Photo by G-Hat
A quick disclaimer before I rile up the Reds with this article. I may be Mancunian, but my football loyalties lie in West Yorkshire. On the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I don’t have an axe to grind with Liverpool FC.
“The referee’s assistant was too young”
“We should have been given three penalties instead of one”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
Do you know what Rafa Benitez should have said after watching his title chasing Liverpool side sink to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the mediocre Tottenham Hotspur? The magic words that would have let him walk away from a potentially embarassing defeat with his head held high?
Simple.
“I made a mistake.”
We may not all have allowed supposedly inferior opposition to score twice against our Premiership football side, but we’ve all made mistakes. The second you realise that the bullet has left the barrel and is heading at full pelt for your outstreched foot, your first reaction is to bluff and bluster and blame it on anything you can think of.
Writing an advert for a hotel once, I made a snide little pun about the vegetarian menu being for people who don’t like real food and eat like rabbits. Funnily enough, this went down like a ton of bricks with the vegan hotel manager and they didn’t want to make use of our services. I tried all the normal excuses to make it look like I wasn’t in the wrong and the client shouldn’t have been offended, “I thought it’d be funny“, “most of your clients will be omnivores“. “you need to lighten up!”
Nothing but stony-faced silence.
Finally, I did what I had to do. I owned up to my mistake, admitted it had been a badly-judged comment and apologised.
That client got five more adverts from us, and loved every single one.
Have you put your pen to paper and foot into mouth? Share your best excuses in the comments section. If you need to apologise to someone but don’t know how, you shouldn’t use this template.
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#1 by vernon@ football blog on December 7, 2009 - 5:35 pm
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Good point except that 3 months later Spurs are still better placed than Livepool and ‘Mediocre’ seems to be the wrong choice of word again
vernon@ football blog´s last blog ..Man City open up the Premier League title race
#2 by Ben Locker on August 18, 2009 - 9:19 am
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Very good indeed. Thanks for the punchline link, too.
Pingback: Daily Dose: August 17th, 2009 | The Offside
#3 by RafaLegend on August 17, 2009 - 5:23 pm
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How can you write such rubbish have you not seen the highlights. 2 clear penalties. Bet they’d of been given at old trafford. Rafa just tells it straight and ppl like you have a go at him for it!!!
(This Liverpool fan was so incensed that he decided to submit this twice! And he thinks I’m a Manchester United fan… Oh dear – Andy)