Holy cow, making up songs for new signing Sandro

PLANET FOOTBALL: Mary Hannigan's sideways look at the world ofsoccer

WE HAD a lucky escape last week because if we'd seen this storyin the London Metro- 'Sandro scores the goals' cow milking song setto catch on at Spurs?' - we'd very probably have brought it to you.

Sandro is a 21-year-old Brazilian midfielder who has been signedby Spurs for next season and, the Metrotold us, is currently beingserenaded by his fans at Internacional with this little tune:"Sandro scores the goals, Sandro scores the goals, Sandro scores thegoals, so we will give him a cow and he will milk it."

"It starts off fairly innocuously but then descends intosomething more akin to a nursery rhyme than a terrace chant," theysaid. "If he achieves popularity at White Hart Lane, we could beseeing the arrival of one of the most original songs in the footballworld. But the cow thing - it's just strange, right?" Indeed it is,although the Metrorevealed that it's a reference to Sandro's"agricultural roots".

Granted, the paper was a bit puzzled by the hailing of Sandro'sgoal-scoring ability, seeing as he's only managed one in his 34senior appearances so far, but they'd made the fatal mistake - andmost of us have been there - of forgetting that Wikipedia entriesare sometimes edited by scallywags.

Over to 'Rusty' on an internet messageboard: "Sandro is aBrazilian footballer who is about to sign for Tottenham. Trouble isno-one knows much about him. So I made up a quick song a few monthsback and posted it on his Wikipedia page. The Metrohave now reportedthis as true, claiming that his current club's fans regularly singit to him, and urging Spurs fans to continue this tradition.Hopefully all 36,000 Spurs fans at WHL will sing my song to him inhis first game. And he won't have a clue what's going on." There butfor the grace of Lionel Messi goes Planet Soccer.

Not quite quote of the week but still quite good...

"They said it was good for my health to become stronger and I ateanything that would improve my health."

Look away Kermit - Manchester United's Park Ji-sung on drinkingfrog juice as a child to help him grow.

"It's vital people don't put too much pressure on him. But havingsaid that, he reminds me of a young Franz Beckenbauer." - FormerEverton manager Howard Kendall trying, but somewhat failing, toreduce expectations of young Jack Rodwell.

"It's a doddle compared to some of the jobs I have had. I've hadmore problems with blackheads." - Gordon Strachan insisting he'sendured worse than managing Middlesbrough.

"When I first started supporting West Ham we had a tradition forplaying the game 'the right way'. I will settle for any way rightnow." - Co-owner David Sullivan craving bubble-blowing points.

Lifting the cup on a trip to the finals in South Africa

IT SEEMED, at first, that Cape Town businesswoman DeniseHoogersvorst was striking a blow for the female of the species whenshe was quoted last week as saying "the World Cup is always seen asa man thing, but there's no reason why women shouldn't be involvedtoo". This, we reckoned, kind of made her the Emmeline Pankhurst ofher day.

When we read on, though, we wondered what the Suffragettes wouldhave made of Denise's definition of being "involved" - women, shesuggested, could come to South Africa for the World Cup as part of a'his 'n' her' package and have, for example, breast augmentationoperations at her Surgical Bliss clinic while the lads focus on thefootie.

Johannesburg clinic Medi-Sculpt is also getting in on the act,launching its own World Cup "Liquid Face Lift and Safari Package" -this includes "Botox treatment plus a visit to an animal sanctuarywhere patients can feed giraffes and play with lion cubs".

Surgical Bliss offer several World Cup packages that - dependingon what you need fixed - include breast augmentations, eye lifts,tummy tucks and in vitro fertilisation (and which of us hasn'twanted IVF treatment on our holidays?), as well as shopping trips.

"Soccer widows could flock to South Africa this summer - tocollect the booby prize," as the News of the Worldput it. "IfEngland get knocked out before the final, fans can at least seetheir girls lift the cup - from an AA to a DD."

That whirring noise you hear is Emmeline spinning in her grave -the thumps are the sound of WAGs fainting with frenziedanticipation.

Portsmouth's Tug handy to have around

MONEY MATTERS: PORTSMOUTH MANAGER Avram Grant hailed the decisionof his players last week to contribute to the wages of four of theclub's training ground staff so that they could keep their jobs."I'm very happy they did what they did," he said, "it means a lot tome personally because football is not just a cold business."

Goalkeeper David James, too, welcomed the gesture. "When theredundancies were first announced I had several phonecalls from team-mates asking what we could do about it, which I thought wasbrilliant," he said.

One of those whose job has been saved is groundsman Tug Wilsonwho earns pound(s)60-a-day for looking after the club's trainingpitches. James, in his Observercolumn, revealed that he wasparticularly pleased about Tug staying on.

"Losing a staff member such as Tug is detrimental to the team.Yes he's also a nice bloke and we have the odd chat aboutenvironmental issues, but I don't want him back for chats, I justwant him there so that when the bogs get blocked he can sort it out.Without Tug around those kind of problems are going to causefriction in the team, as well as a stink."

In fairness to James, he premised his remarks with: "At the riskof sounding like a spoilt footballer . . . "

Number of the week: 32.87

IT'S NOT often that we complain about footballers beingunderpaid, but [euro]32.87 million is all Lionel Messi picked up forhis work in 2009, the figure including salaries, bonuses andsponsorship. The way the little fella is playing this weather hereally should be getting that much per game. He heads the 'richestplayer' list, though, released by France Footballmagazine, DavidBeckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Thierry Henry (behave),Ronaldinho, Carlos Tevez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Frank Lampard andSamuel Eto'o completing the top 10. Jose Mourinho, needless to say,is the world's highest paid manager, followed by the main man inManchester. No, not Alex Ferguson, Roberto Mancini.

Quote of the week

" Messi is the God of football. Stratospheric. Magical. Divine.Generous. Extraordinary. ET was born in Rosario and plays inBarcelona."

- Spanish newspaper Sporta bit lukewarm about Lionel Messi'sperformance against Real Zaragoza.