If things weren’t bad enough for disgraced ex-England manager Big Sam, he also uses the ‘N-word’
The Sun columnist asks how Sam Allardyce ever got the job as England manager, as more allegations come out against him - including that he called players 'n***** footballers'
I HAVE my doubts that Sam Allardyce will be back in football any time soon, as I have just learned he once used the N-word in reference to footballers.
The conversation, which had three witnesses, took place at a hotel in London’s West End.
Allardyce was between jobs at the time.
He had been with Blackburn Rovers and was on his way to West Ham.
While chatting about the game generally, he suddenly used the expression “n***** footballers”.
The witness who spoke to me was shocked but, as this was a private affair and the word had come and gone in a flash, he kept schtum until the new Allardyce scandal blew up.
Everybody knows the use of the N-word is unacceptable.
Allardyce would only have had to look at what happened to Ron Atkinson’s career to know the price.
How many of the black players at West Ham would have signed for him had they known what language he used in private?
Although not in the same league, I heard only recently that Allardyce was decrying the fact that the England squad had to use the new multi-million pound facilities at St George’s Park National Football Centre in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffs, rather than expensive hotel The Grove, near Watford, Herts.
Asked why he preferred The Grove, he replied: “The quality of the fanny is better.”
Charming.
What I can’t understand is why the Football Association bosses ever picked Allardyce in the first place.
Perhaps they should explain.
All the sports writers I speak to now have anecdotes over the years which made him unacceptable as the nation’s No 1 manager.
Why didn’t they say something before?
I note Gareth Southgate is getting the same tributes from the brown-nosing pen holders who welcomed Allardyce.
Let’s hope it doesn’t end the same way.
Price of BBC's PC lunacy
WHAT an astonishing conversation.
For 17 years, award- winning Jon Holmes, along with Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt, has been making BBC audiences laugh with The Now Show on Radio Four.
I’ve been one of them.
Then a lowly producer calls him and says: “I’m afraid for the next series we are not inviting you back.
"We’re recasting it with more women and diversity.”
Not sacked for being unfunny, being stale, being old hat.
But for being white.
And as Mr Holmes points out, there is not much he can do about that.
I know that format well.
If they wanted a better mix, why not simply bring in new faces by reducing the length of the turns by Holmes and Co.
Instead, they have to destroy somebody’s career to make their point.
Apparently, Holmes is not the first to have lost a job at the BBC because of his colour.
It is very brave of him to speak out and I would be grateful if that socialist tosser James Purnell, who has just taken over BBC radio, revisited the decision and rehired Mr Holmes.
He does not deserve to suffer in the name of diversity.
A cracking TV must-see
IT’S a shame that football presenter Richard Keys won’t face both jail and being whipped in the Islamic state of Qatar after his wife insisted he had not committed adultery there with Lucie Rose, a lawyer 32 years his junior.
I wonder if his former employers at Sky would have jumped at the the chance and turned it into a pay-per-view event . . .
A GLOBAL BOYCOTT IS NEEDED
LEADING women players are threatening to boycott next year’s World Chess Championships in Tehran because they will be forced to wear hijabs.
Any woman found not wearing a hijab in public faces arrest, a fine or public reprimand by Iran’s “morality police”.
We stopped discrimination in South Africa by global boycott and we should do the same for oppression of women in the Middle East.
Might make a good package for Channel 4 News, although if their complaint to the press regulator Ipso about me is anything to go by, it’s hard to know which side they would be on.
Shami's taking a liberty
I VAGUELY know the clever and engaging Shami Chakrabarti.
For years she ran Liberty, a cross-party campaign demanding “fairness for all”.
I’m surprised they don’t produce Bake Off as well.
I once made a speech attacking the Appeal Court Judge Lord Justice Leveson, pointing out he was such a poor advocate when younger that he couldn’t even win a conviction for Ken Dodd’s tax evasion.
Unknown to me, Leveson was in the audience.
Ms Chakrabarti was part of Leveson’s anti-press panel, so she dropped me a sweet letter saying I owed him an apology.
Who could resist?
I did as I was bade but, as you will now know, it didn’t do me or the newspaper industry much good.
Of late, I am sad to report, the wheels have fallen off Ms Chakrabarti’s nicely polished CV.
First she conducts an anti-Semitism inquiry among the Jew-haters in Labour and gives the party a clean bill of health.
Next she accepts a peerage from Corbyn, ahead of becoming shadow Attorney General.
And in a final coup de grâce, she sends her son to fee-paying Dulwich College, South London, costing her and her ex-husband £18,000 a year while Labour policy is to fight selective education at every turn.
She will be in good company.
Diane Abbott (Health) sent her boy private, Emily Thornberry (Foreign) sent two of her three to selective, while Corbyn’s most senior spin doctor Seumas Milne (Winchester, naturally) sent his brood to grammars.
Jezza himself went to a prep school.
I suspect the expansion of grammars will have an easier run in the Commons, as Theresa May can simply point to each of the front bench opposite who have benefited from selective education.
And yet they don’t want your kids to have that chance.
Makes you sick, doesn’t it.
SWITCH ON TO SAVING
THANKS to a car accident, Julie and Martin Chamberlain faced an insurance renewal of a massive £1,379.40.
Instead, they went on to and switched to Axa for £633.45, a saving of £746.
It’s worth shopping around, even if you have had a scrape.
Many insurers are hiding behind tax rises to raise premiums.
Gordon Watson faced paying £528 at Lloyds for his house insurance in Blackburn and went through ASS to Swinton for £168.
Send your saving stories to [email protected] – they cheer me up no end.
Always check the small print...
RULE No1: Do read your emails.
There was a works do at the weekend for Sun colleagues at a fabulous £9.50 holiday park in Camber Sands, East Sussex, which was followed by a fancy-dress party.
I was surprised to see many turned out looking like Thatcher, Churchill, Nelson and even Mary Poppins.
Unbeknown to me, the email said the dress should have a Great British theme.
I turned up in an Arab outfit – it was all the shop had left – with an Ali Baba hat.
I received a bucketload of hurtful abuse and was asked repeatedly what Great Briton I was.
After some thought, I said I wasn’t a person but a place – Brighton Pavilion. Tah-dah!
Punnies
SEEN on a T-shirt shop in Lake Tahoe, California – Up Shirt Creek.
Vehicle repair van in Tilbury, Essex – CarsWithScars.
Doggy daycare and walking service in Guildford, Surrey – The Dog’s Frolics.
Thai restaurant in Dorchester, Dorset – The King And Thai.
Beauty shop on the Greek island of Kos – Kos-metic.
Cafe in Ilkley, West Yorks – Wuthering Bites.
Clothes-pressing service in Mansfield, Notts – The Iron Lady.
Vaping shop in Morecambe, Lancs – Kick Your Butt.
Children’s shoe shop in Skipton, North Yorks – Shooligans.
Fencing company sign in Ford, West Sussex – Heavenly Erection Every Time.
Hairdressers in Maidstone, Kent – Ahead Of Beauty.
Vegan food store in Leicester – Currant Affairs.
Love the punnies. Do send more to [email protected].