sport

Big Sam And Reidy Do Thailand: Two

Greetings from the Thailand Football Manager (Reidy) and his Performance Coordinator (yours truly, Big Siam). We're settling in nice, they've put us up in a hotel called the Bangkok Hilton.

To be fair, it's got a bit of a reputation but it seems fine to me. Besides, the Thais have given Reidy an accommodation allowance so the money we've saved on a fancy 4-star job can go straight down the old neck. Probably on 4-star.

It was a bit crowded in our room and a bellhop kept hitting Reidy with a stick so we decided to kip down in the ventilation system. We tried a couple of nights in some very spacious bins at the back of the kitchen but the smell was overpowering. Reidy blamed it on the 1,000-year-old eggs he's been eating since we got here.

So to get a bit of fresh air we climbed into the air vents and it turns out to be brilliant because you can go anywhere in the hotel and no-one knows. Reidy says we're living the Rat Boy dream.

Opta stats confirmed that I'm the only top-flight manager to live in a ventilation system even though it was always Cloughie's dream. It's exactly this kind of thing that separates me from the ordinary managers; and the other guests too of course.

Reidy met the players for the first time today. He can't pronounce any of their names like so he's given them all proper names like Fred, Mike and Degsy. They weren't best pleased but Reidy told them straight it was either that or all be called Fu Manchu. The lads wanted to know how he'd want them to play and that made him go a funny colour 'cos he didn't expect to have to think up clever stuff like that. Just as well I'm here to handle that side of things. I know where footballers go. On the pitch. See?

The nightlife here is cracking and after getting off on the wrong foot I suggested we take the players out for a team-bonding exercise in Bangkok. It certainly was a quick way of sorting out the men from the boys, which is key in top-level management. Vital. Some lesser managers just see a male human, and go, "Oh, right, not a female. Definitely a man or a boy." The top coaches - and the stats bear me out on this - can say 'Man...Boy...Boy...Man...Man... as quick as the man (or boy) on the street can open up a bottle of Dettol and drink it.

"Boy...Man...Man...Man...Boy...You see? It's this kind of top analysis that makes me great.

Of course, ladyboys are a whole other ballgame. Nobody can spot them.

In fact, I got caught out in that regard only this weekend. Lovely little thing, name of Mai Lin, came up to us in a late night bar. We'd been shotgunning bottles of Drano with vodka and lamb chasers so I was feeling a little bit hazy but that's no excuse for what I done.

Anyway, Mai Lin's come over, I've mistook him/her for a red chilli curry with potatoes. Easy to do when you've got a bit of a buzz going from a quality drain cleaner. Before I know what's happening, I've eaten the whole lot. Poor Mai Lin. She was a bit crunchy. Tasted like chicken. Delicious really, but I felt a strange sense of self-loathing after.

Reidy says he reckons I might have had a dodgy pint of Drano and that's what done it and he said many's the time he's eaten another human while on the lash and it never done him no harm and it's the sort of thing that happens all the time. Good old Reidy.

Things got even better when I checked Prozone and found that I am a massive 2.1% more cannibalistic than Sir Alex and he's top of the tree. Proof if proof were needed that I am at the pinnacle of my profession, albeit with bits of ladyboy in my teeth.

As told to John Nicholson and Alan Tyers