Football: 2006 will be a goal drought. Bring back cheating say leading stars

Since all kinds of cheating were expunged from the beautiful game, fans have been treated to a dearth of goals and there have been protests outside the FA headquarters.

Spokesman for Supporters ReUnited, Don Syko, raged, "Now that every game ends with eleven men against eleven, they simply cancel each other out and we end up with every game drawn nil-nil. What we need is for the balance to be upset again, with players feigning injury to get the opposition sent off. Ten or even nine against eleven is always a better guarantee for a goal rush."

Leading players have joined the chorus. Dutch maestro and RADA graduate little Rudi Robbenhood, once famed for clutching his head to feign injury even before he'd arrived at the ground, claiming that Liverpool midfielder Steven Scouse had raised an arm said, "if we can get the teams down to eigth versus seven before half time, there's much more space to play in." Scouse remembers the incident fondly too. "Rudi jumped the lights on the way to the Bridge and I gave him the finger. So Rudi simulated injury to his pride and the ref sent me off before I even got changed into me kit. It was a great game even though we went down six nil."

Star diver Didier Louganis also said that unchallenged falling in the box should be reinstated. "We could do with a few penalties to liven these games up. In the old days, I'd regularly go down like a sack of potatoes as many as a dozen times a game, even when the opposition were taking a corner at our end. Goals are what the fans want. Even if it requires steering the ball in the net by hand."

And top referees agree. Graham Deedpoll said, "I miss all the abuse from the fans. All those suggestions to visit the opticians on the way home, or that I'm the product of unmarried parents, or comments about my onanist tendencies that used to arise because I was gullible and easily conned." "Oh, how I miss those days," he added wistfully, "and if the FA wonks are going to reverse their rule changes they couldn't do better than renaming Assistant Referees as Lino's as well."