As if I wasn't in enough hot water already, last week I found myself facing yet another media storm. I just can't understand what the problem is. We were in a plane on the way to play a match on the Continent. Me and the other officials were relaxing as usual in the First Class section, minding our own business, when team captain Roy, looking for the jacks, looked in the door. The next thing we know, we're getting an earful of Cork-accented invective about how the tall lads in Steerage couldn't stretch their legs, and how do we have the nerve to live it up like this under the circumstances.

The next day, the press were all over us. They wouldn't pay any attention to our explanation that for Association officials to turn up for an away game in a foreign country wearing suits that had been crumpled in Steerage Class seats could cause a major diplomatic incident. War, even. Roy said he might stop playing for the team, he's so mad.

We're no good without Roy, Gaffer. How do we keep him sweet but hang onto our First Class plane seats?

Bernard O'B.

However, before my toilet situation got any worse, we were suddenly ditching into the sea. The stewardesses opened the doors, and everyone bailed out into inflatable liferafts. I found meself bobbing around in a raft in ten-foot waves with the physio Ly Chk Nao, the keeper Nk Ahr Sat, the full-back Paddy Nkamaraka, and the two strikers Ny Bi Kyn and Shenadiho Kaharashi.

Trouble was, there were seven of us, and only six seats in the raft. Things were getting uncomfortable, and we nearly tipped over a few times. As Gaffer, I had to make a decision fast. After a minute's thought, I pushed Ny Bi Kyn over the side. Disappeared into the waves in a second, he did. 

My reasoning was this: every team needs a physio, so Chk Nao had to stay. So did Ahn Sat and Nkamaraka, because we were short of an international-class keeper, and we only had three defenders in the entire squad. Kaharashi was a tall lad, and our entire game depended on having a big target man to aim at. That left Bi Kyn, a little, tricky player, but completely surplus to requirements in the Laos squad. I only ever gave him a run-out during the last 10 minutes if we were comfortably ahead. The others in the raft looked shocked, but I believe they respected my decisiveness.

As it happened, the entire squad made it back to Laos in one piece, even Ny Bi Kyn. He turned up a year later. It turned out that he'd washed up ashore in a secret cove on the coast of New Guinea owned by the International Sisters of the Sensuous Arts. As luck would have it, they needed a test subject in their nearby reasearch facility upon whom to try new experimental sensuous arts they were developing. Bi Kyn immediately signed up for the job. Exhaustion led to his resignation after a year. He then returned to his family and club in Laos.

Of course, he quickly started legal proceedings against my good self for attempted murder, but I got away with it thanks to my hero status after securing Laos a World Cup playoff against Surinam (which we lost).