Sun. Oct 6th, 2024

Returning home following England’s ousting from the European Championships, England’s plucky captain was in no mood to make excuses for his lacklustre performance.

“I could blame it on the women for nagging me to have sex all night. I could blame it on the wife for nagging me about having sex all night with the women, but I have to take responsibility for myself. I will not make excuses.” he said, dabbing tears from his eyes with a pair of Rebecca Loos’s knickers.

Not even the antics of the press could cause the most famous man in the world to deflect blame. “The photographers do tend to take a lot of pictures and everyone knows that with every picture the camera steals a bit of your soul. This can be quite wearing, y’know, having less soul than other people, but I am not looking for scapegoats.”

The noble national hero further ennobled himself by denying any bad influence from the controversial training regimen at Real Madrid.

“They kept me in a box for most of the time and refused to let me run around except in actual games. I thought this was not the best regimen for fitness, but you know, they are just Spanish and they have funny ways. And I am not going to use this as an excuse.”

Beckham selflessly went on to defend his much-criticised manager. “Some might suggest that it is Sven’s fault for forcing me to play football. This insistence that I play when I’m obviously better suited for hanging around tattoo parlours and posing for cameras does seem a bit strange in retrospect, but he has peeled a lot grapes for me in his time, so I thought I would, y’know, give him a break. And so I’m not going to use Sven as an excuse. Not even a little bit.”

And he went on to praise the team and the game in general. “Maybe Sol after his goal was disallowed should have tried harder to get another in the last seconds of the game, or even after the game had finished and maybe Wayne was just a bit selfish going off with a broken bone and the Portuguese didn’t play fair by not letting us have the ball, and the ref’s guide dog did get in the way a bit, but y’know, that’s all part of the game and it’s unthinkable to sit here and make excuses.”

The tattooed superstar valiantly resisted the temptation to blame the laws of physics. “If gravity had more pull, the ball wouldn’t have gone over the bar. But I’m not looking for excuses. If gravity had less pull, the ball wouldn’t have rolled off the spot, and if the ball had been square, it wouldn’t have rolled at all, but I’m not trying to make the nature of the universe a cop out. I am a professional and professionals don’t make excuses.”

By chris page

Magazine editor, writer of fiction and non-fiction; exile; cat person; red wine for blood and cheese in his soul. Chris Page is the author of the novels Weed, Sanctioned, Another Perfect Day in ****ing Paradise, King of the Undies World, and The Underpants Tree. He is also a freelance journalist, copywriter, editor, cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer, and consultant in the use and abuse of false moustaches (don’t wear them — you’re welcome — the invoice is in the mail).

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