The Bipolar Express: 2010 Awards Special

Well after what’s been a quiet couple of weeks since our masterful crushing of Spurs at White Hart Lane, where the glorious Blue of Chelseaopia beat the treacherous republic of Tottenhamia in a battle  to the death, of honour, pride and dignity for our heroes whilst the vermin scurried away from making their sneaky attacks… (that’s enough revolution talk Comrade Glover, Ed.)

Sorry folks, but this year I have re-read 1984 and read Animal Farm for the first time so I’m full of Orwellian dystopian visions of how the proletariat is crushed and suppressed by the filthy capitalists under the guise of egalitarianism and meritocratic aspiration, whilst in league with power crazed governments hell bent on segregating society, dividing it by playing on people’s fears whilst building false hope through lies peddled as truth, hate encouraged as love. Visions of how we’re told that war is necessary for peace, and that austerity will mean wealth aplenty for more of us. And all of this supported by statistics that are entirely true.

Ridiculous tosh, I mean as if anything like that could ever come true, as if people could ever be THAT gullible and allow such a thing to happen…

*cough*

Anyway onto lighter matters and in light of this week’s momentous awards ceremony which singularly failed to award more than a cursory mention to a team that scored a record number of goals last season whilst gathering up it’s third league title in six years and added to that an FA Cup, hence scooping two from three major UK footballing trophies I felt it appropriate to hold the Chelsea FC Blog awards this week. The venue was kept secret lest it be inundated with fans and press from all over this fair nation. Voting in each category was carried out under the watchful eye of a top party official who only deals in used notes.

The Sigue Sigue Sputnik Delusional Lunatic Award

Although Arsene Wenger is a perennial candidate for this due to his mad theories on foetus like players being able to compete for the top prize, but he can’t be considered because we all know that football is so weird it might just actually happen. We all remember Prophet Hansen’s hoisting on his own ‘won’t win anything with kids’ petard. No, the previous season saw his Last Christmas in the Premier League, many people gave him their heart but almost the very next day he gave them away with his madness. He tried mind games but they never came off, and ultimately we have heard all about white liquid not being milk, and priest on mountains of sugar. This week he capped it all with a stand-off against his current boss which seems to have made him a certain candidate for sacking. Step forward The Maddest Monk of all, Mad Rafa ‘Tubby’ Benitez.

The Second Coming Award

Our very own Jose Mourinho has long been in contention for this award but this year, the clear winner who stood on the terrace of Old Trafford, arms outstretched in front of the throng, no doubt blessing them for entry into the Kingdom of Emirates. Pray, all kneel before The Messiah that is Arsene Wenger who now truly believes he is the new Jesus.*

*Yes, I know it was 2009, but these are awards for LAST season and besides, I can pick and choose who I like.

The Forging a New History Award

Yes folks, for harping on about their glorious history in the face of terminal decline, the award goes to Liverpool FC and its lovely fans.  Faced with not having won the league for 20 years and suffering at the hands of their loathed rivals Manchester United, they’ve had to sit back and harp on about a glorious history of winning in the face of a fast diminishing memory. Employing a full on basket case didn’t help with his roulette style of buying new players, but to chide us about our comparatively placid Russian owner when they sat under the wing of two of the most inept businessmen to ever exist, who made Robert Maxwell look like a shining beacon of propriety is… just desserts. And so very very funny to observe.

The Gordon Gecko Award for Naked Greed

This award goes to Manchester Citeh and its new breed of bandwagon fans (we’ve been there as well) who have taken financial doping to new levels of abhorrence. Chief amongst this gathering of avarice stands a master of duplicity, a paragon of deception, a giant of sheer arrogance and an actor who would make Robert de Niro look like Frank Bruno in panto. Ladies and gentlemen, accepting this award can only be done by one person. The new diving, cheating, two faced, mercenary moral free zone that is Carlos Tevez.

The Oooh Can We Play With The Big Boys Award

This award has a clear winner this year, and it galls me to say it, but Spurs are the recipients. Think what you like, but Lord Harold of Redknapp* has gathered together a decent squad of players. He is the original footballing Lord Sugar, and indeed one wonders why to this day they’re not called AmSpurs. Harry built his reputation on buying low and selling high, just like King Alan (surely his next accolade?) and I have this lovely vision of the Spurs team living in a big house, the phone ringing, Harry’s group of Ford Mondeos pulling up to the house and taking them to AmsHart Lane where they greet him with a devoted and reverent ‘Morning Lord Harry’ before he explains the task that day is to try and garner a decent result at Old Trafford. A task that has never been successful yet and is therefore akin to the Kobayashi Maru test that seasoned Star Trek fans will know was only ever beaten by one James Tiberius Kirk.

The Keystone Cops Award for Comedy Club Management

Well although we can run close to this, the truth is we’re amateurs in comparison to the Newcastle board. According to local Geordie legend they’ve had 17 managers in three years and even as tribal as I can be all I can say to Mike Ashley (apart from leave the fucking pies alone)  is really… it’s time to leave the good Geordie folk alone.

The We Know What We’re Doing Award Leading To Almost Certain Relegation

Well, West Ham could have won this by simply hiring Avram Grant but salvation may lay ahead for them if the rumours are true that he’s a dead man walking. So, the obvious winners here are… Venky’s… an Indian chicken farming company who have decided that reliable but unremarkable Sam Allardyce was not the future, despite him having a steady record and consolidating them in the Premier League after the disastrous Ince spell. And then to hand the job until the end the season to Steve Kean (who he? Ed.) means that any one of West Ham, Fulham, Wolves or Wigan can breathe a sigh of relief.

The Gotta Love Him For Being Honest if Not a Little Scatty Award

Ian Holloway… who else could it be? As eloquent as Dr Spooner eating a superglue infused Toffo. Fantastic value, fantastic entertainment, glorious accent and a damn good job on a shaved down cutback version of a shoestring. He’s like Airwaves chewing gum for the ears.

And now for some awards outside of football.

The New Great Satan Award

Well, it used to be what Iran and most of the Middle East called America, but now even that mighty nation has been usurped by the single most heinous man on the planet… Rupert Murdoch. Maybe something literal like Doctor Vile Evil Power-Crazed Evil Interfering Bastard would be more fitting but sadly… his own Spawn of Satan, James Murdoch is now on the scene, like some BBC slaying despot on a one man mission to ensure the citizens of this great country get a proper view of current affairs… i.e. his and Daddy’s.

Kim Jong-Il, eat your heart out. You are a gnat in comparison to this family dynasty.

The Fuck Off, You’ve Done Enough Damage To Us Award

So many contenders here. An award given to the person or organisation that single handedly has done more damage to culture, art, sport and society in general than anyone or anything else. You’d have thought that paradigm of ineptitude and fuckwittery Gordon Brown might be a shoe-in for ignoring then ushering in a recession of epic proportions and then trying to kid us he’d saved the world… but you’d be wrong, this isn’t an award to kick a man on his inevitable slide, this is to kick start such a fall. Similarly, we saw the dawn of talentless oafs mincing it up in the world of faux celebrity, such as the vile Louis Spence, Craig Revell-Cuntwood or the even more talentless Allan Carr. One could argue the case for others who’s debilitating presence undermines our great traditions of high art, such as Louis Walsh, I mean really come on who the hell persuaded him to give up his job in professional mincing? Along came Nick Clegg with a late surge, a man willing to literally sell his soul, his family and every last gramme of dignity in order to sit upon Snake Oil Salesman Dave Cameron’s knee as his very own version of Orville, but with less integrity. Richard Keys is an outsider here as well for being such an annoying Manchester United loving patronising prick. Andy Gray is either a good actor or he is just as thick when he answers Key’s genuinely studio questions. I nearly put Christine Bleakley here as well because she’s obviously an athletic and game girl who has done much damage to the groin/loin area of our beloved Frankie Lampard, but that is only damage to a sub-section of society in those like us who devote unrealistically large amounts of time to Chelsea. And besides… all I can say is I would! I’m sure there are many many others in this section, so feel free to add as you see fit, but there is one clear winner here.

A man so up his own arse it’s a wonder he can stand. A man who probably masturbates over pictures of himself holding wads of cash. A man so sure of himself, so arrogant, so bloody smug and so determined to inflict such agony on this nation that he can truly have no moral compass at all. He is the ultimate in rich bastards prepared to flaunt the sad, desperate. lonely, misguided, deluded, and in some cases plainly insane on millions of TV sets each week so that the proletariat, the learned, the middle classes, the chattering classes, the pseudo-intellectual wankerie of inverted snobs can have a communal laugh at the humiliation of those willing to discard any shred of dignity for a shot at fame. The purveyor of the 21st Century version of the Victorian Freak Show.

And when those hapless souls are duly despatched to ignominious lives of banality and in some cases shame, he then inflicts unbelievable levels of stultifying blandness and homogenised bollocks on us under the guise of talent. All this in the name of a faux competition where millions of gullible people line his pockets to give him an ‘act’ to for the same people to buy the musical equivalent of a souvenir plate and make him even more money before those winners are inevitably discarded on Fame’s fickle scrapheap. Wither Brookstein, Mcelderry, McManus and Jackson.

Yes, this award goes to the moral vacuum that is Simon Cowell.  Single handedly destroying music from the nation of Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Radiohead, Queen, Black Sabbath and so many others.

I shed a tear and depart quietly, wishing everyone a Happy Christmas, a peaceful New Year and maybe a decent run in the Champions League so that we can lay that particular ghost to bed once and for all.

Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!