RICHARD ORD: Transfer window silencer is welcome addition to the new season

For older readers worried about reports that the football transfer window is to slam shut at 11pm on August 31, I have some good news.
Hair we go! The story behind Sadio Mane's savage hairstyle is finally revealed.Hair we go! The story behind Sadio Mane's savage hairstyle is finally revealed.
Hair we go! The story behind Sadio Mane's savage hairstyle is finally revealed.

After protracted negotiations with the powers-that-be at the FA, I have obtained assurances that this year’s transfer window will be closed gently by an old lady wearing mittens.

Premier League chairman Gary Hoffman has even taken time out of his busy schedule to oil the sash pulleys of the transfer window to ensure, as he put it, “a smooth and barely audible closure.”

No need to thank me.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As a responsible media organisation we have the interests of our older readers at heart.

The last thing we need is the ear-splitting crash of hastily secured transfer windows scaring the bejesus out of OAPs late at night.

Given the unseemly haste the football authorities have shown in recent years when ‘slamming’ the transfer portal shut, it’s more by luck than design that footballers haven’t been injured scrabbling through the window at the last minute.

Without our intervention, I feel it was only a matter of time before the shin of a high-profile transfer was caught by the window falling like a guillotine on the stroke of 11pm.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sadio Mane of Liverpool had a lucky escape when, while being coaxed through the transfer window by Jurgen Klopp in 2017, it closed with such speed that the striker’s long locks were caught in the sash windings trapping a distraught Mane. The team physio was forced to cut the player free with nail clippers. The slamming transfer window ordeal not only explains Sadio’s reluctance to leave Liverpool, but also his hairstyle.

Thankfully, sanity has been restored this season.

On the home front, this ageing columnist has begun the equally onerous task of sorting out his pension.

The pension advisor, I’m pleased to say, listened intently to my financial situation and said she’d send me through some literature to help inform my retirement plans. A Dignitas brochure duly arrived today.

As the name suggests, the Swiss assisted-suicide company offers a dignified way out. Alas, even that’s beyond my financial reach. Do they do an Indignitas? A mallet to the back of the head before being heaved into a canal and all for under a fiver? I’ll check it out and get back to you...