Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Spanish acquisition for ‘patriot’ Ronaldo
WithBrown
FOR as long as I can remember, published pranks on April Fools Day has been the norm.
Over this month, I’m sharing some football spoofs which reached the publication stage.
“Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed to ‘act like a patriot’ and be sold to neighbouring Spain for €160 million,” reported a national newspaper.
Portugal, as a country, were struggling financially at the time with debts around
€12 billion.
The dupe suggested it would be believed that the international bond markets would take it as a symbol of Portugal’s determination to tackle the crisis, and respond accordingly.
In essence, the report claimed that Portugal’s financial crisis had got so bad that they had sold the international services of their best player to Spain.
The paper even printed a picture of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero shaking hands with Portugal’s Prime Minister Jose Socrates.
And just to really go the whole nine yards, the report finished with: “Late last night, reports suggested that David Cameron was preparing a counter offer of £200m to persuade Ronaldo to play for England.”
ANOTHER respondent to the John Smith/ Downfield story of February 13 told of how he played with John as a youngster.
Last week, Dunc
Erskine gave his tale – and now reader Bill Grant (85) reveals he was a team-mate of John in BB football.
He opened: “It would be around 1954 – four years before that Downfield photo was taken – that I played in the 30th BB football team with John.
“Most of us were Hilltown lads.
“I played at rightback and John at that time, despite being small, was a bustling centre-forward.
“He was a very good player and, if you got the ball to him, it was almost guaranteed he would score.”
Bill continued: “I’ve discussed this with my friend Tom McKenzie and we think John may have gone to the Juvenile ranks after that for a couple of years.