The uneventful life of a retired footballer

I'm Bert Tiddle and you've never heard of me. When I played for Ipswich Town in 1985, I led the fans in a chant of "Norwich City is a venereal disease!" I made that up myself and the eight drunks who joined in freaking loved it. Terry Butcher said it was in poor taste. Terry Butcher is a numpty.

All these footballers are apologizing for nonsense these days and it makes me sick. What's happened to the world? There was a time when being a professional footballer was better than being God and you could do things even the almighty would get put in jail for. Now, all in one week, Newcastle players who didn't even travel with the club are forced to apologize for making a sober nightclub appearance the evening before a match and Mitchell Ballack had to do the same for screaming foreign curse words about a rival club at his own supporters. As I told Glaucoma, one of my 18 kids, while he helped me fix lunch today, this is just depressing. And you're burning the toast, you weird little alien child.

I started a list on Twitter of the only things professional footballers should ever have to apologize for, but since Twitter is stupid, I'll do it here too. So pay attention. These are the only things the world's most elite athletic geniuses should be forced to grovel about.

1. Murders the police know about. The papers think they have a story but the bill have no evidence? Your conscience should be clear, Leon Messi.

2. Taking a poo on the team bus. Only Big Sam Allardyce gets away with doing this on the way to every away match. And since the rest of you don't have Sam's powerful bowels, you best apologize for it.

3. Not being man enough to write a moany newspaper column under y! our own name. Here that, Secret Football of the Guardian? If you want to call your teammates' gambling out of control or blame fans for keeping footballers in the closet, do it so everyone knows exactly who to kick in the balls. Old Bert's man enough to write under his own name and you should be too.

4. Any tackle that doesn't break an opponent's legs. Footballers today keep apologizing for sending their opponents off a stretcher. That's disgusting. They should be apologizing when they don't care enough to go in hard. That's far more offensive. The rest is just part of the game and the passion it creates. It's a compliment, really.

5. Shutting off your phone when I ring you. Yeah. That's right, Shearer. I know why I always get your voicemail when I try to invite you to my dinner parties. It's certainly not because you're busy doing research so you don't sound like an idiot on the television. Answer your phone. I keep making enough salad for you and it keeps going to waste.

Right. So that's it. Anything not on this is something professional footballers should be free to do without your ninny guilt trips. I'm going to the flower shop.

Photo: AP