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Wednesday 2 April 2008

Ripping Yarn

LONG-suffering Stags fans could be forgiven for thinking April Fools Day had arrived a tad early.
John Batchelor’s plan to re-name the Stags as Harchester United - after the fictitious club in the Sky show Dream Team - has been greeted locally by anger and incredulity in equal measure.
Incredibly, he insists Harchester can be promoted more commercially than Mansfield.
Unbelievably, he claims that he wants to use actors from the show.
And his comments that he doesn’t care a jot what the fans think, have also gone down like the proverbial balloons of lead.
If he fails with the Stags, there’s a rumour he’s going turn his attention to Gretna - as if they haven’t got enough troubles of their own.
Sadly, it’s not an early April Fool. It’s certainly no laughing matter if you are a Stags fan, but it is a Ripping Yarn worthy of Michael Palin at his best.
Forget Harchester, Mr Batchelor. Surely Barnstoneworth Stags are infinitely more marketable? You would attract all the old Monty Python fans to Meadow Lane (it make sense to play all your home games there as 3,317 turned up last week and less than 3,000 watched the crunch relegation match with Wrexham on Tuesday. Stags seem to play better away from Field Mill anyway).
Just think of it, You can bring the legendary Boldy Davitt out of retirement in place of Balding against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in that pre-season tournament you’re planning.
With ‘Golden Gordon’ Ottershaw as manager and ‘Golden Balls’ David Beckham as skipper, you could field a back-line of Hagerty (F), Hagerty (R), John-Baptiste, McIntyre and Treadmore. Dream team, or what?

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