Now that's what I call a bit of a thumping

This is that rare thing for this blog - a post about football. I'm sorry. This probably won't happen again. If you don't want to read it, look away now. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

I don't know much about football. I mustn't know that much - after all, I follow Birmingham City, with their ambitions of mid-table mediocrity. But even I can tell when something unusual has taken place in the game. However this time it happened to someone else's team.

It was a difficult weekend for supporters of Wigan Athletic Football Club. They were on the end of a bit of a thumping. Even to my limited knowledge, 9-1 scorelines are few and far between. Things are so bad that the Wigan players have even decided to delay their next Bentleys for a week and refund their fans the cost of their tickets.

Still, at least the papers have been sensitive. I mean, it's bad enough to lose by such a margin. Nine goals, five of which were scored by one player, Jermaine Defoe. What would make this worse would be the headline writers entering into cliche mode:

London Metro - "Five Star Defoe is on Cloud Nine"

Oh dear.