It's all gone horribly wrong

No not the Lee Cook transfer. My six-a-side football team lost today in our last game of the season and in doing so blew our, admittedly slim, chance of winning the inter-department league. I'm gutted. I've been playing in this damn league for getting on for 18 years now and only managed to win it twice, both times when I sold my sole to the devil and played for our office equivalent of Manchester United. This would have been my first ever victory with my own team. We'd beaten said Man Utd clones a week ago, and had then seen results go our way setting up a final week in which we still had a chance of taking the title. Today we played an unfancied side, but with one player less (key man Brown choosing fishing over football) and needing to win by 3 clear goals. It was always going to be tough but we were 1-0 up at the break and the title looked on.

I had gambled on using the fresher legs of Welsh Boy Jones on pitch with me in goal but that plan fell apart as I made a series of catastrophic errors in the second half. I'd also broken my glasses in the first half which didn't help. Ginger Rich worked hard to cover the defence but as we pushed forward to try and score the necessary goals I was caught in no-man's land too many times and we ran out 4-1 losers. Jones scored our goal to finish as our top scorer - which is more than impressive when you realise he played over 3/4 of our matches in goal. I had hoped a league title might be seen as some kind of good omen for the coming season but it wasn't to be. I blame Brown. Fishing! I ask you.

OK so we haven’t got Lee Cook after all (I knew I’d end up regretting doing that piece yesterday) but there still seems to be a good chance we will get him in the end. He was born in Hammersmith and grew up a Ranger's fan but, despite rumours that he hates Fulham, it sounds like he wants Premiership Football and is happy to come to us. Fingers crossed, I've a good feeling about this one.