Italian flies in to save English football

Dante Alighieri is expected to be named England football manager this weekend after fruitful talks with the FA. Speaking today a spokesman for Dante said that the new manager's first job would be to purge the lustful, the gluttonous, the avaricious, the violent, the dishonest and the slothful from the team. England team captain John Terry was tonight reported to be lying in the freezing mud of the Third Circle of Hell guarded by the monstrous three-headed dog Cerberus.

Silver lining as England crash out

England's defeat to Croatia means fans will be spared the pain of a quarter final defeat on penalties at next year's European Championships. It had been widely anticipated that England would stutter through the group stages of the competition before coming up against the pre-tournament favourites in the quarter finals. England fan Brian Hill is happy with last night's result. "The team would have at last played to their potential, one of our players would have been unluckily sent off, the remaining players would have heroically almost snatched a winner at the end of extra time, before the game went to penalties and an inevitable exit for England. Everyone would have been saying we'd have won the whole competition if only we had got through that penalty shootout. Thank god we don't have to go through that routine again."

New identity fraud fears

It was revealed today that the identities of 11 English footballers have been lost due to poor organisation and incompetence. There are fears that their personal details may already have fallen into the hands of a bunch of overpaid prancing ninnies. England tonight lost to Croatia 25 million nil.

Onions for England

Uncapped Durham bowler Graham Onions has been named in the England cricket squad for this summer's internationals. Headline writers are thought to be delighted by the selection. The Onions family wishes him success.

Fans' fury as England neither good nor bad

England football fans have reacted with fury to the news that their team is neither the best nor the worst in the world. Thousands of fans who travelled to last night's match complained that the team's only average performance in last night's 3-0 win over lowly-ranked Andorra prevented them from neurotically veering between wild optimism and deep pessimism in the way they are used to. Burnley fan Frank Tait, who took two days off work to travel to the game, said: "I've followed England all over the world for twenty years and this team is not the best one we've had and it's not the worst. I'm absolutely gutted. They're a disgrace to the England shirt."