...Mancini loses his cool

Following recent complaints from several eyewitnesses Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has had his cool confiscated in a dramatic dawn raid on his Manchester home. A police spokesperson said: “The cool was found stuffed inside a mattress along with a contraband guide to scarf-knotting and an illegally imported overcoat deemed too well-tailored to have been obtained in the UK.”


Her Majesty's Department of Cool have charged Mancini with gross misuse of the privilege of cool bestowed on him as an Italian visitor to the UK and have set a date for his appearance at the Court of Cool.

Mancini would have been appointed as manager of Manchester City much earlier than December last year but for the prolonged legal wrangling over his license to cool. A Manchester Airport security guard said: “Italian managers such as Fabio Capello have been allowed access in the past on the agreement that they surrender the privilege to act cool at any time.

“However when Mancini attempted to make the same pledge with one thumb tucked under his belt buckle whilst puffing nonchalantly on a Cuban cigar, an undercover DOC agent raised the alarm. Mancini was eventually granted a cool on the condition that he upheld the conditions of it throughout his visit to the UK.”

But this was not to be the case. Enrico Suarez, a freelance advisor to the DOC said: “While initially ticking all boxes of the DoC’s fit and proper persons test with the obligatory consummate ease, several suspicious events prompted the launch of a covert surveillance operation against Mr Mancini. Firstly the nickname of ‘Bobby Manc’ bestowed upon him threatened to seriously undermine his ability to fulfil the quota of cool required under the terms of his contract with the DOC, although admittedly this was not entirely of his doing.

“Then Mancini was pictured wearing what can only be described as a ‘parka’ jacket. The DOC tweaked up their alert coding up from paisley to fuschia amidst a collective tut from inside the official building, and Mancini’s cool seemed to have its days numbered.”

However, events last week proved to be the final straw for Mancini’s cool. With his side trailing 2-0 to Everton, a team threatening to beat City to the coveted fourth spot in the Premier League table and so seriously jeopardising the likelihood of a contract renewal with the DOC, Mancini lost it. He must have known it was only a matter of time before the DOC caught up with him.

Officers say when they burst into his bedroom after first locating the cool Mancini was a broken man, weeping into the dishevelled, once perfect knot of his old blue and white scarf.