We Know What We Are

"Thank you for attending this emergency meeting of the Sports Journalists & General Pundits Union. We've called everyone together today in response to our members' increasing alarm at the continuing presence of this club called West Bromwich Albion in the upper reaches of the Premier League. Now, we understand and share your concerns. At the SJGPU, we fully comprehend how difficult it is to keep track of, ooh, up to TWENTY different football clubs all at once. So much easier if you concentrate on just five or six, make sure the ones from London get loads of attention, and then have a glance at the team sheet of all the others now and then, so you can spell the players' names right.

"But this West Brom business is concerning us all. As we all know, the best way to rate a club is by how much money they've spent, because actually taking the time to watch them play might cut into our pub jaunts. So it's a massive worry to see these guys third in the league when one of their best players only cost £175,000. That's not how football is supposed to work. It's supposed to be more like society, where the rich take the place they paid good money for at the top of the ladder, while the poor scrounge around in my bin on a Monday morning for the roast swan leftovers I lobbed in there over the weekend. How dare West Brom be eating their own roast swan above an honest club like Chelsea, who've done the decent thing in throwing hundreds of millions of pounds into players they knew nothing about! There's no justice in the world.

"Brothers and sisters, stay calm. We're pretty sure that these West Brom characters won't trouble us much longer with their dirt-cheap players and fans who follow their club despite lifetimes of disappointment. You won't be forced to learn any of their players' names, or pretend that their results matter to you, because we're certain that every club they've played so far has just had a bad day. That's definitely what it is. Go forth and advise your multi-million pound advertisers, and gullible consumers around the globe: money is everything! The Premier League proves it! Spend, spend, spend! Take no notice of these West Bromwich Albion cheapskates! It'll all go wrong for them. We know what they are!"