retired_hamawandi

May 2011

Horace Hodgkinsons Office

Michael was in Horace's office, showing his displeasure at Spurs' performances this season. Having lost 3 and drawn 2 of their final games, Spurs finished a woeful 10th. As well as that, the Euro campaign had ended months too early and domestic cup runs had been disastrous, especially the FA Cup, in which Spurs had been knocked out in the 5th round by 3rd Division Rochdale.

Horace told him that QPR of Division One were interested, and that Bordeaux of France had also expressed an interest. Michael recommended to Hodgkinson that he would only move to QPR if all the clubs in the world suddenly exploded and QPR were the only team left. As for Bordeaux, he could see himself in a beret, and cultivating Onions.

It didn't really bug him that he had been injured and hadn't played any part in helping Spurs this season. He felt slightly detatched from all that.

retired_hamawandi

July 2011

Chez Dawson

Gazing over Boris Broomstick's column in the paper, Dawson read that a bid for him from Birmingham City had been turned down as it was £5m below what Spurs wanted. He wasn't too bothered though, as Birmingham was a really crap place.

retired_hamawandi

July 12 2011

Darren Anderton Memorial Physiotherapy Centre, White Hart Lane

Having played in a few warm up games and team exercises, Michael felt good. It was only a matter of days before he was given the all clear. His estimated injusry recovery time of 10 months had been exceeded by another month owing to the extra physiotherapy he had been given. He was feeling good, and Spurs had some friendlies lined up, including a choice tie against Real Madrid.

retired_hamawandi

July 13th 2011

Chez Dawson

Hurrah! screamed Michael as he ran into his house, as he had been given the all clear to restart full training. He was feeling over the moon.

But lo.....

A letter lay perched on his doormat, in the manner of a swan crouching down to eat a worm.

Intrigued, Michael peeled open the envelope and peered inside. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper with writing on it. It looked uncannily like a note of some sort.

Walking into the kitchen, he sat down, his heart a flutter. Could it be? Could this letter be from Minty? He looked once more at the front of the envelope and read the logo in the top left hand corner. It read:

The Unco-operative Bank.

His heart sank, but there was always a possibility she had changed her name.

He read the daintily printed note:

Dear Mr. Dawson, We would like to offer you a platinum credit card. It has an APR of 99%. You're probably not interested though. I don't know why we send these letters out to people. I can't think of anybody who's ever replied to one. Just throw it in the bin or something. We don't care. Yours Sincerely, Miss Crendula Criggins.

Well, that was a bit of a let down. The credit card sounded a good deal though. He popped an application for it in the post.

retired_hamawandi

July 14th 2011

Michael's Car, on the way to Chigwell Training Ground

Sitting in his luxury chauffeur driven car, Michael responded to a question posed by McHugh O'McScottish as to the relevance of the fact that the human being shares most of it's DNA with fruit such as bananas.

Don't be silly, old bean. Now drive the car properly and do what you're paid to do.

McHugh complied, but asked in his extrordinary dour high pitched Chinese accent exactly what Michael was planning to do once he got to training, as his mooted move to Bordeaux had made some of the other players a bit upset.

Michael shrugged.

Once they got there, Michael got out of his car, patted McHugh on the head and rubbed his delightful little chin as skipped off to the changing room. Everyone ignored him, apart from Hao Hao who just disliked him for some other reason. The manager came in, and announced that Michael was in the squad in his first start in a year, against Oldham Athletic in a few days.

He couldn't wait.

Also he'd found out his credit card application had been successful, and in a few days he would be in possession of an amazing piece of plastic that he didn't really need. He felt very happy indeed. After training he decided he would pop round to Gulbuddin's tea shop and have a small piece of toast, with jam to celebrate. Hooray for Michael. Nothing could go wrong now, could it?

*Loud Crash. Evil Cackling, and the sound of nasty minions shrilly laughing. Followed by more loud crashing and a big loud soggy 'pop'*

retired_hamawandi

July 15th 2011

Chez Dawson

Michael picked up the latest issue of PlastikPop magazine, and was intrigued to find a review of the new Minty Tallulah album. It brought back a lot of painful memories for Michael, who went and sat in the living room, huddled up in a corner, and read the review.

retired_hamawandi

PlastikPop Magazine Reviews

Number 6: 'Yeast Extract' by Minty Tallulah

An exciting new album by the chirpy songstress is our top tip for this week. Based around the theme of bread, the songs all detail Minty's fondness for the multi-purpose food item. Such glittery pop anthems as 'There's No Bread Better Than You' highlights Minty's development in her singing voice. She is sounding a lot more grown up too, using rhyming couplets to an ingenius level. She sings in the second verse, "If i didn't have bread, i might be dead". Stunning. Also included is an anthem for her unrequited love, Michael Dawson, the football bloke. This sweet ballad is entitled, "Michael Row the Loaf Ashore". The heartfelt lyrics clearly point to her feelings for the perma-crocked footballer. Other highlights such as, "Put It In The Oven For A Bit" and, "To Slice or Not To Slice" stand out very well, but the album is let down by a weak ending, notably in the form of the title track, "Yeast Extract", in which Minty sings all about how Yeast makes bread rise when it goes in the oven. The song is based around a repetitive hook line of, Yeast goes in, Bread goes up... etc" which gets really boring after a while. The overall rating for this has to be a sterling 8/10

Reviewer: D.Dribble

retired_hamawandi

Overcome with rediscovered feelings of love, Michael's heart burst into song. She had written a song about him. She loved him still. His soul jumped for joy as he raced around the house looking for his phone.

He dialed her number.

And...

It was her answerphone.

Hi, sorry I'm not here at the moment. In fact, I won't be for a while, as I died last night in a tragic incident involving a fruit blender and a hose. Leave a message after the beep.

Oh God, the one thing Michael loved in all the world had died. He checked the number again.

Phew! he'd dialed the wrong number. Feeling happy again, he dialed the correct number. While doing so, he realised the number he'd dialed earlier was that of his Uncle Phil. Oh well. Couldn't be helped.

retired_hamawandi

July 15th 2011

Cloud 9

Feeling happy at the fact that Minty had apologised for weirding on him a while back, and that she was going to meet him at Gulbuddin's tea shop in a weeks time, Michael found himself on Cloud Nine.

His luck was up again. Back to fitness, and playing again in a few days, the love of his life reconciled and a spanking new credit card to play with. Nothing could ruin his run of good form surely. He was....

Invincible!*


*Not really, as we'll soon find out.

retired_hamawandi

July 17th 2011

Tottenham v Oldham Athletic

Spurs entertained First Division Oldham in a match which heralded Michael Dawson's return from injury. Something that had kept him out for a year. Oldham did all the early running, with Division One's best player, Alexander Farnerud, who had stuck with Oldham through promotion to the Premier League six years back, and even painful relegation a year later. After 35 minutes, Oldham took the lead with a fantastic curler from the edge of the box, which entered the net at the speed of an exocet. The scorer? Farnerud. This spurred Spurs (great alitteration eh?) on to create a goal of their own a few minutes later, when Jamie Crosby scrambled in a loose ball. On 60 minutes, Crosby slammed home a second from a Michael Dawson through ball, and on 80 minutes, the man himself, Michael Dawson got desperately close, his header ricocheting off the bar from close range. The final score was 2-1, and Michael had played a confident 90 minutes.