It is a funny old game

Football’s a serious business: players cost millions of pounds and earn millions more each year in wages; clubs in northern industrial cities where the heart of the town has been ripped out and poverty reins as a result of the collapse of UK industry offer escapism for local people; and thousands of office staff, whole small businesses and endless suppliers survive on the money flowing into and out of the game.

So it’s great when this serious business gives you something to laugh about.

I laughed when Liverpool were third from bottom in the Premier League and, on a statue of John Lennon at the city’s airport that carries the words “above us only sky”, someone wrote “below us only Wolves and West Ham”.

I laughed when Liverpool’s Lucas, generally considered a disaster of a midfielder, was suspended for their game against West ham – and rumour had it West Ham were planning to appeal the suspension.

And I laughed when Gazza turned up to the Raoul Moat siege with a bucket of six chicken pieces, two large fries, a gravy, a small beans and a diet coke from KFC.

This week, we yet again get to laugh at Newcastle. The decision to sack Chris Hughton has been met with dismay in the football world, after he’d brought them up from the Championship without spending any real money, got them to 11th in the league, secured wins at home to deadly rivals Sunderland and away to Arsenal, and was working for a pittance by football manager standards.

It does stink a bit of bad chairmanship. Mike Ashley will probably be in touch with the England cricket selectors this week to advise them to drop the first team for beating the Aussies in the second test.

Whether Hughton would have kept Newcastle up or not, we will never know. They had failed to win for several games and got thumped in their last two away games, so it’s possible they would have ended up dropping into trouble. But what is laughable is the board’s reasons for sacking him: “To appoint a manager with more Premier League experience”.

Hmmm… who better then than Alan Pardew, whose Premier League experience can be summed up as leading West Ham through their worst run of defeats in over 70 years during the 2006-07 season, culminating in his sacking, and getting Charlton relegated from the Premier League the same year.

Despite this, he should fit in just fine at Newcastle with the likes of Joey Barton and Andy Carroll etc. Aside from having the type of judgment that thinks it’s ok to say “Michael Essien absolutely rapes Ched Evans” on Match of the Day 2, it’s well rumoured around the football world that Pardew was sacked from both West Ham and Southampton for having affairs with players’ wives. That may or may not be true. If it is, I hope he picks Joey Barton’s wife.

That would be very funny.