Shares slump as Robbie stays put!

Shares on the London Stock Exchange fell sharply yesterday after the UK’s leading removal firm issued a profits warning statement for 2010.

At a hastily arranged press conference the company’s Chief Finance Officer explained that the their UK business plan had relied heavily upon the annual summer transfer of the Tottenham Hotspur and Republic of Ireland striker, Robbie Keane (pictured above with siblings Roy and Diane). ‘As a move for the former Wolves, Coventry, Inter Milan, Leeds United, Liverpool and Celtic man had so far not materialised during the close season, it is only right for our shareholders and institutional investors to be warned of the potential impact’ he added.

Mr Shifter, Chairman of the British Association of Removers, talking exclusively to the Sports in Shorts, explained that…‘ The last decade has been a golden age for the UK removal industry with the high turnover of footballers changing clubs each year. This year the big clubs are really strapped for cash and this is having a direct impact on the volume of trade for our members. We’ve not seen a downturn like this since BBC Pundit and journeyman professional, Steve ‘I’ve got more clubs than Jack Nicklaus’ Claridge hung up his boots!’

Mr Shifter denied reports that his organisation was trying to kick-start the football transfer market by showering a number of high-profile premier league managers with expensive gifts and lavish corporate hospitality. However, this was at odds with footage from our reporter’s secret camera, which caught the former PG Tips executive discretely stuffing cash into two large brown envelopes...addressed to a Mr Mancini.

Where the ****ing hell are you?

Football clubs in Scotland have voted unanimously at their AGM to rename perennial Division 3 underachievers Albion Rovers. Problems arose last season at a number of fixtures involving the Coatbridge based club because away fans and club officials could not find the club’s Cliftonhill stadium, leading to numerous late kick-offs.

The situation came to a head last week when Arbroath failed to turn-up for a Tennants Premium Strength Cup tie, arriving instead at The Hawthorns for a pre-season friendly between West Bromwich Albion and Blackburn Rovers. Celebrity ‘Throstles’ fans Adrian Chiles and Frank Skinner looked on in disbelief as the assorted part-time professionals (10 trawlermen and a car park attendant) from the ‘smoked kipper’ capital of the world played the premier league outfits off the park in a hastily arranged three-way round-robin tournament.

The Arbroath bus driver explained to our Sports in Shorts reporter that there had been a problem with his satellite navigation system. Roughly translated into English, he said...‘Look Jimmy, all I did was put ‘Albion Rovers’ in the sat-nav ‘n’ follow the directions from the posh speaking bird. How the **** am I supposed to know where Albion Rovers is? They ought to have a proper name like Queen of the South, St Mirren or somethin’…

Officials from Albion Rovers are likely to appeal against the SFA decision and have strongly defended the clubs generic name, the origins of which are only known to the veteran BBC Scotland football reporter, Archie McPherson. When the time comes McPherson has promised to pass the secret down to his more famous broadcasting daughter, Hazel Irvine.

Football historians speculate that the club’s founders could not agree on a name, so, as a bit of fun, picked the names of other football club endings out of a hat. Before settling on the name Albion Rovers a number of alternatives were apparently rejected. These included County Town, Forest Rangers, North End Villa, Wednesday Nil and - because it clashed with the name of Coatbridge's premier Chinese take-away - Orient City!

ITV's promise of 'broadcast error' fails as millions subjected to dour final!

ITV chiefs have apologised for an internal error which led to the entire World Cup final between Spain and The Netherlands being shown with no broadcast problems at all!

The channel which is prone to mistakenly cutting to advert breaks just as something of interest is about to happen in a game of football, went the whole 90 minutes and a further 30 minutes of extra time without once missing any of the action!?. This has upset regular viewers.

Dave Gantree of Grantham, Lincolnshire said ''When we really needed ITV to save us from the dross being played last night, they didn't deliver!. I would have killed to have seen a 'Go Compare' or 'that annoying Graham Taylor ad' but they let us down. I wouldn't be surprised if they did it deliberately........it's that Chiles fella......bloody liability he is. This wasn't 'The One Show' .......this is ITV, it's meant to be shambolic!. If I wanted seamless transmissions I'd watch the BBC.''

A spokesman for ITV sport said ''We understand many viewers will be upset at having to watch a boring World Cup Final with no impromptu advert breaks, all we can do is apologise and say it will never happen again!. Normal service will resume when the Champions League starts in September, and we are training extra staff the skills needed to mess up broadcasts and miss vital goals....once again we are very sorry, and we hope nobody suffered too much at having to watch the entire final!?''

Maradona tries to convince authorities he's the German coach

Unstable Argentinian manager Diego Armando Maradona (above) caused major disruption at Germany's training camp yesterday ahead of their World Cup Semi-Final against Spain, by claiming HE was the German coach, not Joachim Loew!

The confused ex gun wielding maniac turned up at the training ground entrance in various pieces of disguise. Security guard Abedi Sulemedy was on duty in Durban and he tells the story.

''This crazy guy turns up wearing a tight fitting German football and carrying a packet of frankfurters, so I asked if I could help him?.....I thought he may have escaped from the local institute!?........he said that he was here to coach his team to the World Cup victory, so I asked him who his team was?, ''The mighty Germania'' he tells me!.

Then I realised who it was, it was Diego Maradona!....I couldn't believe it. He's one of my favorite players of all time!

So I told him he is Argentina's manager, and that Germany beat them 4-0 in the Quarter Finals!

''If I'm Argentinian like you claim, then why am I here with the national food of Germany..... in my German dress and speaking with this authentic German accent!?'' he replied

I told him, he was clearly putting the accent on, he was doing more of a 'Allo-Allo' style, French accent to be honest.''

After 2 hours of trying to convince staff to let him in, and an unsuccessful attempt at squeezing through a tiny hole in the perimeter fence, Maradona gave up and later spoke to Sports In Shorts of the affair.

''On Saturday night, after the game with Germany, my old friend GOD contacted me....I haven't heard from that guy since 1986!. Anyway, he tells me that he wants ME to win the World Cup and he made a terrible mistake by letting Germany win the game. He promised to make it up to me by letting me become the German manager...only I must promise not to tell anyone! mainly cos of all the fuss it caused when he wanted me to beat England back in the day.

All was going well, I dug my old shirt out I got from Andreas Bremhe, I bought a packet of Frankfurters, and I adopted the alter ego of 'Diego The German'....whats more German than that..right!?.

Sadly the authorities didn't want to take MY or GOD's word for it, so I had to think 'outside the box'.''

Maradona is already back in Buenos Aires about to start work on his new Cop Drama Series 'Diego & Lacey'.....the long awaited 'spin off' from the popular 80's show Cagney & Lacey.

Excellent England return to heroes welcome!

The heroic underdogs of England's spirited World Cup campaign will return today to Heathrow Airport to a reception of thousands of well wishers and fans.

The plucky team managed to avoid embarrassment yesterday playing the football powerhouse of Germany by keeping the score down to a close run 4-1 defeat!.

Once described as ''pointless fuckwits!'' by manager Fabio Capello, the team rallied round and made the German team look only fractionally better than them.

Ex England manager Graham Taylor watched the game from a cul de sac in Lincolnshire.

''OK, I suppose some so called England fans will be disappointed, but when you see your team play like they did today (yesterday) you can only be proud. To keep THAT German team down to only 4 goals was an astonishing piece of goal prevention, the likes we haven't seen since Carlton Palmer used to parade around the England midfield like a cheap suit.''

Many fans feared the worst when England were paired with Germany in the last 16, but Capello spoke of how he got the best out of his 'low fi' players.

''When you are a that much of an under-doggy, what have you a got to lose!?. You just have to put your eyes on the German team sheet list and it is house hold names all the way a down. Compared to our list where, to be honest if I can for a momento...even I do not recognise the names!......I didn't even realise Joey Coley was our player until I played FIFA World Cup on my Playstation computer.

I just said to my boys, no one knows who you are, go and tell them who you are...Introduce yourself to the football world.....do it for Gary Neville!'.''

'Rebel' Lawrenson refuses to wear traditional BBC pundit clothes!

Mark Lawrenson the strangely haired BBC pundit caused mild controversy last night by refusing to wear the 'stock' grey shirt/black trouser combo which is expected to be worn by all pundits.

The campish ex Republic Of Ireland defender (pictured above) turned up at the BBC's temporary studio in the foothills of Table Mountain near Cape Town, sporting some items from his own wardrobe, a gold and black sequined sparkly top, light blue pantaloons and knee high black cowboy boots finished with a pink cowboy hat.

This did not go down well with some viewers. A disgruntled Roy Miller from Basildon said

''I switched on the BBC to watch a nice bit of bland inoffensive punditry to go with the Denmark Japan game, then they cut to Lawro and he's wearing that get up, I ask you a PINK cowboy hat???...PINK!.....everyone knows you should never wear pink with gold....they'll clash.

I expect this from Southgate on ITV but not on the BBC, they should know better!.''

Defending his clothes, Lawrenson described the outfit as 'playful yet practical', 'fun and breezy' and 'John Barrowman meets Sex in the City'.

Defoe forgets if he's a Tottenham or a Portsmouth player!?

England goal hero Jermain Defoe has admitted in a post match interview that he's forgotten if he plays club football for Tottenham Hotspur or Portsmouth.

The 'petite' striker who is exactly half the size of team mate Peter Crouch (fact fans) let this slip during an interview with ITV's Gabriel Clarke.

''Its great to get our campaign off to a non drawing start and to know everyone back home is now going way over the top with praise for us is music to our ears. The team played well and I'm so glad to get the goal cos that's what I'm in the team for!, its what I do day in day out at Portsmouth.....no......Tottenham, hang on....who do I play for?. The managers that fella that looks like a hound dog (Harry Redknapp)....its one of them definitely. Shit, that's embarrassing.....hang on Crouchy will know, 'Crouchy who do we play for?'

''England!'' replied the 'rake like plane botherer' whilst performing his celebratory robot dance

''Na, I know that,...... I mean back home, did you come with me to Spurs?''

''Yeah Little J, we play for Spurs.....or Portsmouth, one of them!.''

Since last night Defoe has completed a transfer to Portsmouth who have since sold him on to Tottenham Hotspur. Harry Redknapp is said to be ecstatic with both his new signings.