sport

Big Sam And Reidy Do Thailand - Three

The week began fine, with me and Reidy getting fit and ready for the season. The Thai doctor gave us the once-over but I think the medicine practised here is a bit dodgy. He put a yam up my backside and declared I was in excess of phlegm.

Reidy was rubbed with a holly bush and told to eat basil leaves and a toad. They pronounced him to be in rude health. Me? They've told me I am morbidly obese. Rubbish. I'm just big boned. And big bodied. So anyway, I've gone on a Brasso and broccoli-only diet. Detox, like. It worked like a powerful laxative. So far I've broke eight toilets - cracked them like they were eggs. Powerful stuff broccoli. Opta stats confirmed that waste matter was exiting my body faster than any other Premier League manager or players since the Spurs lads had that dodgy pasta. See? Top class at everything I do. And poo.

While I was looking for something to read in the toilet, I found a copy of Exotic Teenage Dancer Monthly. Says in there that lasses can get fit with pole-dancing lessons AND keep their man interested in playing with one big man up front, so to speak. I've been having a bit of a practice at wriggling around on account of the tapeworm I picked up while feasting on crispy-fried dung beetles last week. Delicious. Tasted like chicken.

Anyway, I'm proud to announce that I've just done my first performance, at the well-respected Jade Banjo bar and gentleman's club. Everyone said they'd not seen anything like it, ever. I checked Prozone and discovered that I was burning 42% more calories than Kevin Davies did when trying to escape a pack of savage Bulldogs what we set on him to get his fitness levels up, like. Proof if it were needed of my fantastic athleticism. And my ability to make money wearing only a G-String.

Of course, Reidy is as fit as a Butcher's Dog, a fact he proved yesterday by running into a butchers' shop, grabbing three horse legs and a bag of pressed ducks' feet and running off with them between his teeth.

As for the players...well. They're not a bad bunch of lads but they don't know football culture. Some of them have hardly held a golf club. We've tried to get them to have a few fights with tramps and poor people - y'know all the traditional stuff, but all they want to do is sit in and eat noodles.

Still, everything was going alright. Then disaster struck.

We'd just finished training on Monday, and I was putting some of the cones away while Reidy cleared up the vomit. We'd been trying to teach the lads how to do a give-and-go - you shuttle run to the touchline, drink a shot of Windowlene give your partner a matey pat on the backside, tell a blue joke about his missus' vagina and run to the other touchline. In his pomp, Reidy could do 40, 50 in a session, easy.

Well, it seems that it is not just British players who are not the men they used to be. These lads were all over the shop, mewling and puking like a newborn baby being given its first Scotch and Domestos cocktail. I thought: "Samuel, this would be a bad time for the President and assorted dignitaries of the Thai FA to turn up for a surprise fact-finding mission", which was almost exactly what happened, because the President and assorted dignitaries of the Thai FA turned up for a surprise fact-finding mission, only with heavily-armed members of the Thai special forces.

It seems that displeasure with Reidy's tactics, personal hygiene and relentless shoplifting of meat went right to the very top. My trail of shattered toilets probably didn't help matters either. To make a long story short, we were given the old heave-ho. There's one certainty in football, and that's all managers get the sack eventually, but I have to say I thought Reidy was harshly done-by. For one, he could definitely have turned things round, and for two, them soldiers should never have set fire to his feet.

But they are a funny lot the Thais. They've bundled me and Reidy out of there, but they don't want to lose face by admitting things didn't work out. Accordingly, they installed these uncanny lookalikes in our place - a small blue-faced monkey for Reidy, and Thailand's top Sumo Wrestler for me. They've told us we can keep cashing the cheques as long as we hot-foot it out of Thailand sharpish.

Everyone, and I believe the statistics will bear me out on this, is a winner.

As told to John Nicholson and Alan Tyers.

Missed their previous escapades? This way for parts one and two.