Press demolish Tories at football fixture
The Cliff at Manchester has produced some of the greatest footballing talent Britain has ever seen, with the Busby Babes and Fergie's Fledglings all learning their skills at the famous training ground.
The rather more weather-beaten features of the Press Gallery's finest may lack both the youthful promise and footballing ability to join the Manchester United hall of fame, but this morning the journalistic line-up produced a memorable performance to beat a Conservative XI 5-1.
With the Sunday Telegraph's political editor Patrick Hennessy playing the part of England's brave captain John Terry, the pressmen went ahead through a goal from left winger Matt George of the Western Daily Press.
With the tone set, the Press Gallery went on to dominate the second half, as the Mirror's Tom McTague produced a man of the match display to play a part in goals for the Liverpool Echo's Rob Merrick, Metro's John Higginson.
Dods' own Sam Macrory, and a splendid Tory-headed own goal which the Daily Telegraph's Andy Porter may well attempt to claim as his own, added to the tally.
Despite fielding a line-up which included footballing luminaries such as Gavin Barwell, Mark Pritchard, and Jo Johnson, the Tories' best player by far was the 16-year-old son of MP Fiona Bruce, whose fresh-legged running left more than one pot-bellied Press Gallery midfielder tackling air.
But the Press Gallery's over-achievement was sadly not the game's biggest talking point
A long-running local feud between Porter and the Tory's self-styled midfield supremo Karl McCartney threatened to sour the feast of football on offer, but the revelation that the Footballing Association had pulled out of providing a referee, team bus, and other officials from the game in protest at the inclusion of Tory MP Tracey Crouch, the first female to play in the long-running feature, provided more than enough negative headlines.
Not very 21st-century from football's top men-in-suits, who would have seen that Crouch was one of the more effective Tory players on display.
However, after achieving the rare conference double, following last week's win over Labour, the Hennessy's Press Gallery XI won't be complaining tonight.
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