DARTS

🍸 Vodka toenic

With his flashy gold jewellery and Cockney charm, darts legend Bobby George harks back to a simpler time.

When pints of London Pride were 20p and you could leave your front door open without fear of a burglar pissing in your laundry basket.

And when surgeons would welcome you back to post-operation consciousness by handing you the severed remains of whatever body part they’d just hacked off you.

Which is exactly what happened to the King of Bling when he had his toe amputated because of a painful genetic disorder.

That’s according to his new book, “Still Here“, which took the literary world by storm surprise this week.

Unfortunately, the doctor wouldn’t give Bobby any formaldehyde to preserve the digit, so he was forced to put it in a bottle of vodka, which he still keeps behind the bar in his Essex mansion:

FOOTBALL

🤕 Doyle M for murder

If five years of tedious All or Nothing documentaries has taught us anything - other than that Mikel Arteta is an intense weirdo - it’s that footballers these days need to be treated as individuals.

Some need an arm round the shoulder, others need tough love.

And some need a two-footed, studs-up, meniscus-shattering bastard of a tackle from behind to end their careers once and for all.

That was the thinking of former Hibernian manager Lee Johnson, who flew in on young midfielder Jake Doyle-Hayes in a training session.

Jake ended up needing ankle surgery because of the "horrific injuries" he suffered in the incident, and he’s now suing the club for loss of earnings.

FOOTBALL

 🎂 A Rush and a push and the wife is ours

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Liverpool legend Ian Rush and his score-settling AI musical about his legal battle with a Surrey scaffolding company.

The news made Rushy bookies’ favourite for the Ballon D’ivorce, awarded for the year’s most egregious display of divorced dad energy.

Well, it turns out it’s not his first shot at the title.

A decade ago, Ian was happily married to his wife of 26 years. Until he got a message out of the blue from Irish reality TV star, Carol Anthony.

That’s according to reader James, who sent in this letter:

CRICKET

🇯🇲 I don’t like Duckett. I love him.

For most of their 70s pomp, 10cc were a middling, inoffensive soft rock outfit that wouldn’t look out of place at the Trentishoe Real Ale Fayre.

But that all changed in 1978, when singer and bassist Graham Gouldman got his first taste of Jerk Chicken in Brixton market, and hopped on the next flight to Jamaica.

When he returned, the band released their cod reggae masterpiece “Dreadlock Holiday”, which included the famous refrain “I don’t like cricket, I love it.”

But it turns out Graham’s dodgy Jamaican accent wasn’t the only aspect of the song that was misleading.

This week, the singer revealed he’d never seen a cricket match in his life, and was simply quoting a Jamaican guy he’d met on the holiday.

So - 47 years after the song first hit number 1 - he decided it was time to right that wrong, and popped down to The Oval on Tuesday to see England beat the West Indies:

Next he’ll be telling us he is in love, and we should forget it…

FOOTBALL

👋 Thame’s up

So that’s it for Jefferson Louis, the ultimate journeyman striker, who retired this week aged 46.

You might remember Jefferson for his time at Risborough Rangers. Or for his three stints at Thame United.

Or Woking, Lewes, Worthing, Forest Green Rovers, Yeading or… well, you get the idea.

Louis changed clubs 51 times in his 28-year career, scoring 257 goals in 821 games.

It’s impressive stuff, but he’s got nothing on Japanese forward Miura Kazuyoshi.

Now 58, Miura’s still a going concern in the Japan Football League, where he plays for Atletico Suzuka.

He’s previously played for Santos, Genoa and Dinamo Zagreb, and he was plying his trade in the Portuguese second tier as recently as last year…

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AND FINALLY…

💇‍♂️ Cool Aed

It’s a good job 10cc’s Graham Gouldman has never crossed paths with Anguilla’s Aedon Scipio. He’d be very jealous of his dreadlocks.

In other hair news, Igor Grishin has just been named head coach of Neftechimika in the Kontinental Hockey League.