Rout

I once saw City lose six nil against Cardiff, our local rivals. Our forward players actually did quite well, particularly a strikingly short winger called Jamal Campbell-Ryce who was making his debut, but it seemed like every time Cardiff attacked they scored. Our keeper, the unfortunately named Gerken, gave a bravura display of coming when he should have stayed and staying when he should have come, and the defence were so unnerved by his ability to be everywhere and yet simultaneously nowhere that they didn't know what the hell to do, so in the end didn't do much.

I left at halftime, so technically I only saw them lose four nil. I've never walked out on a game early before or since, but it was an evening game, I had an 8:30 start across town in the morning, and I wanted time to have a beer and find some kind of emotional equilibrium before bedtime. It was one of the worst displays I've seen from any City side, and I've seen a few. I think they could have given Brazil a game last night though.

Take Campbell-Ryce, for instance. He was only about three foot seven, but he could probably have beaten David Luiz to a few headers. In fact I don't suppose Luiz would have even seen him, or for that matter any of our front line, given his apparent inability to see Muller, Klose, Kroos, Khedira or Schurrle, five apparently highly visible players with an average height of slightly over six feet. We'd still have had concerns about Gerken's vulnerability to through balls across the box, but it doesn't seem as important when you're playing a team who never think to play them in.

In fact I can imagine the chants the next time we're a few down against Wycombe or someone. Brazil, it's just like watching Brazil...

Meanwhile, Colourful football shoes made World Cup a homosexual abomination, says Russian Orthodox priest Alexander Shumsky. He thinks that the Russian football team were promoting the gay rainbow by wearing shoes of green, yellow, pink and blue. The liberal ideology of globalism clearly wants to oppose Christianity with football. I'm sure of it, he wrote. He's genuinely pleased the Russian team have been knocked out, because it saves the people from any more of this gay propaganda.

My very favourite thing about this is that the LGBT rainbow flag doesn't actually contain pink. In fact it only has six colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. That's right, a normal rainbow, but without indigo for some reason. Maybe they thought Richard Of York Gave Battle Vainly. Or maybe it's for the Regiments Of Yucky Gays Besieging Vladivostok.

To be fair, some of the Russian team's boots are yellow, green or blue. They don't look anything like the primary colours in the rainbow flag though. Actually, now I look at them properly, compared to the flag, they're much more gay. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's a subliminal promotional campaign organised by someone hoping to get gays to make their flag a bit more gay. Or, and I should stress that this is pure speculation, maybe Shumsky, a god-bothering nutjob whose personal grooming decisions are clearly made to repel boarders, has some personal reason for seeing gayness in the most unlikely of places.