sport

Big Sam And Reidy Do Thailand: Part One

I can't believe it! Reidy's only been offered a job! We've flown out to Thailand to give the place the once-over and I reckon it could be perfect for us.

To be fair, we'd had a bit of a row on the way over. All I wanted to do at Manchester airport was have to rummge through the bin at Pret A Manger and drink some perfume from the duty free, but Reidy was hell-bent on robbing something out of Tie Rack. He was totally convinced that they wouldn't let him off the plane without some neckwear. I kept telling him it wasn't called Tie land for that reason but there's no reasoning with Reidy once he's got a robbing mood on and he ended up pinching a dozen bri-nylon kipper ties and a rotating bow-tie.

Once we landed we had the usual "You can't bring a monkey into the country" problems at immigration so as usual Reidy took off his dungarees to show he were actually a human.

To be honest, they weren't convinced and there were some doubters who said that he was just making monkey noises. In fact, Reidy was bantering with them in Scouse. "ll give you one hung low la" he shouted at the customs official, which went down bad. These blokes arrived with a net and a stun gun so we thought it was best to leg it, Reidy bowling out of Suvarnabhumi Airport on his trusty rollerskates, naked apart from the rotating bow-tie.

Luckily there was one of those bicycle rickshaw contraptions just sitting there so I jumped on, threw Reidy in the back and pedalled off at high speed. I checked Prozone and discovered that I was pedalling 12% faster than Gary Speed did on a bike at the Reebok in 2004. Proof once again of my class.

Once out of the airport, we torched the thing with petrol from Reidy's hip flask.

An old fella jumped out a nearby cardboard box with a wok and started cooking on the flaming vehicle. They're a resourceful lot out here. Much like Mr Reid and myself, so we sat down to eat with him uninvited like but free food is free food.

After a bowl of funny green worms, locally cut grass, pine needles and some of the old man's shredded hat, stir-fried with ginger, garlic and diesel, we flagged down a cab and headed for the town centre and the nearest bar to sate our thirst.

Reidy, who is good with languages, apart from English, said it was called The Tasty Scab. We cheered loudly and pulled on a passing goat's toggles to celebrate. Just our sort of gaff.

There was plenty of unusual but tasty drink available and also live animals that you could have killed and cooked. We had some meaty-looking bats slaughtered and stuffed with local beetles and caterpillars. Top notch eating it was and all washed down with grasshopper wine and a quart of tut-tut sump oil which came to the table with a boiled sparrow wearing a small crash helmet in it. Lovely. Tasted like chicken.

Reidy went for the venom apple - an apple into which a snake has bitten and left all its poison. He said it tasted sweet and sour and had made his head numb. I hit him with a crowbar that they kept behind the bar for just such an occasion and he was right, he couldn't feel a thing no matter how hard I hit him. A couple of local lads had a go - giving him right old seeing to - but Reidy just grinned through it all, entirely pain-free. He got two dozen to take away saying they could be ideal to use on injured players.

I consulted Prozone and discovered Reidy was 45% more likely to kill a player with snake venom than any other international manager. He's a giant amongst men is Reidy; especially very little men.

Me, I'm going to love it in Thailand. They're all Buddhists out here. I can relate to that as a big fat wise man myself. I'm thinking of insisting on being called Big Siam while out here to reflect my status as a top notch unemployed manager, pundit and general massive expert in loads of stuff.

It's going to be brilliant here. I can feel it in my water and I'm always feeling my water. Good old Reidy, getting us a gig. I take my hat off to him. I found a beetroot and sodium hydroxide mayo bap under there, so we shared that and we're best of pals again.

As told to John Nicholson and Alan Tyers