Ah, the English summer. It lasts about three weeks; once-fashionable men wear sandals with socks, once-beautiful women whip off their tops and once-popular football drops off the back pages. It’s the silly season.
This week The Sun newspaper treated us to a mocked-up picture of the struggling Australian cricket team carrying handbags. We are told young Scot, Andrew Murray, with four lifetime tournament wins to his name, will win Wimbledon with ease. We are assured the limping Lions will trounce the All Blacks in chilly Christchurch on Saturday morning.
This is what happens when Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Mad dog disease. Bring back those damp winter evenings when it gets dark at 4pm and everyone lives their lives via soap opera.
But it’s the football stories that really stretch your imagination.
The big one? Luis Figo, once the world’s greatest player, is apparently making noises about going to Newcastle, a city so northern, they have never fully embraced the concept of summer.
Amid the Geordie accents and the women of Bigg Market, Figo is set to follow in the footsteps of, erm, Patrick Kluivert, David Ginola and Laurent Robert.
All these super-duper foreigners went to the hub of north-east England — and quickly left with their tails between their legs.
But Figo is different gravy. At 32, the Portuguese — who famously broke all the rules by going from Barcelona to hated rivals Real Madrid — is used to a hostile atmosphere and to controversy. And to succcess at the highest level.
Geordie boss Graeme Souness, who has proved something of an expert at producing a hostile atmosphere in his spells at Blackburn and Newcastle, says coyly: ”There is an interest there as far as Luis Figo is concerned, but we do not want to say any more at the moment.”
Of course he doesn’t. Figo will be looking for £100 000 a week, shattering the club’s wage structure. When he made that move from the Catalan capital to the Castillians, it cost a world record £37-million.
Souness has already spent £6,5-million on 24-year-old midfielder Scott Parker, the former Charlton lad who spent most of last season on a deckchair at Chelsea, and he’s got an eye on Inter Milan’s Belozoglu Emre and Australian Mark Viduka of Middlesbrough.
Can he persuade a notoriously difficult board to part with all that money after Kluivert’s dismal showing last season? After the departure of Craig ”the mouth” Bellamy on loan to Celtic? After the on-field bust-up between Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer?
Talking of Bowyer, the poor lamb appears to be stuck without a club right now. With the police still eager to take action over his swing at team-mate Dyer during last season’s defeat against Aston Villa, Bowyer is being linked with every Premiership club going.
But when Birmingham’s Steve Bruce came in with a serious bid to replace Robbie Savage, the fans went into revolt over the revolting Londonder. And when he was linked with Aston Villa, his former Leeds boss, David O’Leary, quickly distanced himself.
Rumour has it that mouthy, mean, manic Bowyer, perhaps the least-loved millionaire in all Britain, has purchased a large house in London. I imagine he’ll be at surprise promotion play-off winners West Ham before the season starts. You read it here first.
Down the road at Arsenal, they are talking Guti. He’s the slightly strange Real Madrid midfielder who consorts with transvestites and wears pink.
Basically, he’s been replaced in a fashion, controversy and midfield sense by David Beckham over the past couple of seasons. Then Thomas Gravesen turned up from Everton and he found himself stuck on a bench.
The Gunners, with Brazilian Edu off on a free transfer, are keen on the 28-year-old Spanish midfielder, who has spent his life at the Bernebeu.
Liverpool, Juventus and AC Milan are also interested, but Guti’s agent, Zoran Vekic, in London to complete the deal, says: ”After Real Madrid, his only desire if he was to move to England would be play for Arsenal, because of their style, their team spirit and of course they have a great coach.”
Arsène Wenger will be chuffed by that but the £12-million price tag may be a bit steep.
The big moves so far this summer have failed to materialise. Mikhael Forssell has finally made the loan move from Chelsea to Birmingham permanent. Similarly, Senegal star El Hadji Diouf has been spat out by Liverpool and is now a Bolton Wanderer; fading Czech Patrik Berger has gone from Portsmouth to Aston Villa for nothing.
One of the most interesting moves (apart from giant Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar’s long-awaited switch from Fulham to Manchester United) came with Simon Davies’s £4-million transfer from resurgent Tottenham Hotspur to Champions League no-hopers Everton, who finished a flukey fourth last term.
The Wales international said: ”When you look around the training ground you can see all the pictures of trophies the club has won and it is exciting.
”This club has a good history of winning things and it is a club on the up.”
Look, he’s only 25, how can he remember Everton winning things any better than he can remember it happening at Spurs?
Capped 22 times by Wales, Davies famously scored in the Millennium stadium win against Italy in October 2002.
Everton boss Moyes says: ”He is the kind of player we think we’ve been missing — a natural player on the right-hand side of midfield.
”He’s got a terrific energy and work rate. That is required if you’re going to come and play for Everton.”