Johnny Pundit Gets The Call

More howlers overseas

Johnny Pundit: Doing his bit

J Blenkinsop: Our man at the back

Rockets: Nice little earner

Funny old game, football. For instance, the international game. It's a bit ike custard. Bland in itself; occasionally tasty depending on circumstances; and more often associated with clowns.

Qualifier

I only played in one international myself. It was a World Cup qualifier against The Belgian Congo. Myself and a right back, 'Pinky' Carruthers of Stoke City, made our debuts. We were accompanied on the trip by Blenkinsop, a fellah from the Foreign Office ('Call me Jammy. Everybody does').

Terrible back pass

Match kicked off, and the opposition were terrible. Unfortunately, so was Pinky. Inexplicably, he kept making the same terrible back pass - perfectly weighted for the opposing strikers to run on to. As it happened, the Congolese had about as much idea about attacking football as a pine-needle does about the admission prices to Kew Gardens. Despite our yelling at Pinky, he persisted in playing in the strikers and eventually one of them fell over and on the way down, accidentally scored. We couldn't turn it round, and they won 1-0.

National humiliation

It was a national humiliation, but I couldn't help noticing that Jammy Blenkinsop didn't seem bothered at all. I supposed that public school types didn't like football, and thought no more of it. Of course it later came out that His Majesty the King of Congo - nice chappie by the name of Flob, went to Eton - was about to sign a big arms deal with us on condition that we lost the game. Pinky and I never played again for England, but the planes and missiles we sold to Flob helped him put down an uprising of women and children in the north of the country. In many ways, it was a more innocent age. Nowadays I suppose they'd call it a 'war on terror'.



Globally yours,

Johnny Pundit