Premiership Merchandise: Saving Lives One Fan At A Time

It is often said that the FA Premier League is the best league in the world as a spectacle for pace and goals. It is also said that it is the best league to watch if you’re looking for a 38-game schedule that will raise the incidence of depression and alcoholism in your life.

(Actually, don’t take that seriously. My liver and I are the only ones saying that.)

My personal problems notwithstanding, it comes as a surprise that the EPL has recently become the best league in the world to be a fan of if you find yourself in a life-threatening situation due to your own stupidity. I present the following as proof:

Case 1: A couple days before Arsenal FC went down in a 10-man flame to Barcelona in the Champions League final, a 10-year-old English boy tried to climb his neighbor’s fence in order to scope out the new trampoline sitting in the backyard. Apparently the sight was a bit too much to behold and in his excitement, the kid lost his footing and got impaled on a metal spiking a top the fence.

Though his chest wound was fairly substantial (three inches), the spike missed all vital organs. Now this happens to most people and they think that God intervened or there was a guardian angel or maybe they’re just the luckiest tosser around. But not these people. This kid owes his life to the modern day chain mail known as the Commemorative 2005/2006 Arsenal Home Strip.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

It seems that the magical shirt saved the boy from certain doom by cushioning the spike’s impact. Had it been cotton instead of Nike DriFit, the shirt would have ripped, thus allowing the metal to plunge deeper into the boy’s chest. It would have been curtains for the young fan.

A young life being saved is heartwarming and all but can you see the headlines NEXT week?

“10 Year Old Tries to Stop Bullet with Magical Arsenal Kit, Dies.”

This situation will end in nothing but trouble… messy trouble.

*Grain of salt warning: Article from The Sun*
Case 2: Our other fantastic EPL life-saving tale takes us to the mountains of strife-torn Yemen where an Englishman named Tony found himself in the weeds while helping the Yemeni government set up a free-trade zone.

(Yemen trades with others? This was news to me.)

While at a roadblock with his bodyguard, Tony’s car was ambushed by tribesmen wielding AK-47s who, according to Tony, “descended upon me like a pack of wolves.” Having never been jumped by a pack of wolves, I don’t know if this is a right comparison to his situation but were I in his shoes, I probably would have said something ridiculous like “they swooped down on me like crazed buzzards,” so I’ll let that go. In any case, the bad guys went into mating peacock mode and started waving their guns around and squawking about in a language no one could understand.  I often wonder why these lunatics don’t learn a few English phrases so they can communicate their death threats in an efficient manner but in this case, it wasn’t necessary.

“In my limited Arabic, I understood that they wanted to use me as a hostage to extract money from the EU and if I refused would kill me.” [Limited Arabic, my arse. Limited Arabic is "I heard them say water and to die," not all of that!]

Anyway, Tony and his bodyguard were dragged to the back of his car where the bandits noticed a Portsmouth FC club badge. Since the badge uses the crescent moon and star, both symbols of Islam, the hostiles assumed Tony was a practicing Muslim, put him back in his car, and told him to hit the road.

Huzzah for Tony and his useless bodyguard, but what’s he going to do when he’s attacked by bandits that can read English? “Oh, uh, well, uh, by posing as a fan of, uh, the worst team in England, I’m actually helping Muslims against the West. Let me go?” Nice try, Tony. His good Samaritan ruse is going to wind up in a messier situation than the day the above-mentioned Arsenal fan realizes his kit isn’t magic.

So as it stands, Arsenal kits prevent impaling and Pompey stickers stop roadblock attacks. Tune in next week when a man uses a Chelsea-sanctioned football to foil an assassination plot like he’s Jack Bauer. In the meantime, you might want to pick up some other EPL squad merchandise. With all the metal fences and terrorists out there, one never knows when a life-threatening pickle could arise.