Soldato
I thought I'd tell you a little story of my brush with fame I had a few years back.
Are we all sitting comfortably?
Good...We'll begin.
It was 2003 , I cant recall the exact time but it was late March or early April.
The league season was in full swing as was the war in Iraq.
There was one man during the early stages of the war that you couldnt keep off the TV - who we shall call MSS for short.
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was the Iraqi information minister and his almost daily appearances were quickly becoming essential viewing.
His blatent lies on TV were the source of much amusment as was the plight of Sunderland AFC , much closer to home but no less remarkable.
Relegation had been confirmed only 1 week previous , they had 19 points and were also on course to break a long standing "worse team ever" record.
I was in a traffic jam heading into work on a monday morning and MSS's latest bulitin was being broadcast from the night before on the morning news.
Then it hit me , clear as an unmuddied lake , clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.
I knew what I had to do.
You see , MSS's musings were now starting to come to the attention of everybody and I had to strike while the iron was hot.
So I got to work and fired up my pc.
Google images in one window and photopaint in another I came up with this.
I then emailed it to 5 people at work and 1 from an external company (he was our client).
Two hours later 1 of the lads I had sent it to had it sent to him from his wife who worked at a different company.
5 hours later it was sent to me from a mate a different company.
By Tuesday afternoon is was top billing at this site www.nufc.com
By Wednesday it had made local radio news , thursday it got a mention on Radio 5.
Saturday morning I was in pub pre match and a bloke came up to our group with a folded up bit of paper.
"How lads , ha ya's seen this?"
"Yeah mate" I said , "I done it"
This bloke just looked at me in total amazement and said "Naarr , wasnt yee like , ah can tell"
Quite how this bloke could tell I still havent worked out but thats a moot point because I was shown it at leat half a dozen times that day.
I did my usual of getting into the ground late and saw grainy A4 copies of it being passed around where I sit.
To this day , those that sit around me still dont believe it was me that started it.
It was a great season , we reached the second stage of the champions league after losing our first three games in the group and finished 3rd in the prem.
An amazing night in Rotterdam being my personal highlight along with scaring Inter in Milan and getting soaked in Barca and getting a written warning from work for staying an extra night.
At the end of the season a local publication was released entitled "Lets all laugh at sunderland".
It was a combined effort from the Newcastle fanzine scene (The Mag and True Faith) and MSS adorned every page with a different unfactual quote about sunderlands record breaking 19 point season (surely no team could ever get lower than 20 points again)
By this time my effort had been forgotten , consigned to history , as MSS became more famous and the foul mouthed Geordie who gave Newcastle a laugh sloped back into his normal life without any recognition or honour.
Once again proving that a geordie legend cant carry a team to glory.........
Are we all sitting comfortably?
Good...We'll begin.
It was 2003 , I cant recall the exact time but it was late March or early April.
The league season was in full swing as was the war in Iraq.
There was one man during the early stages of the war that you couldnt keep off the TV - who we shall call MSS for short.
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was the Iraqi information minister and his almost daily appearances were quickly becoming essential viewing.
His blatent lies on TV were the source of much amusment as was the plight of Sunderland AFC , much closer to home but no less remarkable.
Relegation had been confirmed only 1 week previous , they had 19 points and were also on course to break a long standing "worse team ever" record.
I was in a traffic jam heading into work on a monday morning and MSS's latest bulitin was being broadcast from the night before on the morning news.
Then it hit me , clear as an unmuddied lake , clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.
I knew what I had to do.
You see , MSS's musings were now starting to come to the attention of everybody and I had to strike while the iron was hot.
So I got to work and fired up my pc.
Google images in one window and photopaint in another I came up with this.
I then emailed it to 5 people at work and 1 from an external company (he was our client).
Two hours later 1 of the lads I had sent it to had it sent to him from his wife who worked at a different company.
5 hours later it was sent to me from a mate a different company.
By Tuesday afternoon is was top billing at this site www.nufc.com
By Wednesday it had made local radio news , thursday it got a mention on Radio 5.
Saturday morning I was in pub pre match and a bloke came up to our group with a folded up bit of paper.
"How lads , ha ya's seen this?"
"Yeah mate" I said , "I done it"
This bloke just looked at me in total amazement and said "Naarr , wasnt yee like , ah can tell"
Quite how this bloke could tell I still havent worked out but thats a moot point because I was shown it at leat half a dozen times that day.
I did my usual of getting into the ground late and saw grainy A4 copies of it being passed around where I sit.
To this day , those that sit around me still dont believe it was me that started it.
It was a great season , we reached the second stage of the champions league after losing our first three games in the group and finished 3rd in the prem.
An amazing night in Rotterdam being my personal highlight along with scaring Inter in Milan and getting soaked in Barca and getting a written warning from work for staying an extra night.
At the end of the season a local publication was released entitled "Lets all laugh at sunderland".
It was a combined effort from the Newcastle fanzine scene (The Mag and True Faith) and MSS adorned every page with a different unfactual quote about sunderlands record breaking 19 point season (surely no team could ever get lower than 20 points again)
By this time my effort had been forgotten , consigned to history , as MSS became more famous and the foul mouthed Geordie who gave Newcastle a laugh sloped back into his normal life without any recognition or honour.
Once again proving that a geordie legend cant carry a team to glory.........
