Quiz

Hurrah! Once again, those lovely, handsome men at the Hendon Mob have sponsored the Battersea & Wandsworth Ladies Football team. In return, I’ve agreed to write some match reports, but as I realise that not everyone likes football, I’ve been trying to think of ways to make them more exciting.

My first idea was to run a variation on those old Spot the Ball competitions, except in this case punters would have to “Spot the Lesbian”. However, I was soon forced to reject this for two powerful reasons. Firstly, it was demeaning to women. And secondly, there aren’t enough straight girls in the team to make it feasible.

Next, I considered using my insider knowledge to offer you all some betting tips. Having spent a good few years on the touchline, I have a pretty good handle on which teams are hard to beat, which let in late goals due to poor fitness, and which never field a good team for away games. I may not be up there with Tony Bloom or Neil Channing as an odds maker, but I know this market as well as any man alive. Unfortunately, all this information would be useless, as – so far as I can tell – there is nobody willing to take a wager on it.

After that, I flirted with the notion of asking the girls to dispense sex and relationships advice. I figured they could offer handy hints about seduction, something that many poker players could do with judging by the standards of charm and personal hygiene on show in the casinos of Britain. To see if the idea had legs, I sent a few of them a questionnaire, but this opened up a can of worms. Personally, I will now find it hard to ever look our full back in the eyes again, let alone coach her on the offside trap, knowing that a man once said to her, while in the throes of his orgasm, “Cock one, pussy nil!”

Finally, I decided on setting a bamboozling quiz at the end of each report. Turn off your google and have a crack, once I’ve told you how the team managed to kill off one of the greatest clichés in football. You know when England get drawn against a truly rubbish footballing nation – San Marino, say, or Chad – and the manager remarks, “There are no easy games in football”? Well, the ladies put that to bed when we were drawn against Charlton Athletic in the London Cup last month.

Charlton are in the Premiership, train at a state of the art venue, and have reached the proper Women’s FA Cup Final four times in the last decade. Their coach, Paul Mortimer, played for Aston Villa. In bold contrast, we haven’t trained at all since November because of the wet weather, and I never got beyond pub football. We were duly trounced 13-1. On the journey back, I tried all the usual guff about how this would allow us “to concentrate on the league”, but to be honest the girls are going to need some cheering up. Please feel free to share any ideas or happy thoughts to buck their spirits up. (Or, indeed, any amusing things people have said to you in bed.)

Anyway, here are those cunning trivia questions:

1. Which winner of the Olympic 100 metres was born in Birmingham?
2. Who is the only sportsman mentioned in the Madonna song “Vogue”?
3. What is the “para” in Paralympics short for?
4. What was the name of the famous bald referee at Italia 90?
5. Name three teams in the Premiership whose nicknames are birds. (Pedants alert: I’m counting WBA as the Baggies, not the Throstles.)