Five-a-side ruined by semi-decent player

A WEEKLY game of five-a-side is always ruined by the one player who seems to know what he is doing.

Colleagues of Stephen Malley, who meet for a kickabout after work on a Thursday, say he is frightening them by managing to keep the ball under control and sometimes scoring goals.

Martin Bishop said: “Stephen is suspiciously good at football. No one should be able to accurately pass to someone ten yards away, let alone with their weaker foot. No one should be able to run for three or even four minutes without needing a rest. It’s not right.

“He isn’t entering into the spirit of things and is bringing down the morale of the team by trying to improve his football skills. What does he want to do, get spotted by a Chelsea scout?

“We’re British. If there’s one thing we can be proud of, it’s being shit at football. We don’t want to see competent players executing beautiful set pieces. We want a quick run around to make us feel less guilty when we drink four pints in the pub afterwards.

“If Messi came down here and made us look like chumps, we’d tell him to piss off. And that’s exactly what we’re going to say to Stephen.”

Lizzo, and other celebrities you shouldn't share your actual thoughts on

LIZZO has weighed in on Israel, but her well-nourished physique means you’re paralysed by terror of saying the wrong thing. Here are some more celebs it’s best to avoid having an honest opinion on.

Katie Price

If Katie set up a GoFundMe page for Swiss finishing school, you’d gladly chip in to make her less common. ‘Common’ is not a term you hear often these days, but Katie’s fishwife ramblings definitely fit the bill. She needs to ditch the Hindenburg tits, pink shit and cage fighter boyfriends, then have elocution lessons and buy some normal clothes. There’d be an overnight improvement and if that makes you a snob, then pass the Chateau Latour.

Lizzo

Let’s cut to the chase: Lizzo is fat, even for a fat person. Being a tad on the chunky side is also her USP and her only rival in the rap world was Biggie Smalls, who is now very thin. She remains in trouble over bullying allegations, but the thoughts actually troubling you are things like: ‘How will Lizzo have sex if she turns into a perfect sphere?’ Don’t say that out loud at the water cooler.

Captain Sir Tom Moore

You had quite a few thoughts about Captain Tom, such as: ‘This is bollocks’, ‘It’s the Tory press distracting everyone from NHS underfunding’, ‘What if he drops dead on TV?’ and ‘When will Britain get over its embarrassing obsession with the war?’ All of these musings will make you a social pariah as surely as if you’d dug up the corpse of Churchill to make an interesting Halloween conversation piece.

Peter Dinklage

It seems harsh to ask someone with dwarfism to shut up about dwarfs, but still. Recently Peter called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ‘f**king backwards’, apparently for including dwarfs, but wasn’t forthcoming about what would replace them. Snow White and the Seven Samurai? He also claimed the dwarfs live in a cave when they work in a cave and live in a house like everyone else, so if anyone’s stereotyping dwarfs it’s him. But call him a dwarfist and people will think you’re the weirdo.

Suella Braverman

Race is a topic of conversation where the wrong choice of words can make you sound like a Nazi genetic scientist. But whenever you see Suella outlining her latest vindictive immigration policy you immediately think: ‘How weird is it for an Asian woman to be doing stuff to appeal to racists?’ Cleverly, Tories will argue you’re the racist for suggesting a member of a minority group can’t be right-wing. They’re disingenuous bastards, but it’s easiest to steer clear of race altogether and just make completely uncontroversial criticisms of Suella, for example that she’s a horrible cow.

Carol Vorderman

You hate thinking ‘Act your age, Carol’ because you’re not your mum. It’s in your head though, and if you verbalise it some right-on bastard is bound to say: ‘Are you saying older women can’t be sexual beings?’ No, you’re not saying that, it’s just that you don’t particularly want to imagine Carol shagging five different blokes. Or see every single tight outfit she owns. We’d be happy with a Countdown Conundrum.