focus restaged it between two teams not built on colonial wealth and Nazism. The resulting game between North Korea and Chile ended with the former worthy winners and Pak Zeung-zin the hero to British schoolboys he always deserved to be.

‘Can we create queer justice by forcibly outing players?’

One-quarter of people are queer, according to academic metrics, but none of the Premier League are. Is it not time to start forcing them? A quota system in which one in four players is forced to live an LGBTQ+ lifestyle instead of joylessly ‘shagging models’ or ‘having four children with their childhood sweetheart’ would make football, and Britain, a better place.

‘Rewilding pitches: is there a downside?’

Trimmed grass is a green desert for wildlife. Let it grow to waist height and it provides vital nectar for pollinators and lets fans see Pep Guardiola’s remarkable patterns of play etched out on the pitch. What could be more beautiful than, midway through a counterattack, Erling Haaland halting to observe a purple emperor butterfly deriving salt from carrion?

‘Why are we covering football anyway?’

Just last week Football Focus turned the cameras on itself and asked why football matters, when inequitable capitalism is laying waste to the world? Before switching to coverage of a contemporary dance performance offering a searing critique of whiteness which reduced viewers to tears. They cancelled Football Focus because it was dangerous.

The team, who triumphantly left the Championship with a 2-2 draw against Hull City yesterday, believe that a season of glamour ties against the likes of Wycombe and Doncaster is just the start.

Manager Gary Rowett said: “There are critics out there saying this is down to one spectacularly unlucky run and we can’t possibly sustain it. I say to them, just watch.

“We’re going to build on this next season. We’ll be buying rejects from the Scottish leagues, we’ll be getting knocked out of the Vertu trophy in the second round, and our managerial merry-go-round will be a spiral down the drain.

“This last season has shown we’re more than ready to compete with the elite of England’s scum towns and it’s whetted our appetite for more. I believe, and so do the lads, that we can take this all the way to League Two and perhaps the dizzy depths below.”

Fan Steve Malley said: “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. With our luck we’ll be back in the Championship within a couple of seasons.”

Jordan Gardner, who is unemployed and pansexual, says he can enjoy the balletic grace of a spin kick to the neck while deploring the gladiator’s vocal support for Trump.

He continued: “I have a master’s degree in the poetry of Sylvia Plath. It’s just that I also very much enjoy seeing a man getting his head kicked in.

“Yes, a lot of the fighters have problematic views and aren’t shy about using their platform to voice them. I blame the steroids and repeated concussions. But just because I cheer them on while they beat the living shit out of each other doesn’t mean I endorse that.

“Bryce Mitchell is an angel of pure vengeance inside the octagon, dealing out merciless, savage beatings that lift me aloft on wings of bloody joy. For me, that’s unrelated to his praise for Hitler and flat-earther beliefs.

“Just because he homeschools his son to stop him becoming a Satan-worshipping gay communist doesn’t mean his ground elbow knockout of Kron Gracie wasn’t a thing of inarguable beauty. He believes Elon Musk is the antichrist, so we’ve common ground.”

He added: “I’d definitely draw the line if one of them were, you know, a terrible criminal. Apart from a criminal record for multiple serious assaults. They mostly have that.”

Helen Archer, steeplejack: “The $280 Monocular Unlock Fee, which allows me to open one eye in front of a television showing a World Cup match somewhere in America. Both eyes is $440.”

Sophie Rodriguez, app founder: “The $4,785 plus flights fee I’ll pay to be released from 22 days of ICE detention and flown home, missing the games I’d paid for. My mother’s Indian, you see.”

Tommy Logan, papermaker: “Don’t give a shit. I’ve drawn my own thousand-dollar bills with Trump’s name on them and I’m using those. No-one will stop me.”

Emma Bradford, chip designer: “And I’ve paid six grand for sharknado insurance. You have to if you’re going over there.”

William McKay, ship refitter: “Interesting. And all this to watch Congo DR vs Uzbekistan, you say.”

Take Phil Foden. Aged a tender 25, there can be little doubt he grew up on a non-stop diet of Japanimation on Crunchyroll. Was his inability to penetrate the defence because, haunted by Ranma 1/2, he feared that if splashed with water they would become women?

Was Palmer’s lack of creativity because, raised on shonen, he believed that an incisive pass would see Kamada unsheath a nine-foot long sword from his hair? It seems likely.

And Mainoo is, anyone could tell from his pressing, an unapologetic seinen addict. To him, scoring a goal would be like a cat leaping on a table at the Rokuhōdō tea shop – divisive, unnecessary and delaying spiritual fulfilment for its customers.

So cowed were our young players by playing the nation that created Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood they were unable to play football. Unlike Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto in Final Fantasy XV, they were unable to work as a team.

And while this may not be an issue when playing Croatia, Ghana and Panama in the World Cup, we are pre-tournament so must wildly overreact to the team’s perceived flaws as this is the English way.

Abandon training. The team needs to spend every spare hour watching classic British animation from Morph to Yellow Submarine to The Snowman until it lives in their heads. Until they too are as clumsily but warmly animated as Ivor the Engine. 

Only then will we win the World Cup as is our destiny and has been since 1966, but curiously has yet to happen due to factors such as vuvuzelas, the Baden-Baden WAGs and opposing players winking. But it will be different this time.

The strip, to be worn when they face Haiti, Morocco and Brazil in this summer’s World Cup, was launched today to a fanfare of jangly guitar and a maudlin rendition of Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken by Camera Obscura.

As well as the pinstriped pink shirt with a fey thistle motif, the Scottish squad will be issued with anoraks, thick-rimmed glasses held together with tape and a dream journal each.

A spokesman said: “From The Pastels to BMX Bandits to Belle & Sebastian, Scotland has long been a global leader in wistful disappointment thanks to a natural abundance of sexless, pasty-faced introverts.

“This kit stands for being obsessed with a girl who doesn’t know you exist, walking through rain feeling melancholy but strangely uplifted, and writing excruciating love poetry well into your 20s. That’s the energy we’re taking to the world cup.

“We’ll show the world what to expect from a nation that gave the world Teenage Fanclub, Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Pat Nevin.”

The shirt, available in sizes from S to XXXS, is made of high-tech microfibers that absorb, reflect and magnify the wearers’ crippling self-doubt.

Ideally viewed in Kelvingrove Park in early autumn sunshine, Adidas has reassured fans it can also be enjoyed through the viewfinder of a Super 8 camera.

Self-described Bowlie kid Will McKay said: “It’s not knitted, which is ridiculous. Frankly I preferred their earlier stuff.”

Viewers confirmed they are not watching for any trivial triumphs of human spirit but because sipping tea while elite athletes hurl themselves off mountains at autobahn speeds is so delicious.

Olympics fan Josh Hudson said: “With the summer one your best hope is a stray javelin. But these? A smorgasbord of lunatics where the medallists are the only ones that make it to the end.

“They’re lying on a tea tray and going head-first down a frozen drainpipe, and that’s entertainment. Speed skating turns into a tangled wreckage of bodies on the first corner. A beautiful figure skating routine collapses to a mess of skidding people with bladed feet. It’s A&E on ice.

“And skiing! As if there already wasn’t every chance of a participant suffering a hideous calamity, these magnificent bastards add rifles. Even watching it live would make you uninsurable.

“The Summer Olympics celebrate what the human body can achieve. The Winter one celebrate what the human body can survive. It’s not a battle against other countries but physics itself.

“Ankles and dreams crushed at once. That’ll teach the wankers for being sporty. Let’s hope Great Britain win gold and the French get helicoptered out.”

Tom Booker, mixologist: “Partick Thistle vs Bayern Munich. So underground and illegal normies don’t even know it’s on.”

Helen Archer, wellness consultant: “Indiana Pacers vs New Orleans Pelicans because I’ve never seen pelicans play basketball. I bet they hide the ball in their bills.”

Susan Traherne, fencing instructor: “Illegal alpaca racing in the Andean highlands of Peru. Don’t know anything about it but I’ve put £3,500 on the one with the friendly face.”

Norman Steele, shoehorn salesman: “United vs City. The game’s on Sky Sports, yes, but not the round of soggy biscuit the players indulge in afterwards.”

Josh Gardner, lecturer: “Hartlepool United vs Altrincham on Dazn. What? That’s not illegal? Then why is the quality so incredibly f**king low?”

Darren Fletcher, January 2026 to May 2026

Plucky Scot and club legend who will rally the team, score impressive results against big opponents which gloss over the draws against crap ones, be given a permanent contract in April and immediately oversee a dramatic slump which sees the club finish 14th. Fired with six-figure payoff.

Xavi, June 2026 to September 2026

La Liga winner and non-English speaker who will be given the top job because he’s the only one who actively wants it. Will spend £200m shaping the team into his preferred 3-4-2-1 without success because the players are too confused after years of different formations and don’t want to. Fired after losing four games with a six-figure payoff.

Martin O’Neill, September 2026 to December 2026

After successfully guiding Celtic to the heady heights of second last season, the 74-year-old is poached for his old-school tactics and no-nonsense man-management to basically be Continuity Fergie. Will find Premier League a little harder than running one of the two teams in Scotland with money, but will grimly hang on for his six-figure payoff.

Bruno Fernandes, December 2026 to April 2027

‘We’ve tried experienced managers, promising new managers, club legends and all the f**king rest,’ muses Jim Ratcliffe. ‘But we haven’t tried a 1970s-style player-manager.’ Consequently Bruno is elevated to the position, forthrightly picks massive scraps with referees, other managers and his own teammates, and receives a seven-figure payoff.

The entire class of 92, April 2027 to October 2027

Facing relegation, United bring in all the legends. Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, both Nevilles, Paul Scholes and David Beckham team up and through collective force of will and an incredibly expensive team manage to stay up on the last day. A two-bus parade later, they’re given the permanent job and are shit at it. Collective payoff £280 million.

Zinedine Zindane, October 2027 onwards

Tempted out of retirement by all the money in the world, Zidane has a simple philosophy: he stands imperiously in the dressing room, arms folded, and declares ‘I am Zidane. Worship me.’ This is the only English he bothers to learn. United immediately win every game and a second treble. As a reward, some of the squad are allowed to touch him.

Nathan Muir, aged 45, has been a fan of the club ever since they won everything it was possible to win in his youth and has made his fandom a core part of his personality, marriage and management philosophy which he is now beginning to regret.

He said: “I don’t know if Jim Ratcliffe understands how bad this has got, but he’s making me look a twat.

“I’ve smiled my way through the last 12 years, demonstrating how you need to battle on through adversity and saying shit like ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’. But come on.

“Already at home uncomfortable parallels are being drawn between my getting into expensive hobbies – cycling, scuba diving, padel – which I drop after 18 months, and United’s management turnover.

“And now at work I’m being regarded as someone whose basic level of shitness dooms me to always bump along, my occasional small wins lost in a vast uselessness that never gets bad enough for me to fail properly. Which isn’t who I am at all.

“Actually I didn’t realise it until now, but I think I was a fan of Sir Alex Ferguson.”

PROS

You’ll get to see your team competing in a major international tournament! They might even win a match, if Scotland, or the Jules Rimet trophy, if England! That’s not a chance you can turn down, no matter what the obstacles!

CONS

Yeah, if you’re allowed in. They’re checking five years of social media, they’re checking emails and you know what they’re checking for, right? Any disparaging mention of Trump. One retweeted meme in 2020 about him losing the election? You’re banned.

PROS

Er… beer’s cheap over there?

CONS

Beer is cheap, but tickets are astronomically expensive. It costs $20,000 to see the Superbowl in the US, so why shouldn’t real football cost the same? Ticket costs will be doubled without notice and if yours are cancelled because JD Vance’s family want seats? You’ll have no recourse.

PROS

…

CONS

Even if you’re rich and apolitical Trump’s treating the World Cup, like everything else, as his personal plaything. Playing in Boston? That’s a blue state so at any point the game could be relocated to Montana in an act of petty spite. Your hotel and travel arrangements? Your problem. You must take responsibility for aiding Democrats.

PROS

Please stop asking for pros.

CONS

Also, the chance of being arrested by ICE is very real. Their criteria? You’re a foreigner. Their process? Locking you up indefinitely without telling anyone where you are, then charging you a few thousand to be deported. Reasons have been declared unnecessary.

CONS

And all this is taking place in the US, a country famously hostile to football. The wider populace won’t give a shit about you and the MAGA half has now decided all Europeans are decaying race traitors who should be shot for not having guns.

PROS

Never mind, after Russia, Qatar and the USA, FIFA are treating us to a World Cup in liberal democracies in 2030! Then Saudi Arabia the one after.

Roy Hobbs, sharpshooter: “As in everything – colour of strip, number of titles won, obnoxiousness of fans, shiteness of home city, legendary players who are utter twats – they’re neck-and-neck.”

Nikki Hollis, falconer: “Sure, Liverpool are funny now. But can they do it year after year, bobbing between bottom and top, winning FA Cups just to make getting knocked out by Grimsby Town on penalties all the more hilarious? Because United can.”

Susan Traherne, charity spokesman: “Great, one more f**king title Tottenham should win easily but can’t.”

Jim Bates, trawlerman: “Sad for United, but there are kids driving cars who can’t remember their last title. Meanwhile Liverpool won it just last year. You can only coast on old glories for so long.”

Thomas Booker, assayer: “Actually Sheffield Wednesday were named banter club nine times in the inter-war years. You idiots think football began in 1992.”