MANCHESTER City was last night lining up last minute bids for just about everyone as the club looked to secure a place in preliminary round of next year's Uefa Cup.
With the transfer window set to close, the club has reduced the UK-wide unemployment count by 19%, bringing in 640,000 players and more than 200,000 backroom staff.
The new players include Bert Reeves, an 82-year-old goalkeeper, famous for being substituted after 45 seconds in the 1958 FA Cup Final, and left-sided full back Alfie Booker, a 97 year-old stroke victim who has no idea what a football is.
Booker said he was particularly looking forward to playing Chelsea, adding: "I lost a perfectly good pocket watch there in 1933. Perhaps someone's handed it in."
Leaving nothing to chance the club has also taken on 23,000 pilots, 15,000 Mexican chefs, 1,400 acupuncturists and 830 of Britain's best heating engineers.
Meanwhile the club's Saudi owners are also looking to increase the price of oil to $18,000 a barrel in a bid to force rival clubs to forfeit away games.
Experts now believe the government's multi-billion pound attempt to restart the economy may become an irrelevant footnote in the face of Man City.
Julian Cook, an analyst at Madeley-Finnegan, said: "Economic recovery combined with a top six finish and an eventual failure to qualify for the groups stages of the Uefa Cup will surely justify the billions they've haemorrhaged on utter shit."
