The bank was that constantly being robbed (of the ball).

By: Martyn | July 14th, 2008

In a recent survey conducted to examine the usefulness of yet-to-be invented products and weighty . footballers, the much-derided chocolate teapot actually ranked higher than ex-Chelsea hotshot Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. With a first touch that was out of this world (as in, the ball connected with the Dutchman’s foot, and ended up 3 miles southwest of Uranus), and as much grace and balance as a bucket of water placed above an ajar door, Hasselbaink’s short lived Cardiff City and Championship career succeeded only in being as out of place as a chastity belt in a James Bond film. Now that Roberto Di Matteo has taken over at ambitious MK Dons, I can see Hasselbaink becoming his ex-Stamford Bridge pal’s prominent summer capture. Good luck to them, good luck to him, and please, Jerrel… no need call or write.

However, detaching our club from the old pro is proving more stifficult than one would like. It seems we have been a bit sneaky in trying to usher Jimmy out the door, and potentially by luring him down here in the first place with promises we either failed to keep, or had no intention to keep in the first place. As to my personal feelings on this matter, I am very much on the fence, though not due to a lack of interest. Although most will murmur that as a multi-millionaire, Jimmy should waiver the money he was promised as a sign of goodwill to the club, or because he has enough money already and can live without out. I find suggestions such as that plain ridiculous. He is a journeyman who has no affiliation to any particular club for a start, and thus, our club is little more to him than a business that let him pull on a pair of ill-fitting shorts and paid him handsomely for it. Secondly, it does not matter how rich he is: if he is entitled to and has been promised money, he has every right to go for it. Sentiment plays no part in such matters. Clearly, mismanagement at the higher echelons of our club strikes again, and another court case looms unless a settlement package is devised.

The article I have linked in the preceding paragraph includes an interview with PFA chairman Gordon Taylor. The former Bolton Wanderers winger deserves an Order of The Brown Nose honorary mention for his attempts to portray Hasselbaink as a war veteran with the misfortune of having had his gas, electricity and water turned off by the cruel, harsh fist of faceless, dispassionate evil governing, corporate bodies. He entirely misses the point with his portrayal of poor mistreated Jimmy The Legend. Although such simpering from he with the largest office for lower league players may be met with understanding and sympathy, its use in this context is entirely inappropriate and slightly embarrassing. It’s as if a lackey merely reminded him at the last second that he to do an interview because a footballer was being swindled, without telling his boss who the footballer was. Taylor has seemingly just come out with the standard protocol for such a situation, but making sure he included a few ostentatious buzzwords in order to get his name in the paper.

Anyway, as for me sitting on the fence, the reason I can’t hop off and situate myself firmly on Jimmy’s side is because I cannot bear another season of him (deep breath); going missing for large periods of play before doing something verbally or physically theatrical to either come across as a badge-beater/look like he’s made an effort, failing to control a single pass provided to him, passing solely to H.G. Wells’s Griffin, hitting virtually every shot he tries off target, diving like a great big Jessie, and flailing his arms and screaming at his colleagues when generally 11 times out of 10 it is he who is in the wrong.

So prevailing with this pessimism, I move from one useless lump of lard, to another ex-Premier League star allergic to the Cardiff City shirt. Yes, Robbie Fowler proved more elusive than Lord Lucan last season. For some bizarre reason, the management decided that he should be retained on a one-year pay-as-you-play contract. Clearly, he and his agent’s whoring of the Robbie Fowler brand to potentially interested parties was going about as successfully as Kellogg’s trying to re-name a cereal as Choco Krispies, and it seemed certain the touchline-snorter would stick around. Total disagreement aside, I just hoped the deal we had offered him ensured he only got notes in his pockets if he actually made a contribution on the pitch, rather than just appearing as ink on the teamsheet. Our love-blind manager was even convinced given the right amount of playing time, he’d net 20. How I chortled.

So then, we’ll never get to see one of Dave Jones’ misguided beliefs being proved wrong. This one relating to his conviction that Robbie Fowler could have scored 20 goals for us this season. So, with all the loyalty that Des Lynam shows to his shaver, and after a year of betting the unearned wages we paid him on horses and getting his arse-sweat on our physio’s table, Fowler naffed off to Blackburn Rovers. We dangled the carrot in front of him for ages, in the slim hope he’d stay on for another year. We dangled in spite of pins and needles, only to be rewarded with him deciding our carrot wasn’t gonna that be tasty, as the vegetables taste a whole lot better in Lancashire. Not that I am in any way gutted by his departure, but the shameless lack of courtesy shown to the board, manager and medical staff irks a little. It says a lot about the respect the bigwigs at our club are able to gather mind. What a waste of space, time and money the whole move was. And to think, some idiots went and splashed their cash on ‘God 8′ on the back of their shirts. If he’s in charge, Heaven suddenly just got a whole less appealing. Like Jimmy, we shan’t be writing.