"You made up your girlfriend and you smell"

Updates have been a bit scarce over the last week or so. This is mainly down to my effin' router blowing up last week (replacement coming soon) so internet at home is a thing of the past. Work has also been stupidly busy, but should calm down after this Friday.

A lot has been happening in the wide world of Arsenal. What a palaver, do we blame the media or Gallas or Wenger for the latest debacle? One thing’s for sure, Wenger's right when he says the media reports on catastrophe or the fantastic, but the reality lies somewhere in between. Today does feel like a new beginning for the team, I hope Gallas was made to stand up in front of the team in his underpants and apologise for his actions; he should also maybe bake a cake for Robin van Persie. Let's hope Gallas keeps his head down for a bit and puts in some good performances, as we really need some solidity at the back.

Whilst Fabregas was the only real choice for captain, I think he's the right one. The role of the captain has evolved with football from the gritted teeth, Tony Adams/Terry Butcher style skipper the English media still craves. Age is an irrelevance when you’ve won a European Championship, appeared in a Champions League Final and playing in your fifth season for the club. Fabbo is the best player in the team, you'd hope that most (if not all) of the team admire and respect him; lets hope he can get his hands on some effin' silverware this season. He's been captain of my Arsenal side in FIFA09 this season anyway, and he's doing a grand job there (although I managed to sign a 'keeper, centre half and midfielder).

For any Blackadder fans out there, the beeb will be showing some great stuff over crimbo, including a rare in-depth interview with Rowan Atkinson about the character, which is rarer than a hole in one with a jelly golf club.

The boy Brown is visiting Wiltshire this weekend, so there should be happy larks all over the place. Well done to Abbe for having a lovely little baby girl and I hope Mark, Kev and their ladies are having a great time in Buenos Aires.

Don't forget to keep checking your Fantasy Teams, I may be winning the league (doubters - there is no way of cheating with this league, and I never cheated on the Excel one I did years ago, honest), but it's still pretty tight beneath me.

There will be more gossip forthcoming about the much-anticipated Boxing Day match, expect more baiting and general mockery there. Especially from our correspondent in Beijing.

Chett’ Back to Class?

By Ginger Prentice

Mocha Juniors better hope they’ve done their homework as professor Chetty has promised he is coming back to school to teach them a lesson in football.

In a shock move, Garage Vintage’s mercurial left winger, Darren Chetty, yesterday said he will play in December’s do-or-die clash with the Juniors, after initially ruling himself out due to a fixture clash with a yoga workshop.

“I’ve been on a macrobiotic diet and meditating daily – I’m in a good place both physically and spiritually,” the new age left footer wrote in weekly column in the Littlington Gazette.

“The Juniors have always suffered from being tactically naïve and have never proved a match for our cerebral style of football,” blasted Vintage’s eggheaded midfielder, sneering: “they just don’t make the grade.”

News of Chetty’s U-turn got an ‘E for effort’ in the Juniors treatment room, with sidelined Mocha midfielder, Dan Brown, describing the Vintage man as “well past his best,” slamming the publicity surrounding his decision as: “nonsense; nothing but hot air.”

“He had a sweet left foot once upon a time, but he lacks the pace he once had,” cheeped the former Magpie ace, who is currently recovering from a groin injury he picked up while on international duty with Greece.

“I hope to play and if the nurse gives me the green light, I’ll be like a rat up a drainpipe,” says Brown, adding that it will be him who will be doing the educating. “All of Chetty’s verbal is well out of order. His mouth is like a runaway train and I’m going to derail that Chett-a-nooga Choo Choo – you wait and see,” fumed the Mocha man.

"Well they were a bit... bitey. "

Headed over to London on Wednesday to see Arsenal frustratingly draw with Fenerbahce. The game provided further evidence that I am becoming a curse when it comes to going to see them play. The last 4 matches I have seen have finished 0-0, 0-0, 1-2 and 0-0. Won't be able to afford to go for a while now so let’s hope Arsenal pull their finger out in my absence.

Arsenal - Man U tomorrow, always a nerve jangler. Especially this week, with al the injury problems we've got (again). It's been a strange week listening to Le Boss talk about bullies in the game, I'm reading The Professor by Myles Palmer at the moment, the contrast is unbelievable with the 1998-2001 period, back then, Arsenal were perceived as the bullies of the Premiership, all those red cards, etc. We are missing an enforcer that’s for sure. Each game we get rolled over, that Vieira-shaped hole in the centre of the park becomes more vivid. I’m hoping last Saturday was our nadir…

Still, now that we live in Barak Obama's brave new world, things seem to be on the up already. Having contrived to leave my phone on the tube on the way into town on Wednesday, I figured that I'd lost it and that was that. However, a very kind hearted soul handed it into Arsenal tube station and I was able to pick it up after he game - praise the humanity of it all. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Obama himself who committed the good deed.

Did anyone see Charlie Brooker's excellent 'Dead Set' last week? I effin love zombies, films, comics, games, the lot. This show was great, some terrific gore (especially the ol' crushing of the skull with a fire extinguisher scene) and a startlingly simple story. One slight problem with it though - running zombies. Zombies don't run, they are the walking dead, and should move as such. Don't start banging on about the monsters in 28 Days either, they weren't zombies, they were rage-infected maniacs who liked to spit up blood on people without a thought for the mess it would create. On the same theme, I've finally come up with an idea for my zombie screenplay this week, expect to see it on your screens sometime in the next 20 years, if I get round to writing it (and find someone stupid enough to produce it).

Something silly to finish with, if you go to this website, you can find out your reggae name, all just good larks for a Friday, yours, Dr Ethiopia.

Rec n' Ball

One for the East Side today, its time to start building up the return of the Steeple Morden Rec Boxing Day football match...

The history of the Boxing Day match stretches right back to the First World War; soldiers from Germany, Steeple Morden and Ashwell came together over no mans land (they had missed the Christmas Day match), and tried to have a game of headers and volleys without stepping on a landmine (this proved particularly hazardous when there was a "scramble" or "Jagt").

The good news is, the match is back, and it's happening this year on Saturday 27th December at midday. Funk Pie is proud to be the official sponsor of the event, all the build up, gossip and team news will appear here first. A countdown clock to kick off can be seen on the right-hand side of the page.

Funk Pie's first exclusive is regarding the teams. Following discussions with the Boxing Day Match Executive Committee (BDMEC), it has been decreed that the two team captains will be the brothers Hasler, Kristian and Nathan. Kristian will be taking charge of the Vintage Garage XI, whilst Nathan will skipper Mocha Juniors. As the names suggest, age will play some part in the team selection process.

There will be an exclusive (Chinese) trophy for the winner, as well as a special gong for the Man of the Match (to be voted for in the Waggon after the game).

News of the match has already created a buzz around the world, especially in Beijing, where Funk Pie reporter takes up the story:

Afternoon at the Rec' will be no picnic

By Tony N. Joe

The riches of the professional game may be a long way from SG8, but this December's grudge match between Mocha Juniors and Vintage Garage XI will be every bit as keenly contested as the premiership derbies between Arsenal and Tottenham, Newcastle and Sunderland, Man City and Manchester United.

"The hate runs deep…every Garage fixture pits kith against kith, kin against kin," says Vintage midfielder Matthew Gray. "Blood certainly isn't thicker than water on Steeple Rec'," he adds, listing that each side boasts a Hasler, Gray and Fitzsimmons brother, "not to mention, rivalries that go back to the playground and the pub. That McKee still owes me a pint"

With bragging rights for a year up for grabs, every player is going to be up for it. I'm going to leave blood in the mud – some of it might even be mine," quips the village elders' captain and combative midfielder, Kristian Hasler, older brother to the younger side's captain, Nathan, who is due to return on loan from Ajax.

Mocha forward and current holder of the garage golden boot, Martin Downes refuses to be intimidated by the tough talking of the Vintage captain: "We're just going to play our normal long ball game and bypass the midfield. I'm confident that my goal hanging will see me reap another bumper harvest. Our style may not be pretty, but it sure can be effective."

The Mocha Junior squad will be bolstered by the return of team captain Nathan Hasler as well as Kev and Damien Pennell – the other two thirds of the 'three amigos' partnership that once wowed crowds in Argentina. But the whippersnappers will be without influential playmaker Dan Brown, convalescing with family in Devon after an operation on a long term groin injury. "He's got quick feet, but he always thinks with that part of his anatomy, so it's important for him that he gets that put right first," says his team-mate, defender Russell Foulger.

The Vintage XI will benefit from the return of Jamie Fewster and Richard Holme - sidelined after positive drugs tests earlier in the year - as well as defender Dominic Fitzsimmons, who comes back from a red-card littered spell plying his lazy midfield play in China. There are doubts over the match fitness of several key members of the Vintage squad and a scheduling foul up could see bookish left winger, Darren Chetty ruled out of contention.

Despite the incendiary atmosphere on the field, police are playing down any talk of possible crowd trouble. "Thankfully the disgusting scenes that were commonplace at Magpies games are now a thing of the past. After the referee was forced to stop play to quell crowd trouble on that now infamous Halloween fixture, we arrested the ringleaders and nipped the problem in the bud," PC Chapman of North Herts Constabulary told the Royston Crow last week. "Not to mention most of the trouble-makers will be on the pitch," he adds.

This year's fixture will be refereed by veteran official Paul Hasler, father to the two captains and the man credited with being the godfather of the now famed Garage football academy. "I'll show no bias – I think they are all arseholes," says the man in black. And as any follower of Garage football will tell you, he's always right.