England Out, Mugly and Roy.

England lost on penalties against Italy in the early hours of the morning in Kiev. It was lucky that England have the option to lose on penalties as, last night, they were quite diabolical apart from the first twenty minutes. So, fortunately, we can continue to sulk about being the most unluckiest world class football team who only ever go out on penalties. As in South Africa in 2010, England were sh*t in the group stage but we awaited the ugly duckling to grow into a beautiful swan for the knockout stage. But, just as in SA, the ugly duckling was not a swan after all and turned out to be to be the ugliest dog in the world instead – a title we have just won with Mugly at the contest in California.

The post match analysis will probably include contributions from Robert Peston and Newsnight. Editorials will be full of fair-weather football follower’s comments full of borrowed clichés about keeping possession, passing, inferior ball skills, technical edge, outplayed, over paid, expectations, average, courage, can’t compete, go to pieces, Roy Higson’s battle against the odds, kit design, and, of course, penalties. None of these are the real reason we lost. We lost because I did not go to my lucky pub – simple as that: no lucky London Pride; no lucky Mr Porky Extra Hairy Pork Scratchings; no lucky urinal splash back.

Life will be back to normal next week. I can attend my triple heart bypass operation on Thursday afterall; I can turn my attention back to the tax demand from the HMRC (I stupidly joined a flawed tax avoidance scheme called R2D2 instead of going with Jimmy Carr) and, of course, Roy Higson will be back at the his dry cleaning business in Cheam.