"Pain will be deeper than first feared"
Bill Hack Chief football correspondent
The Football Association have confirmed their programme to immunise the country from World Cup heartbreak went ‘tragically wrong’ after Fulham’s Europa Cup final defeat only increased the appetite for rueful despair.
The FA have revealed that Fulham’s extra-time Europa Cup defeat was a ploy to remind England fans of what is to come in the World Cup this summer and arm them against the inevitable tragic semi-final elimination.
But they now fear the project may have increased fans’ addiction to cliched hard-luck stories of fallen heroes and gallant losers.
“We gave football fans a strong dose of reality, a shot of the pain and anguish that will come from the World Cup campaign,” said an FA spokesperson.
“But we may have got the dose wrong. We think they are hooked.
“We didn’t even involve penalties in it, and still the fans were showering in self-pity, reveling in nauseating comparisons to warriors and hovering up hyperbole.
“We’d hoped to temper the tide of World Cup fever. But this shows that it has taken hold and the heartbreak we will all feel later in the summer will be deeper and more painful than we’d anticipated.”
The FA have reported their disturbing findings to the new coalition government, and Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Britain must now braces itself for the inevitable consequences.
Supermarkets are now stock-piling melancholic indie music (including the acoustic version of Three Lions), while pubs are buying in more empty pint glasses to stare into and business are preparing for the ‘inevitable hangover’.
SPORTING BALLS 