Amazing Tales from Planet Tabloid

WORLD CUP HYSTERIA SPECIAL

Their smiling faces said it all.

In every Docklands pub, club and tabloid newsroom, thousands of hysterical tabloid hacks celebrated triumph with an orgy of circulation-boosting overkill.

They had never seen anything like it since Princess Diana got married.

All records for exaggeration, hype, cliché, national sterotyping and - at the end of the day - the sheer acreage of paper devoted to printing the same pictures over and over again, fell like nine-pins before the onslaught of Sven Goran Murdochsson's lion-hearted Barmy Army.

It's that man again...

A year ago the tabloid national team was a complete disgrace - derided as a bunch of boring, greedy, talentless, flat-footed traitors led to disaster by inarticulate morons.

Now, in the space of just two football matches they have been transformed into an all-conquering force of nature - printing between them more than 150 pages devoted to the 180 minutes of action.

... and again...

HOW THE DRAMA UNFOLDED

Kick-Off: A nervous, uncertain start. Are the lads heading for circulation glory or the humiliation of a play-off against Ukrainian day-time television?

0-1: Disaster! Sloppy marking in the editorial cubicle leads to gloom. Plans for souvenir pop-up front covers featuring Sol Campbell "nutting" a German abandoned.

... and again...

1-1: Revival. A series of brilliant cliché set-pieces and a stream of hyperbolic crosses into the box on the front page levels the score.

1-2: The tabloid midfield works overtime thinking up new types of anti-German insults. The Mirror fires off "downright bloody irritating, arrogant, cynical cheats" and it goes straight into the top corner.

... and again...

1-3: The hacks go wild. All the substitutes are pulled in. The Mirror finds a girl in Manchester who is wearing Union Jack knickers. The Sun brings on its own Sven Goran Eriksson look-a-like.

1-4: A wobbly moment as a sub-editor says "hang on - aren't we overdoing this? We're only winning because the Germans are playing like a pub team". He is stretchered off after being scythed down by a vicious tackle from behind.

... and again...

1-5: All thoughts now are of Finland. Will there be enough trees to provide all the necessary newsprint? It is turning into a potential massacre (in Macedonia - but that's not in the papers).

Full-Time: Jubilant hacks jump into public fountains, book flights to Japan and begin to plan their activities by looking up details of the Tokyo red light district on the internet.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Key: A) - full pages devoted to England-Germany match on 03.09.2001 B) - pictures of Michael Owen printed C) - full pages devoted to England-Albania match on 06.09.2001 D) - pictures of Michael Owen printed.