‘Is the round-ball game the opium of the people?’
I asked that humanitarian chap, Gary Linebreaker.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looked dumbfounded, ‘I’ll have to put that question to
my expert summariser, Billy ‘Fire it in’ Beagle.

But all Billy could say was, ‘We should play a 3 4 2 3 formation, going forward.’
Gary interjected, ‘But a 2 3 4 5 1 one would see us going backward.’

This of course was a dream, prompted by listening to BBC Radio 5 Live,
whose presenters seemed to punctuate every discussion with references to football,
before getting to grips with the topic of the day, climate change – the biggest danger facing mankind,
not to mention the beloved bee, who due to unseasonal temperatures is staying longer in its beehive.

Then top presenter Mark Hanmacker, whose favourite music is hip hop (I know,
’cos he mentions it every time he’s on – and that he’s a football fan)
introduced the show with another lament about the fortunes of his favourite club,
while looking enviously at that team up north (you know the one,
with its stand called the Kop) whose average expenditure
would triple that of third-world countries like Myanmar and Africa’s Lesotho.

So I wondered, is something sinister going on at BBC Broadcasting House?
Are they all getting VIP tickets to Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea,
and that new team funded by two Hollywood stars, Wimbley Water FC,
an amalgamation of Wimbledon and Waterloo?

‘They need better players, I know a few,’ claimed experienced manager Jimmy Takeanap,
and there was a pause as he looked for gum to chew,
which he manufactured at his Chew-It-All company in Fulham.

‘After all,’ he muttered, ‘I have to keep up my image.’
Then I heard a scratching at the door, and in walked Mickey Mouse.

I asked, ‘Do you want some past-its-sell-by-date spinach?’
At which he grinned, ‘Yes please.’

‘I lived on these before I got my break in film.’

‘I left Walt Disney, not because I was called a ‘rodent’ by a chief executive,
upset ’cos I’d had eaten all the cheese, but over them constantly talking about football,
which bored me silly.'

‘When they accused me of taking the Mickey, I felt I had to go.’

I again cocked an ear to Five Live and heard Mark Hanmacker ask ‘What next for Spurs?’
‘Well,’ answered Wally Theocot, ‘first of all they have to start winning football matches,’
which received a witty rejoinder from left-wing academic, Irishman John Jodhpurs,
waiting in the green room before being interviewed about author George Orwell,
who invented the phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’.

John commented on Wally’s verdict, ‘I thought that was the idea,
does he think they should win rugby games?'

But hidden microphones picked up this acerbic dig,
and to make matters worse his interview got off to a bad start
when programme presenter Mark asked, ‘What football team do you support’
To which he answered, ‘Mighty Munster.’

There followed a strained silence, ‘Never heard of ’em!’
‘They’re a top GAA team,’ replied the writer. 

‘But that’s not football,’ answered a flustered Mark,
wishing he was on a commercial station and could save his blushes by going to an ad break.

‘It is, but not as you know it,’ shouted the next guest, sat in the green room,
waiting to come on and talk about a book he’d written about US sci fi series Star Trek.

This was really getting to the radio host, so he put on a hip-hop tune
(forgetting he was in serious radio, and not in a night club in Ibiza) in an effort to restore calm.

As for the George Orwell expert, he felt this was all becoming too Orwellian,
so feeling it was time to beat a retreat, addressed the BBC host and asked him
‘Is the Beeb actually Big Brother, and watching you?’ then escaped to his county Kildare home,
with his cattle and sheep, appropriately called Animal Farm.