Pongo Pops His Clogs

Johnny P mourns the passing of a legend

Johnny Pundit: Watches Rooney, contemplates mortality

Coffin: Moving

Old Trafford: Vastly improved smell

Funny old thing, Football. For instance, death. Bit of a bore, death. I mean, your pace never really recovers. Just look at Pongo Edwards...

Touchline totty

Poor old Pongo. He died a couple of Final Scores ago, so we buried him last Thursday (as there aren't usually many games on a Thursday). He was the finest commentator of his age — and probably the worst of this. There's only so many times you can call female linos 'touchline totty' and swear you're keeping up with the times. Still, he'd seen eighty summers — all of them bristling with pointless friendly matches, Pongo treating each as if it were the European Cup Final.

What prospects for promotion?

The horses drawing the bier up the hill were clad in coats against the cold — with sheepskin collars in memory of Pongo's personal dress code. In another nice touch, a guard of honour of ten fellow pundits commentated into microphones on the progress of the cortege as it drew near the crematorium. Inside, the Vicar spoke a few words: 'We must not see this as a relegation, rather as a promotion to a higher league.' As the coffin moved in stately fashion towards the flames, the curtains drew back — to reveal the shape of a goal painted carefully around the entrance to the furnace. The coffin bumped against this and briefly stopped — prompting much of the audience, as intended, to leap from their seats, shouting: 'Oooh! He's hit the post!' Then the coffin righted itself and Pongo slipped from view.

Save stamps — lose your friends

Suppose I'm at that age where, gallingly, friends start to trot off the pitch of life, leaving behind only the sound of their boots rattling down the tunnel. Funny thing — always a bit of a chore writing Christmas cards (or so Missus Pundit tells me), until you notice the list is shorter by five or six names this year, never to be replaced. Still, I suppose it saves on stamps. And at least after last week the commentary box at Old Trafford will smell a little sweeter. After all, he wasn't called Pongo for nothing.

Toodle-oo,

Johnny Pundit