Football Crazy, Football Mad

"These over paid bastards deserve everything they get," screams twenty eight year old Jim Clunker, as he hurls a brick at the rear window of the luxury coach taking England's footballers away from Heathrow, following their abject failure at the World Cup. "They've ruined my life with their pathetic performances! And it isn't just me - they've destroyed the whole country's national sense of self worth!" Clunker was one of several hundred disgruntled England fans who attempted to storm Heathrow's Terminal Five when the team arrived back from South Africa. Indeed, several irate fans succeeded in briefly gaining access to the runway, lying down in the path of the airliner carrying the England football team, in an attempt to stop it from landing, before being arrested by the police. Many commentators are blaming the extreme reaction of fans to England's early exit on the overblown media coverage of the World Cup, which hyped up the team's prospects, creating unrealistically high expectations amongst fans. "Before the tournament the tabloids were just full of how we were going to walk it," observes sports journalist Tim Floggarty. "As soon as the competition actually started and England played poorly, the same papers started condemning them, labelling them useless and calling them a national disgrace. It's no wonder fans have gone totally ape in the face of such extremes."

However, Clunker denies that he and his fellow fans have been influenced by the press in their extreme backlash against the national football team. "We've just had enough - we're just ordinary working blokes, who spend thousands every year supporting these bastards," he claims. "They're paid more in a week than most of us can earn in a lifetime - they've got it all; the bling, the birds, the cars and the big houses, and they still can't even win a game of football!" Clunker claims that England's poor showing, culminating in a humiliating defeat to Germany, has been a huge blow to the self-esteem of most fans, leaving them with deep psychological scars. "I mean, what does it say about us that we follow this bunch of losers, going all over the world, staying in cockroach infested hotels, being beaten up by foreign riot police and making utter dicks of ourselves by wearing ridiculous fancy dress at matches, eh?" he wails. "I feel so humiliated by this whole campaign that I haven't been able to get it up since Sunday afternoon! My girl friend's threatening to leave me!" Indeed, there have been widespread reports of England fans being rendered impotent by the defeat to Germany, their members allegedly left as limp as their England flags." With death threats now being issued against specific England players - already effigies of Wayne Rooney have been burned in the North West, whilst a life size dummy of John Terry was found hanging from a lamppost in West London - the government is urging calm. "Everybody should just calm down, after all it's only a game," the Prime Minister yesterday told the Commons. "Really, it's only a few months until qualifying starts for the 2012 European Championships - England fans should just simmer down and start looking forward to that." Renewed outbreaks of rioting followed his statement.