The Inside Man

Surprise star at the World Cup?

Wotcha, rumour fans. I’ve recently been threatened with more super-injunctions, gagging orders and privacy writs than chief whistleblower Keith Hackett. However, such tactics won’t silence me – only bribes work on that front. If anyone asks about this stuff, just say you heard it on the old Rowan Vine.

  • Cop a load of this, which I heard from a cabby whilst on holiday in Alicante with the wife: apparently the player most likely to light up the World Cup this summer won’t come from the traditional powerhouses of Sweden, Uruguay or West Germany, but from the footballing backwaters of Argentina. I don’t speak the lingo but I did discover that the lad in question has a reputation for being untidy and his star sign is Leo. God knows how they heard about him in Spain though!
  • There have been plenty of whispers circulating in media land, but I can now reveal the TRUTH about a certain England captain and his team-mate’s girlfriend. My source tells me that the player in question (who I can only refer to as JT, for reasons of confidentiality) once went bowling with his friend’s partner on a free Saturday afternoon, stopping off for a milkshake at a local diner afterwards. However, the pair have now agreed to “shake hands and forget the matter”, taking the heat out of a potentially divisive issue ahead of England’s World Cup campaign – news Don Fabio, who I’m told is a regular reader, will doubtless be pleased to hear.
  • Championship teams hoping to join Newcastle and West Brom in the Premier League next year may no longer be able to settle for securing third place. Documents uncovered from the bins outside Football League headquarters suggest a controversial plan is being considered for the four clubs finishing below second to ‘play on’ for an unspecified number of extra games to decide who goes up. I’m told if it’s successful, the format could be applied throughout the league system, but take it from me, that’s about as likely as the national stadium being used to stage the fixtures.
  • It seems that BBC presenter Gabby Logan may not actually be as Scotch as she makes out. My mole at the Halifax claims she has a savings account (with a fixed-rate 2.6% AER) in the name of ‘Gabby Yorath’ – which could mean she’s some distant relation of the famously Welsh Terry Yorath. The plot thickens …

THIS WEEK’S ILLEGITIMATE, GENETICALLY MODIFIED, STEM CELL-RESEARCHED GOSSIP: Which well-tanned footballing namesake of Gordon (PM), James (RIP) and James (Hartlepool), who’s had a HULL of a season but has recently been spending time with his gnomes rather than putting out cones, was spotted asking about a new hands-free headset (and possibly a BOLT-ON deal) in a Humberside branch of Phones4U, in KC gets his job back? If you know the answer, please ‘Phil’ me in, eh readers.

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