BROOKING IS THE NEW POPE OF FOOTBALL

After a modest amount of speculation and minutes of anticipation Trevor Brooking was named as the pope of English football.

This new role was bestowed upon the former West Ham player and occasional coach after much deliberation.

Thousands of FA employees gathered in Soho square awaiting with increasing excitement the signal that the decision to appoint Brooking had been made in the (very short amount of) time honored fashion of bellowing smoke from the chimney of FA headquarters followed by dialing 999.

Holy Goodhead

Brooking's (or His Holiness Pope Trevor I as he is now to be referred to) role will be "To provide spiritual leadership and guidance to all English footballers from the youngsters all the way up to the England players, advice to the FA officials on ecumenical matters and to pick the next England manager once Sven goes to Chelsea... can you edit that last bit?", said FA Chief Executive Mark Palios.

The appointment is said be a reaction to the recent public relations blunders. Specifically, Rio Ferdinand's upstaging of Michael Owen's injury problems and Alan Smith's exclusion from the England squad two weeks ago at the behest of the U.S. authorities.

Bobble

Although Palios has sacked FA director of Communications Paul Barber and replaced him with Colin Gibson. Many inside FA HQ feel that appointing a Sports editor of the Daily Mail may not prevent the FA from making arses of themselves so it became necessary to take this extra step.

According to a FAtican spokesman, His Holiness was "In contemplative mood" tonight and therefore could field no inane questions. However, The Onion Bag understands that his silence has more to do with Pope Trev stomach taking a bit of an "unlucky bobble" as a result of some "quite loverly bubbly" last night after celebrating his new appointment.