The Quintuple

So the quintuple’s on and by that we don’t mean our usual Monday morning vodka, JD, Drambuie, crème de menthe and advocat chaser, but of course Man United’s potential five trophy clean sweep following yesterday’s League Cup win.

‘Nuff props to Ben Foster for the penalty saves, but Hornets fans have long known all about the excellent young gloveman for ages and we reckon Senor Fabio could do a lot worse than chuck him into the starting line-up right now.

Yet amid the Red Devils triumph emerges a story that is just plainly wrong on so many levels, namely They Call Him Rio and fiancée Rebecca Ellison’s plan to have a barn owl swoop down the aisle and deliver their rings when they get married next August.

Now having read that back we had to pinch ourselves, a) to make sure we’re not still drunk and b) just because seriously WTF?!

It raises so may questions: Where do you get such highly trained Strigiformes outside of a JK Rowling novel in the first place and surely, if such creatures do exist, wouldn’t they be better employed battling Al Quaida rather than adorning the ‘natural successor to Bobby Moore’s’ impending nuptials.

The mind truly, truly, truly boggles.

Tomorrow: John Terry, my best man the velociraptor.

Monikers

Too. Much. Sport. Not three words we’d ever thought we’d ever write in succession but it’s been that sort of weekend with the Test series against the Kiwis to wrap up, the Canadian Grand Prix, Euro 2008 kicking off and half an ear to keep on the tennis too.

First up then good news for Poland in the F1 and an extremely happy Mrs Spurt who immensely enjoyed Kubica’s maiden win, which made up for the 2-0 spanking from Germany shortly afterward. Alas poor Lewis, easy mistake to make, I mean it’s not as if red’s the universal colour for stop... oh wait

However chief victim Kimi Raikkonen didn’t exactly cover himself in glory either in a startling display of petulance , "I'm not angry but what Hamilton did was inexplicable. More, it was stupid." He’s right of course inexplicably smashing into the back of someone for no good reason is inexcusable, stupid even, an opinion no doubt shared by Force India’s Adrian Sutil. He at least had the good grace to keep his gob firmly in neutral, when Raikkonen managed that feat just one short race a go.

To the Test victory next and a comprehensive caning for the Kiwis with James ‘modesty forbids’ Anderson coming over all shy when named man of the match. “I just managed to get the ball in the right areas and they missed it, which was nice," he said.

Not. Really. Good. Enough. Clearly Anderson has made some great progress, but to really take it to the next level he has to work on one more vital area, to whit his nickname, which is a worryingly underwhelming ‘The Burnley Express’.

Now that is just not going to terrify the world’s leading batsmen and clearly coach Ottis Gibson has some work to do. ‘Whispering death’, ‘Big Bird’, ‘White Lightning’ ‘The Rawalpindi Express’ those are the kind of names to aim for and let’s hope young Jimmy has something suitably forbidding in place in time for the South African series.

Suggestions welcome in the comments field below. We’ll kick you off with Jimmy ‘one bad mo’fo’ Anderson.

Perhaps he could take a leaf out of Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand’s book, who’s in Nigeria to promote education through football and has been given the title of Chief Fiwagboola by King Akiolu.

Apparently it stands for 'character maketh wealth' rather than ‘attention deficit disorder’.

Handbags…

A weekend of old skool partying this weekend leaves little room for spurting endeavours and it’s a weary, wasted yet happy correspondent who eventually limps home to fall asleep during Sunday’s Barcelona GP, which, Heikki Kovalainen’s
big stack apart, is a Ferrari processional, although it’s good to see young Master Hamilton sneak back onto the podium.

But now spring has truly sprung, when “a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love”, or at least ‘I fancy a bit of that’, you’d imagine some of it might rub off and a spirit of comradeship or at least détente might pervade the sporting air.

But honestly, not a bit of it, we stop pounding the spurting beat for one short weekend and what happens? The whole sporting world decides it’s time to play handbags at ten paces.

First up: the battles of Stamford Bridge; now for the neutral it’s hard to decide what to despise more Man Utd’s arrogance or Chelsea’s tedious efficiency, but the 2-1 win was a good result meaning the race will go to the wire.

But onto the important bit the violence and England skipper wannabe Rio Ferdinand, who accidentally booted a female steward when he meant to kick a interview room door in frustration. Rio we thought you’d eliminated those annoying lapses of concentration, door = big, wooden, steward = female, human. Absorb, reflect, yeah?

Next up a classic spot of ‘afters’ where following the game Park Ji-Sung and Partrice Evra got stuck into Chelsea’s ground staff in a warm down spat of epic proportions and lusty blows. Disappointing, not least because they forgot the cardinal rule: let’s keep violence where it belongs: on the pitch and during the game where we can all enjoy it.

Finally, the continuing sorry saga of Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh who reportedly bitch-slapped fellow Indian team mate Sree Santh in the Mumbai Indians vs Kings XI Punjab IPL game. Sree Snath had opened with a vicious innocuous pleasantry on the lines of “bad luck on losing the game old fella” and for Singh that was enough for the red mist to descend. Is he related to Craig Bellamy by any chance?

Anyway TV failed to capture the incident but apparently Sree Santh subsequently wept on the outfield and had to be comforted by team-mates.

What a big girl.

Today’s Spurt was bought to you in a spirit of love and understanding by the United Weapons Manufacturing and Export Corporation, ‘a safer world through bigger guns’. If you’d like to sponsor a spurt, send us a mail at World of Spurt

England’s double shocker

We go away for a short Easter break with Mrs Spurt and what on earth is the sporting world coming to? First up long-standing England posh lad Andrew Strauss rescues his career with a mighty career-best 177 against the Kiwis, then new wunderkind Stuart Broad bowls like a demon in tandem with Monty to set up what should be a thrilling series-snatching victory from the the sheep worriers.

However it’s a bit of a measure of how far the mighty have fallen that we should have to win an away series (or indeed any series) coming from behind in such a manner. Doesn’t bode well for the return of the Aussies next year.

Awesome news too from the world of Bangladesh cricket, where following Andrew Symonds recent vigilante impersonation, Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful has handed out a spot of summary justice to a spectator who was booing him. Ashraful didn't even wait for a game to begin, this was a slap handed out in the nets before the match. Fine work from the 23-year old Bangladesh skipper.

Elsewhere in shock news new England footy boss Fabio Capello names dozy drug test dodger and sometime centre back Rio Ferdinand as skipper against Les Blues for the friendly tomorrow night. The smart money was apparently on John Terry, or as a real surprise, the Becks, so it’s a bit of a left field call from the Italian boss. But at least it keeps everyone on their toes while the captaincy rotates around the main candidates. Let’s just hope Rio remembers to turn up on time.