After tonight's debacle I decided to sit down and do some research on the man currently called Royston Vontavius Hodgson XVII. Delving deeper than the usual "35 years" I found some information out about the man that I thought most people might not know about. Something to give us all a bit of perspective in this tumultuous time for our club.
Roy began his life, believe it or not, as a great leader of men.
Isildur Roy Hodgson deciding not to destroy the ring of Sauron.Isildur Roy HodgsonPicture the scene: You are battling against an army of unimaginable proportion and strength. The leader of that army, a fucking massive guy made of sharp black metal, has a ring that he can use to beat you, no matter what you do. Pretty hopeless? Well not according Elendil Hodgson, Roy's father. Being full of hardy English mettle, this old man walked right up to his opponent and cut the weapon out of his hand. He died doing it, but more importantly, he killed his opponent as well.
Now Roy was left with a choice. The weapon was given to him, as his father's heir. Should he destroy it or keep it? Destroying it would mean that his enemy was utterly vanquished forever. Keeping it meant there was a risk of him coming back one day. A no brainer. But Roy being Roy, he decided to keep it. If that wasn't enough, he wore it around his neck on a chain, like a fucking bullseye to all his enemies. When his generals warned him against it he just mumbled incoherently and told them he had "35 years experience" of wearing magic rings around his neck. Only problem with that was the rings he'd been wearing around his neck were of paltry magic. Some of them could turn off milk good again. Others created a force field around you to protect you from bad breath.
So what happens? You guessed it, Roy was slain by his enemies, dying with a "Wibble" and the ring was lost for thousands of years. During those years his enemy secretly rebuilt his power, eventually seeking out his lost ring.
Denethor Roy Hodgson
Denethor Roy Hodgson enjoying a frappuccino.Now by the time the enemy had rebuilt his power, he had a most formidable opponent in the land of Gondor who went by the name of Denethor Roy Hodgson. He was a direct descendant of Isildur, but on the stupid side of the family.
Hearing of the recovery of the ring that Isildur had so spectacularly failed to destroy all those years ago, the old fool rubbed his hands together with glee (also his favourite tv show), and requested that his son Boromir Poulsen Hodgson retreive it for him. Unfortunately the documents I uncovered do not go into detail about what happened to Boromir, but they do say he died. There are suggestions that he was slain by numerous arrows to the chest, being totally incapable of defending himself, and really slow at attacking. But those are spurious rumours.
A publicity shot of Boromir Poulsen Hodgson taken before his fateful trip in search of the Ring.
Now that the ring was lost to him, he blamed his younger son Faramir Paul Fucking Konchesky Hodgson. Roy was genuinely shocked when Faramir came back from an important stronghold which he had allowed to fall into enemy hands. Why this was a surprise to him was anyone's guess. The popular left-leaning newspaper The Gondorian, in particular, pointed to a long history of defensive lapses made by Faramir in battle, but Roy seemed oblivious, simply rubbing his face when asked for comment.
Faramir Paul Fucking Konchesky Hodgson posing for a photo with a crowd of fans.
Eventually, with his city surrounded by enemies, Roy decided that the best form of attack was to set himself alight and dive off the top level of the seven-levelled city. Again, this tactic was atrocious, but it worked better than any of his previous tactics, in that some of his enemies fell to the floor laughing and ended up choking to death on vomit. He later described this as a "famous victory" despite his city lying in ruins and actually being dead.
Pontius Roy Hodgson
Pontius Roy Hodgson being requested to save Bwian from crucifixion by his subjects. This real life speech impediment would later inspire Michael Palin's portrayal of him in The Passion of The Christ
Now we enter the footballing era of Roy's historical legacy. His first job as manager saw him take charge of the Roman Empire. It was during this time that he oversaw the decline of the Roman first team. His mistakes are too numerous to recount here so I will concentrate one the one which has gone down as his biggest.
You may be familiar with the name Jesus Christ?
Of course we all know he was the left winger who went on to be one of the biggest stars in world football for almost two thousand years. But back then he was just a promising young talent. After a few appearances for the first team, Roy was starting to grow impatient with the tricky speedster, who had been singled out as one of the team's most inconsistent performers. In six appearances Jesus had set up no goals and hadn't even hit a shot on target. There was some controversy when Roy was recorded as saying that Jesus "Couldn't hit a cross if he was nailed to one." This sparked a feud between the two which culminated in Roy actually having Jesus nailed to a cross for three days and nights in an attempt to "familiawise him" to crosses. This method was contrary to the "arm around the shoulder" method that Roy had, somehow, become synonymous with during his short spell in Rome.
Jesus Christ playing for Barcelona in 2009 amid rumours of an imminent retirement.
Rome's misfortunes mounted after this, with several loses to rivals Carthage, managed by future Barcelona manager Hannibal, Roy saw his popularity hit an all time low and the board were forced to sack him in the face of a peasant revolt. He was replaced with Caligula. Roy himself used what was left of his reputation to secure the Bordeaux job.
Napoleon Roy HodgsonThere is a huge gap in the record after his time in Rome and he doesn't resurface until the late 18th century in France. Eyebrows were raised when Napoleon Roy Hodgson was given the France job. His predecessor was so unpopular that he had literally been guillotined. Roy knew from the off that he needed big results to appease the demanding fans of Les Bleus. To be fair to him, his early results were more than anyone expected after the previous regime's mismanagment. He unified the players and the fans under the same banner and went on a march throughout Europe that no one saw coming, winning three consecutive European Championships and a World Cup (although participation in the World Cup was much less at this point, it was still seen as a more difficult cup to win).
Napoleon Roy Hodgson posing for a Panini sticker album for the 1810 European Championships
Things seemed to be going incredibly well for Roy, until a poor Qualifying campaign for the 1814 European Championships, saw a French squad wracked by injuries, travel to Russia in a win or bust match. Roy, as he had become accustomed to in his time in France, set his team to attack from the off. For the first 60 minutes his France were all over Alexander's Russia, pressing high up the pitch and playing fast, offensive football that was a joy to behold. However, his poor grasp of sports science and tendancy not to listen to his physios, saw his players run out of gas with half an hour left and only a two goal lead. The Russians, accustomed to the intense cold, still had a lot left in their tanks and ended up running out 4-2 winners.
In a decision which shocked the footballing world, Roy was sacked the next morning and blacklisted from all the top leagues in Europe. It was here that Roy's attacking philosphy died. He would never go out to win from the start of a match ever again.
He took the only job that he could get and sank into obscurity managing the semi-professional island nation of St. Helena.
And that is where the record ends. While his exploits across the millennia must be wide-ranging, it appears that most of his troubled past is lost to the annals of time, perhaps to be rediscovered one day by a time-faring space adventurer. Until then, this is all we have of the life, the times, of Royston Vontavius Hodgson XVII
