Danskcolin: Monday November 17th 2025 "Is 'streaking' at football matches making a come-back?"

Yes, Friends, is streaking at football matches making a come-back, do you think? These days there seems to be a streaker story almost every day, if you read your local Onion News for East Hampshire, as diligently as what me and my wife Lois do [sic], here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook!

There's a real doozy of a "splash" on the subject just today - see page 94!

Kudos, Burley !!!! And well-rehearsed 'pitch-perfect' streakers [no pun intended!!!] are certainly bringing the crowds back to our local football grounds every Saturday, that's for sure!

And the story brings a bit of a lopsided grin to parts of Yours Truly's "cake-hole" this morning, and also to parts of my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois too, which is nice!

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Why the lop-sided grin? Well, we're stretching our legs - fully clothed!!! - on our daily walk, which this morning takes us over the "hallowed turf" of the local East Hampshire Premier League's once mighty stalwarts, Liphook United, no less!

The sad truth is that plain "United", as the local fans call them (Sid and Doris Bonkers), yes, "United", you know them, is a team that is struggling already, and, sadly, look set to be relegated at the end of the current season. You might think that there's nowhere much lower to go than the East Hampshire Premier League, but there's always the East Hampshire Division One, rumoured to be "stuffed" with no-hopers from godforsaken villages like Sandy Balls and Betty Mundy's Bottom, would you believe (!).

flashback to earlier today: Lois and I take our daily walk, which this morning

takes us over the "hallowed turf" of former East Hampshire Premier League

stalwarts Liphook United, and past its iconic "club-house"

And the question on mine and Lois's lips today, is, "Could a couple of admittedly ageing but confident, and well-rehearsed streakers" [no names, no pack-drill !!!!!] swell average Saturday afternoon attendances here from its current 2 to say, well, double figures at least? A bigger crowd would encourage "the lads" and maybe help to 'lift' them a bit, especially during the forthcoming "needle match" with local rivals the much-feared Nether Wallop Noggins.

I wonder......!

Efforts to find the squad a new manager seem to have hit a road-block. Even Ron Knee (59), ashen-faced supremo at nearby Neasden FC's iconic ground "The Temple", seems so far to have rejected all "feelers" and "sweeteners" to move here, which speaks volumes - an unmistakeable clue, if one were needed, that Liphook has probably now hit rock bottom.

local rivals Neasden FC's manager, ashen-faced Ron Knee (59),

has reportedly turned down all 'feelers' to come and take over at Liphook

Privately Lois and I never thought that the whole so-called 'Ron Knee plan' was, sadly, ever going to amount to anything more than yet another total fiasco for the club.

Maybe the whole crazy "Get Ron Knee In" initiative was conceived at a local pub, when the now-ten-nicker "pints" were flowing. And when an email comes in today from Steve, our American brother-in-law, with his pick of the week's most amusing Venn diagrams, Lois and I have to smile!

Yes, you see, the Ron Knee Plan was probably always going to be, like Nigel Farage's promises, "patently unfeasible, unaffordable and unsustainable" - see diagram 3 if you want "chapter and verse" !!!!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

And it's a bit of a crazy day all round for Lois and me. We said goodbye early this morning to our weekend guest, our dear friend Jen from Oxford, and now, once more, we're just a couple of "old codgers", hobnobbing and generally "poking around, in each other's pockets 24/7", and rattling round like 2 ageing peas in a large-tin-formerly-filled-with-more-peas (!), in our lovely new home here in Liphook, where we moved in January.

Lois and me - in each other's pockets again, 24/7

Yes, granted, we do have lots of fun, but what madness, eh!!!!

21:00 Unfortunately, all fun must come to an end, but not just yet, however, because we decide to go to bed on Episode 5 of the new sitcom from Northern Ireland, "Leonard and Hungry Paul", about two inadequate no-hopers, struggling to flee the parental nest, and make a success of their lives at their new workplace and beyond.

Lois and I are pleased to see Hungry Paul at last manage to win the annual competition, you know, the one for best-company-new-email-signoff, although the entries are hardly sparkling, to our eyes at least (!).

Here's the third place entry being announced:

And here's what came second this year:

And finally, here's Hungry Paul's winning entry which has somehow managed to get to the top of the pile, from an obviously strong field (!).

Well, excuse us, but Lois and I think we could have come up with an email-sign-off a bit more sparkling than that - call us jaded thrill-seekers if you like haha !!!!

We think it's perhaps fortunate that Hungry Paul has managed to get a job in a totally different field now, which is probably for the best. He's going to be spokesperson for the UK's mime-artist community which sounds promising.

In this sequence Mime Artists Chamber President Wendy Davenport awards Hungry Paul the job after he successfully sits in silence for a record 27 minutes during the rigorous testing process.

Will the job be something of a "poisoned chalice" for Hungry Paul, however? After awarding Paul the job, Chamber President Wendy Davenport takes him aside for a quiet word.

This comes as a bit of a bombshell to Lois and me. We'd been thinking all along that all was well with the "Silent Arts Community". How wrong could we have been!