Tonight the Irish lottery prize is somewhere above €10m. It got me thinking, as these things do, of what I'd do with the money. Visions of Father Ted in Las Vegas throwing money up in the air, whilst surrounded by ('lovely') girls immediately entered my head but in fact, I think I'd be more likely to be living the life of the modern English footballer.
With the news today, allegedly, that Rob Lee and Warren Barton have reportedly been arrested for taking a limousine and driving when unfit, it seems there is no end of capers that the modern footballer will get up to.
We have the lovely Mr Bellamy (http://www.okeydokefootball.com/showHate.asp?HateID=6), a regular visitor of Welsh Nightclubs, and all round sane person. Dyer, Ferdinand, Terry, Lampard get up to all sorts of tricks, sometimes in Aiya Napa. The first professional footballer in the world to ever wear an ankle braclet, so that the police know where he is - the charming Jermaine Pennant. The Sunderland Roast last year was a particularly funny incident (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006560734,00.html).
Even the nice guys get up to some serious drinking - Gazza, Robbo, McGrath, the entire Irish team of the 90's a few days before every match and the not so nice - Alan Shearer, Dwight Yorke, Jody Morris, Lee Bowyer, the list is endless.
Of course, it's not just the drink and crime, there's the Wags & the celebrity 'Hello' weddings, the country vanity mansion (even the Nev has one now!), the selection of supercars with personalised numberplates and the deeply unfortunate forays into pop (http://www.discogs.com/release/417883).
So, if I was a professional footballer I would have done many stupid things by now, I would have emulated the very people I sometimes hate. Pretending to go visit my granny, so I can bunk off on a binge in America. Check. Nightclubs til 4am with a battered burger afterwards. Check. Assaulting people. Check. Orange Lamborghini. Check. Roasting. Not unless there were many, many drugs. Career down the pan at 22. Check.
In fact, it doesn't seem bad at all, or that different from my current life... Roll on the prize draw,
Mark,
