Rejoice! With nothing but a grueling foreign war and the prelude to a dead-certain election to cover, Britain's tabloids have been saved from tedium by good old-fashioned football sex scandals.Stand up and take a bow John Terry, England and Chelsea captain, club tour guide, family man, swordsman, and saviour of the Red Tops.
Terry provided a timely boost to flagging circulations when his affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the then-girlfriend of England teammate Wayne Bridge, became front-page news.
After a week of lurid headlines and daily humiliations, the defender voted "2009 Dad Of The Year" must have been delighted to hand over his position as national whipping boy to his former manager Avram Grant.
The 54-year-old Portsmouth boss' visit to a Hampshire vice den for a Thai massage returned hilarity to the national breakfast table as it transformed "Average" Grant's image from lugubrious dullard to a Viagra-fueled Mr. Hanky Spanky!
As deliciously titillating as these sex scandals may be, they still pale in comparison to the real tabloid prize: a Manchester United immorality tale.
Just ask Johnny Evans.
The defender was at the beginning of his United first team career when he was arrested in December 2007 on suspicion of raping a 26-year-old barmaid at the players' £4,000-a-head, drink-sodden Christmas party.
The world's most popular club, internationally famous celebrities, a "harvest" of nearly 100 young, pretty, slightly-dressed women, and an allegation of rape in a sexually-charged atmosphere, made for a tabloid sensation that no hack or reader could refuse.
The scandal was also a vehicle for Britain's greatest talent: righteous indignation.
The Sun opined that the party had been the theatre of "sleazy" and "sickening" behaviour by United's boozed-up stars.
The Mail, peerless as the net curtain guardian of middle England's morality, disturbed Sir Bobby Robson and worked the football legend into quite a lather. The headline of his by-lined piece, "United's party has shamed the proud tradition of this great club," set out from the beginning the article's precise destination.
"I felt very angry with the United players for putting their manager through this," Sir Bobby complained.
"Alex turns 66 on New Year's Eve and is still working hard, devoting his time and wisdom to keeping United at the top; not easy when you've got rivals as good as Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool.
"The United players have nobody to blame but themselves for how they have been perceived this week. To the outside world, they will be regarded as egotistical stars with no self-control."
With grave prescience, the Guardian warned the alleged victim that she faced being disbelieved.
"There has been a spate of previous allegations of sexual assault against footballers," the newspaper confirmed.
"Top players accused include Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo, who was not present at Monday's party, and Arsenal striker Robin van Persie. Both denied the allegations and no prosecutions were brought."
The News of the World was happy to repeat the pub wisdom...the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, it'll never stand up in court"...a viewpoint which lay just beneath the surface of much of the comment on the story.
Referring to the complainant, the newspaper reported: "She cannot fully remember what happened when she was in the room or exactly who was in there with her because she was really drunk."
The tale disappeared from the news headlines a month later, buried in a four-paragraph obituary declaring that Evans would not be prosecuted.
Former club physiotherapist Laurie Brown might be the only man in Manchester not to see the allegation against the Northern Ireland international as certainly the most serious United sex scandal in recent memory.
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