It’s the 29th birthday of CM9798 tomorrow! What we need is a poem from Andrew…oh look he’s written one. Happy Friday, everybody

If you can keep your head when all about you

   Are losing theirs and blaming it on the match engine;

If you can trust yourself when all your singings doubt you,

   And make no allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait 30 seasons and not be tired by waiting,

   Or, being lied to by the league scouts, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated by the non-purists, don’t give way to those bar stewards,

   And yet don’t win too much, nor talk too much bollox;

If you can cancel and restart—and not make cancelling and restarting your master;

   If you can tinker—and not make tinkering your aim;

If you can meet with success and sacking

   And treat those two unexpected screens just the same;

If you can bear to hear the a free transfer asking for £50k a week

   Twisted by scouts to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your save to be broken,

   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout free transfers;

If you can make one heap of all your sales

   And risk it on one unknown regen,

And lose, and start again at the newly promoted team

   And never breathe a word about how you were robbed by one shot;

If you can force your eyes and ears and fingers

   To serve your turn long after you should have gone to bed,

And so keep on on when there is nothing but energy drinks in you

   Except your wife who says to you: “WTF”;

If you can talk with strangers on social media and keep your head,

   Or walk with verified users—nor lose the common touch;

If neither knobeads nor blog squad friends can live in your head rent free;

   If all lads count with you, but none so much as to avoid taking the piss;

If you can fill the 90th minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of bitten nails—

   Yours is the game and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a ChampMan, my son!

England will be playing 2-3-1-2-f******-2!