Tony Cares

Letter 1

I love reading the UCD fanzine, but lately Mr. Doolin ... sorry, Sir, has been giving out to us for so long after matches that I don’t have time to go over the Montrose and buy it. Please, please, please fix it for me that he shuts up earlier.

The easiest way to shut Paul up is to go out and win a game. This involves putting the ball-shaped thing into the net-shaped thing (COUGH Drogheda!). Also, don’t ever, ever tell student fanzine writers that you thought you got off lightly for missing an open goal!

Letter 2

I have a problem. Last Christmas, I was playing a match when the UCD fans started singing a song. Nothing unusual there, you might think. However, this song disturbed me - after a couple of minutes, it had gotten as far as "On the fourth day of Christmas, Paul Doolin gave to me - 4 Tony Macs, 3 Tony Macs, 2 Tony Macs and a Tony McDonnell". By half-time, they had gotten the whole way to the 12th day, all inspired by their ringleader. How do I get him to stop idolising me so much?

If I don’t know what to do, how am I going to know what to do?! I suggest you ring my hotline - 1550-TONY-RULZ and ask for my leaflet on "The Perfect Murder". Calls cost €3.20 a minute, with a percentage of all calls going to charity (Zero’s a percent!)

Letter 3

Thanks for the fab picture of yours truly - I hung it on me wall! You’re quite an artist! In response to your question - yes, we do have hamburgers and french fries in Ireland, but we call french fries chips.

Letter 4

Please help. I had my big day out a couple of weeks ago. Bazza was suspended after giving out too much to a referee (I though it would never happen!) and I was in goals. I was going to give the best performance of my life - the best performance of my life, so that Bazza wouldn’t play again ever and I’d get to hear the "We say Pat Jennings, are you as good as your da?" chant every game. But it all went wrong. As I came for an easy ball, some knacker with a dodgy tash pushed Clive into me and he scored. The Irish papers had a field day - David Beckham got a hair cut the same day. But I did see "Keeper costs UCD points" somewhere. And nobody believes me when I say it wasn’t my fault! I’m at my wits’ end! What can I do?

I know just how you feel - I was made look an eejit as well when somebody didn’t come for my easy back header! Wonder who that could have been?! But seriously, try my new mobile phone tracer. It costs nothing, although you do have to ring my premium rate line 1550-TONY-RULZ to order it. I think you have to press 29 on the main computerised menu to order it. Attach it to your mobile, leave it behind you the next time we play Shels and by the miracle of GPS, you’ll always be able to see exactly where your mobile is. Then all you have to do is casually be in the same place as the mobile on a few random occasions and you should soon see Mr. Geoghegan getting rather worried. Enjoy!

Letter 5

What’s the story? We travelled all the way to Longford to spend money on drink, travel and to beat Longford Town only to find that the undercard match was off due to a flooded pitch. And it wasn’t even raining much! Are yez just a bunch of pansies or was there another reason the match was off?

Sorry about that – Robbie Mac was complaining all the way down on the bus that he was bursting, but we didn’t believe him until we got to Flancare and he just couldn’t keep it in any more. We really didn’t want to play on the pitch after that!

Letter 6

I am a leader of big country. I have much weapon. I kill many people. Still, I have no respect. Help me.

Why do you bother with the pseudonym? Do you think I wouldn’t help you if I realised who you were? And if so, did you really think I wouldn’t notice that you wrote the letter on official White House stationary? And next time, use a pen - crayons aren’t all that neat.

Letter 7

I’m in a bit of a fix here. I recently started my new job, a bit promotion for me. I was delighted at the time. The guys I’m working with did really well last year. The only thing is they lost their star performer, and the guy I’m replacing took all the flack. I guess that’s fair, since he did fall out with the guy. I figured that I could put the whole show back on the road. After all, there’s only so much one guy could do, right? The rest of these guys had to be competent. Be jayz, was I wrong. They try a moxy load, but most of them are crap. Our first performances have been okay like, until you look at the detail, when it all begins to look really unconvincing. I mean, some of these guys are really, really crap. What should I do?

How the hell should I know? What do I look like, an international manager?

Letter 8

I've done good this season, I really have. I'm joint top scorer, I've been consistently good in whatever position I've been told to play in and I haven't died my hair that exact colour of shit-brown that you know can't possibly be natural, but there's one fan who keeps shouting abuse at me from the stands. What can I do to shut him up?

I can really sympathise with that. I've been at the club for eleven years, been club captain since some of our hardcore support were getting their Junior Cert, and I play bloody well no matter where I'm told to play [No you don't; stop playing centre half you wally – ed.], but there's one fan who keeps posting on the Internet that I'm shit and that I can't head the ball. I find that scoring six headed goals in as many matches tends to shut him up, but Plan B involves a dark alley and a coathanger.