Footballers can be nice guys
Anyone who looks regularly at my feeble contributions to this website will know I'm a teacher, and a fairly Frank Spencer-like one at that.

Thankfully, not all of my breed are as clumsy and inept as me, and friend of mine, David Finn, has made it big at one of the new 'academies' up North. For those who don't know what 'academy' means, it translates roughly as 'school that is dying on its arse and has been taken in hand by a Government which doesn't have a feckin' clue what to do with it but will pay its staff to work 70-hour weeks in a vain attempt to correct the thing'. Good luck to him, say I.

No, in fact I very sincerely say good luck to him, because last week he made one of the best and most incredible gestures I have ever seen...

Davy, for his sins, is a big Manchester United fan. He's no glory-hunter; he was born and brought up in Trafford and has supported his local team through good and bad for nearly thirty years. No less than I have done with Scunthorpe United; only he seems to have enjoyed an unconscionable degree of success.

Anyway, bitterness aside, Davy's much more than a part-time supporter: he's a sterling season ticket holder in the West Stand and has managed to snatch up shares in the Glazer regime. Rumour has it that a coveted place on the Supporters' Board will be his for the taking soon.

I'd kept in touch with him since our teacher-training days, and a bunch of us met up in a pub in Birmingham recently. Davy had big news.

"Fellas! You'll never guess who turned up to my lesson last week?"

"Steven Hawking?"

"Bertrand Russell?"

"Pythagoras?"

Davy's a Maths teacher, in case you hadn't gathered.

"Even better, lads. Patrice-fucking-Evra, that's who!"

I can fairly say we were genuinely knocked back. OK, it's not exactly Rooney or Ronaldo, but to get a first-team United player to visit a crappy Manchester comp must have required strings pulling in very high places. Then the story unfolded. Apparently Evra had pledged to do a certain degree of publicity work as part of his Work Permit, which had not quite materialised, so to fulfil a legal technicality, the board had passed him over to the Football In The Community School, based at Davy Finn's school. Davy, being fairly known to the club, had kept him for two hours before the Football School and encouraged the gullible chap to help him teach the class about angles and simple trigonometry, using a football pitch as an example.

And then, Davy's thunderstrike.

"Apparently, he's got another few days still to complete. The guy's quality - loves being in a classroom and helping the kids out. I could probably sting him for a day at your school if you get your names down quickly enough."

My mind was racing. Yes, I teach in a rugby city, but the kids all know Man Utd scores, don't they? I began compiling science-teaching possibilities: naming major muscle groups, friction tests on his boots, genetic analysis of a Premiership footballer...the lists were endless.

"Put me down" I yelled. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough. Every other off-duty teacher around the table had seen an equal opportunity to relieve their day of monotonous boredom.

"We're a failing school!"

"He'll like helping my A-grade class!"

"What about the under-privileged at my school?"

"I'll give you a tenner!"

...

...

"A tenner, eh?" Davy's eyes lit up. "Anyone else got any cash offers?"

"Go on, then, I'll give you twenty"

"Twenty and a pint"

"Sod it! I'd give you fifty if it got the kids onside"

Dave always was a bit of a mercenary bastard, but the fact that he was seriously considering these offers was stretching a point. Was he the bloke's fucking agent or what? Luckily I had the trump card up my sleeve.

Every teacher knows that every school contains one freakishly, abnormally nice class. Fate be it, although I spend most of my days being a miserable bastard, it was my pleasure and joy to be the form tutor to just that group. 'E Form', as they were known in the school's unpoetic language, were the most honest-to-goodness, delightful, polite, hard-working and personable children it had ever been my pleasure to know. At the time of having this conversation, they were in Year 11, and I thought a speech from a famous sports star could be the perfect farewell present to the kids I had had a pleasure in helping to see towards adulthood.

"Dave", I began: "I can't afford to pay you, you know that" (he did, too; he'd been best man at my wedding not three months before. And those buggers are expensive!). "But, I can offer you, and Patrice Evra, the opportunity to speak in front of a group of the nicest and most genuine pupils I've ever known. I'm asking solely for your conscience to decide this, because I think it would be a superb and rewarding choice."

Dave hesitated. Out of all the group, I was his oldest friend and the only one not proffering money.

"I don't know, ousgg. Look, these guys are offering me fifty, seventy, even a hundred quid. If I added them all together, then I could make..." He paused, and whipped out his mobile phone, switched it to calculator, and began tapping away.

I grabbed his arm in frustration, annoyance, and the will to speak some good of my pupils. I was agitated and almost angry.

Then I says: "Finn! Sum once Evra's done Form E!"
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 0:13, 12 replies)

Bastard
I'll stop falling for these one day...
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 0:33, closed)

how the fuck
do you guys come up with these? Do you start with the punchline first and work backwards? *mind boggles*
(keyboardman, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 1:44, closed)

I have to admit
The pun was created first and it did require 5 minutes of sitting on the bog beforehand scribbling on the back of an envelope.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 9:52, closed)

Bastard.
Utter bastard.

I believed that all the way through.

... I even had to read the punchline 3 times before I worked it out.

Bastard.
(Cluckles, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 5:21, closed)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGH

(Tyraen, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 6:01, closed)

You get a click
for the sheer amount of effort invested in that post.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 8:46, closed)

I suspected something was wrong when there was talk of work permits, as Evra being an EU national shouldn't be needing one. But alas I put my doubts aside such was the sincerity of the post.

Yet again it took me to the last line to work it out :(
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 10:23, closed)

Normally I can see these coming
but you had me hook, line and sinker.
I never even twigged when I read the last line, until I had to re-read it.
*clickness*
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 10:29, closed)

Almost!
Combination of the non-eu nationality and I twigged the evra/ever link quite early, but have a click for effort!
(gin'll fix it, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 10:38, closed)

You utter utter fucker
First one of these I've ever fallen for, I applaud you :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 11:33, closed)

You qunt
Hook, line and sinker.
(oecumenix ..is not as good as he thinks he is, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 12:11, closed)

...
I sniffed a pun in the offing quite early on, but I liked that the maths teacher had to use his calculator to add up the cash offerings... simple things, hey!
( Moey, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 13:24, closed)