Gainsborough.

Now that goal-line technology has eventually reached the top flight of World football, many predict that the floodgates will now open and all sorts of space-age ideas will become the norm, for example, two refs (one in each half of the pitch) may help the more ‘experienced’ officials to keep up with play.

There’s already a nerd in the stands counting passes/assists/tackle’s made…..a boon to the manager in gauging how bobbins each individual player is, but the fact still remains that during the match, the manager’s only influence is to scream obscenities at his under-performing team…..here his influence ends and he has to wait until half-time to attempt to talk some sense into them.
…..not anymore!

Today’s visitor’s Gainsborough Trinity, have secretly been testing a new ‘All-player Reaction System of Electronics’ ….(A.R.S.E.) in which the manager ‘controls’ the players using a laptop from the dugout.

A.R.S.E. works by simply implanting the squad of players with electrodes on various parts of the body. Although the surgery involved is extremely painful, the results can be pretty amazing!
What happens is, if the manager wants a player to say ‘jump’ for a header he simply presses a combination of buttons on his keypad and the player will automatically receive electric shocks in the soles of his feet indicating his boss’s instructions.

A quick tap on the computer can activate up to 200 sensors on the left-hand side of a midfielder’s torso to allow him to realise the gaffer needs him to be ‘more on the left’……both sides at once means ‘stay where you are’ whilst a massive shock to the buttocks tells the lazy player that he needs to be ‘further forward’.

Of course A.R.S.E. has had its ‘teething troubles’…for instance the manager has to be able to type the equivalent of 90 words per minute (slightly more than a ‘high-level’ professional secretary) and as The ‘Holy Blues’ have realised so far this season, their 5 defeats are all down to the manager’s lack of dexterity on the keyboard resulting in players rushing about in the wrong direction, frequently bumping into each other and in one case the goal-keeper running around in circles, screaming on the Club car-park as a corner was being taken.

The Board of Directors decided that the manager was to be replaced by a Secretary (a Miss Goodbody) for the next fixture….this backfired because as well as having next to no knowledge of tactics resulting in a shambolic first-half , she was unaware that the teams ‘changed ends’ for the second-half. The whole game became farcical and the manager was swiftly re-instated.
….but with regular night-school classes….expect Trinity’s results to improve.

I phoned Sepp Blatter at his luxury Villa in Qatar to ask him if F.I.F.A. were aware of A.R.S.E……but there was no answer.

Although A.R.S.E. is ‘cutting edge’ not many people know that County once attempted a similar system back in 1935! The ‘Total Operational Soccer System’ (T.O.S.S.) relied on Club employees firing a series of small Harpoons at players from various points around Edgeley Park. The Harpoons were attached to wire which was in turn connected to a huge electrical Transformer housed underneath The Main Stand.

Initial success in a specially arranged friendly with local side Portwood Trombonians was short-lived as although County were leading 1-0, the match was abandoned after only 6 minutes as players kept tripping-up over the wires……unfortunately there was no attempt to ‘fine-tune’ T.O.S.S. as later that night County’s then Caretaker Stan Gubbins, forgot to turn off the Transformer before going home, it soon over-heated and burnt down the Stand.

I approached Mr. Gubbins Great Grandson in The Pineapple Public House to ask him for more details of the event but he became irate and punched me squarely in the face……so I decided to let ‘sleeping dogs lie’.

A cruder version of T.O.S.S. was allegedly attempted in 1924 when our then manager apparently threw Lump-Hammers at his players to get their attentio………(THAT’S ENOUGH….YOU’RE FIRED!!!....ED.)