The Fiver

"The Fiver" is a notable and humorous daily football email published by the "Guardian Unlimited" website. It is delivered to subscribers’ inboxes at (approximately) 5 p.m. Monday – Friday (hence the name "Fiver") but does not appear in the print edition of the Guardian newspaper. Even though it is published by a UK based newspaper, "The Fiver" enjoys a world-wide following. Fiver writers include Paul Doyle and Barry Glendenning and are drawn from the Guardian Unlimited sportswriting staff.

Content

In its current format The Fiver consists of:

;Main Stories : Two commentaries on selected events (although this used to be three), usually highlighting the negative side of the modern game, unsportsmalinke behaviour or the failure or embarrassment of a team or player. These events are usually presented in a humorous, ironic, cynical and wearily disdainful manner. Occasionally subjects of sufficient importance are dealt with in a completely serious manner, for example the death of a great player or major incidents of crowd racism.

;Quote of the Day : Features a contemporary quote made by a famous (or infamous) footballing figure, again selected for its comedy value.

;News in Brief : Summary of the day’s stories about player injuries, disciplinary hearings, completed transfers, international matches.

;Rumour Mill : Managerial and transfer related gossip and speculation culled from other newspapers and websites.

;Readers’ Letters : Comments, general observations, criticisms and pedantry, with a prize awarded to the letter judged best of the day (apparently discontinued since early 2007, possibly due to a lack of appropriate prizes).

;TV & Radio : Summary of the evening’s football related programming, accompanied by anecdotal submissions from readers on various and frequently changing themes. This section has yet to return after the 2006 Christmas break.

;Still Want M-O-R? : A new but short-lived musical interlude section in January 2008 which features one or two old music video clips on YouTube. It was started because of "surprising (and rather disturbing) popularity" of the Last Line from January 10, 2008. The new section was originally named "Musical Interlude" the next day and became "MOR! MOR! MOR! How Do You Like It? How Do You Like It?" on January 12, 2008. Then, it was renamed to "Very MOR-ish" from January 13 to January 17, 2008 and "Please Sir, Can I Have Some M-O-R" from January 18 to January 22, 2008. Starting January 23, 2008, the section was known as "Still Want M-O-R?" The section was then ended on January 31.

;Last Line : A brief "sign-off" line, typically an esoteric cultural reference, topical comment, song lyric or writers' in-joke.

Humour

Much of the humour in The Fiver derives from the tongue-in-cheek use of national and regional stereotypes. For example, frequent references are made to The Fiver’s English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish 'cousins': "Sexually Repressed Morris dancing Fiver", "Shortbread McFiver", "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Fiver" and "Theme pub O’Fiver" respectively. 'Family' members are often invented as and when required to portray the press of a given country. In addition the most successful teams of the time are usually on the receiving end of many jokes. The Fiver employs the kinds of jokes and insults used by football fans themselves, combining this with sharp observation, which no-doubt contributes towards its popularity amongst its readers, although that could also be why it is often accused of bias by the fans of the team which happens to be on the receiving end. The Fiver is full of irony - even the name of the publication is somewhat humorous as it often arrives well after five o'clock.

Recurring sources of humour include:

Humorous nicknames for English teams

*Manchester United are known as the MU Rowdies (after the NASL's Tampa Bay Rowdies) and play at the Trafford Devilbowl, since their acquisition by the American Glazer family.

*Birmingham City are referred to as Bongo FC in reference to their chairman's involvement in the pornography industry (bongo is slang for porn).

*Blackburn Rovers are known as Blackeye Rovers in reference to the team's somewhat aggressive tactics.

*Leeds United are referred to as Dirty Leeds, because of their historically uncompromising football style (more recently Nasty Leeds, following the manager Dennis Wise's statement that he wanted the team to be "nasty" in order to avoid relegation).

*Wigan Athletic are known as Plucky Little Wigan or PLW, in reference to the media's patronising attitude to this overachieving club. This echoes the similarly patronising epithet "plucky little Belgium," used by British newspapers in 1914 to describe their resistance to the German invasion.

*Liverpool are known as Gissagong FC ("Give us a gong", in a Scouse accent), as a result of their chief executive's disappointment upon discovering his Champions League-winning players had been overlooked in the 2006 New Year's honours list.

*Sunderland are known as SundIreland since the club's takeover by former Republic of Ireland international Niall Quinn and his appointment of fellow Irishman Roy Keane as manager.

*Manchester City are known as Human Rights FC since being taken over by former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, usually known as Trashcan Sinatra in The Fiver. With the 2008 takeover by the Abu Dhabi Investment Group they are now referred to as Human Rights FC 2.0.

*Newcastle United were known for a while as Newcastle United Comedy Club, NUCC, or Jongleurs FC after a chain of British comedy clubs, following a series of bizarre incidents like manager Graeme Souness' public falling out with striker Craig Bellamy, and an on-field punch-up between teammates Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer. More recently the club has been referred to as the Barcodes due to their black and white striped shirts.

*West Ham have become known as Bad Boys Inc since adding the controversial Bellamy and Dyer to a squad that already includes notorious troublemakers such as Bowyer and Anton Ferdinand.

*Aston Villa have been referred to as Buffalo Vills since the club's acquisition by Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner.

*Derby County are nicknamed Ramsbottom County mainly because of their poor performance, especially in the 2007–08 Premier League season. The team's official nickname is the Rams.

*Scunthorpe United are known as Firewall FC because of the difficulty in getting emails containing the name of the club through some forms of spam-blocking software (see Scunthorpe Problem)

*In Scotland, the Glasgow teams Celtic (with a traditionally Catholic fan-base) and Rangers (with traditionally Protestant fan-base) are referred to as "The Queen’s Celtic" and "The Pope’s O'Rangers", when in fact the opposite would be appropriate.

*Some tournaments are also referred to by nicknames, with the Champions League being referred to as Big Cup, and its lesser relation the UEFA Cup being known as Euro Vase. The Scottish Premier League is usually referred to as the EuroDisney League, the implication being that it is a Mickey Mouse league. The FIFA World Cup has been referred to as Biggest Cup, and more frequently the FIFA World Cup, but with a string of sponsor's names between the words FIFA and World Cup.

Manager nicknames

Many football managers are also given nicknames, and once the nickname has stuck, their real names are rarely used.

*Former Birmingham, now Wigan boss Steve Bruce becomes Bernard Cribbins, who he supposedly resembles. Former Spurs head coach Martin Jol is Tony Soprano for the same reason. Likewise, Aston Villa's Martin O'Neill is known as Woody Allen, former Derby manager Billy Davies has been referred to as Begbie, and Blackburn manager Mark Hughes has recently become known as "Ailsa from "Home and Away", for his supposed resemblance to the Australian soap character.

*Kevin Keegan became Kelvin Koogan, after a poll of readers' nicknames.

*Arsenal's Arsène Wenger is called Arsene's Arsenal Wenger.

*Sir Alex Ferguson has been called, among other nicknames, the Imperial Lord Ferg.

*Sir Bobby Robson is known, by dint of his old age and frequent mistakes with players' names, as Rir Sobby Bobson.

*Ex-England manager Steve McClaren is referred to as Second-Choice Steve owing to the FA's pursuit of other candidates prior to appointing McClaren to the England post. The moniker Second-"Chance" Steve was coined after England's then minimal Euro 2008 qualifying chances were revived by a surprise Israeli victory against Russia. He is currently being called Shecond-Choish Shteve, mocking McClaren's affectation of a Dutch-sounding English accent in an infamous interview on Dutch television.

Nicknames for footballers

*Emile Heskey is called the Amazing Mr Em (or just Mr Em), after a period where he was regularly picked for club and country despite fan criticism of his form: just as, in the TV show, Mister Ed was a horse who only his owner could hear speak, Heskey was said to be a "carthorse" who only his managers could see play good football.

*Steven Gerrard, popularly known as "Stevie G", was referred to as "$tevie Me" after lucrative contract negotiations, which was modified to "$tevie Mbe" when he was awarded the MBE.

*Alan Smith is referred to as the Emmerdale Eminem, for his Yorkshire origins and his supposed resemblance to the rapper.

*The diminutive Shaun Wright-Phillips is known as Subbuteo's Shaun Wright-Phillips.

*Michael Owen is known as Lil' Mickey Owen.

*John Terry is known as England's Brave John Terry (or EBJT.)

*Hulking German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn is known as "Mary Shelley's Oliver Kahn".

*Arsenal's Theo Walcott was known as "Foetus Walcott" after his surprise inclusion in the doomed England squad for the 2006 World Cup at the tender age of -0.5.

*Djibril Cisse is known as Djinkin' Djibril Cisse.

The (mis)fortunes of the Home Nations' international teams

For example, Northern Ireland's national team were referred to as "Northern Ireland Nil" due to their proclivity for losing/failure to score, however, after their shock 1-0 victory over England in September 2005, became known as "Northern Ireland One-Nil". After a poor England performance, former manager Sven-Göran Eriksson's £4 million salary was usually mentioned.

Fiver lawyers

Segments of text are supposedly excised by "Fiver lawyers", the implication being to avoid libel suits, though the gist of the missing information is usually obvious, or already known, to the reader.

Fat cats

Any news involving FIFA or its president Sepp Blatter implies that, whatever has been announced, the matter was being discussed simply as an excuse for a gluttonous lunch, with details of the menu usually added for illustrative purposes. This also applied to UEFA and its former president Lennart Johansson until Johansson was succeeded by the more respected former player Michel Platini.

Muesli munchers

Referring to Guardian (and hence its own) readers by the 'sandal-wearing muesli-eaters' stereotype.

Attitude towards football clubs

While no football club is beneath The Fiver's contempt, it does tend to go easier on struggling, poverty-stricken lower league clubs, showing the writers do have a conscience. However, fans of Liverpool football club get a particularly hard time due to their reputation for incessant whining about perceived injustices brought upon them by a conspiratorial London-based media, which in itself is evidence of the injustices brought upon Liverpool by a conspiratorial etc and so on.

elf-deprecating humour

As of 2007, this has taken on a darker strain, with more frequent references to the Fiver waking up with a hangover, in a gutter or in a puddle of the Fiver's own urine. This is largely a continuation of an occasional "This Is How We Work" item, replacing a news story with a tale of the Fiver writer struggling, and failing, to write a meaningful article as the clock ticks towards 5pm, usually culminating in the humiliation of the writer (and "hot tears of shame") at the hands of the Fiver editor. The main Guardian paper, and articles therein, are enviously referred to as "Big Paper".

The Fiver has a cousin The Spin, which is all of the above, although with a more measured and less overtly humorous outlook, on the subject of cricket, written by Lawrence Booth.

Timing of The Fiver

Although the Fiver is meant to arrive at email inboxes at 1700 (UK time) it only appears to do so when the writers have managed to acquire tickets to an exclusive pop concert or have another pressing event. The poor timing of arrival (usually around 1750 - 1815) is always blamed on the Guardian's IT support technicians, all of whom supposedly wear Red Dwarf T-shirts and eat nothing but cheesy Wotsits. However, checking the time "sent", as opposed to the time "received", does tend to suggest that the Fiver's timeliness is not as bad as it is often made out to be.

The Fiver's Wikipedia adventures

On July 6 2006 the Fiver claimed that it had made up a series of details in Arjen Robben's Wikipedia profile - [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arjen_Robben&oldid=62349101 including that he collected] miniature submarines and owned a pet parrot called Greg Louganis as references to the player's alleged tendency to dive - to pad out an article.

This led to a host of readers making up their own additions to the player's profile (as well as that of Chelsea chief executive Slippery Peter Kenyon who was also mentioned in that day's Fiver) including that he "has a large collection of cheeses and surprisingly does not count Edam as his favourite", "Ongoing speculation that Robben has a false upper lip has never been fully substantiated", and "He has also raised eyebrows by having no furniture at all in his London home, due to his unwavering preference for staying on his feet at all times."

Kenyon's profile alleged that he "loves to recline on a comfortable armchair or chaise longue" - however this led to him rejecting dinner invitations to Robben's house "due to that player's minimalist furniture stance".

These changes have since been removed - although the original Fiver comments lasted longer than any others.

External links

* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The Guardian]
* [http://football.guardian.co.uk/fiver/ The Fiver]