EXCITED FANS of Chelsea and Tottenham are gearing up for a thrilling trip to the Big Smoke this weekend, with the two teams set to face off in trendy Wembley on Saturday for a place in the FA Cup final.

While the football match is the main focus for a small number supporters travelling to fashionable London this weekend, most fans are planning to make a holiday of the trip to our nation’s capital and are beside themselves with excitement at the prospect.

“I’ve never been before, is it true the streets are paved with gold?” asked wide-eyed Chelsea fan Alan Dixon. “I know it’s a big city but I’m really hoping to run into my heroes at some point: Ray Winstone, Danny Dyer and Rodders from Only Fools And Horses.”

Dixon is part of a group of Chelsea fans that have booked into the Premier Inn in Reading for the weekend. “It’s not as central as we hoped, but we got a deal for £19.99 rooms and as Lenny Henry says, that’s better value than a dinner date with Dawn French.”

Fans of Tottenham Hotspur, a team based in rural Middlesex, are similarly excited but are also hoping to enjoy the weekend on a budget. “Our tube tickets were bought months ago,” said Spurs fan Marvin Fulstrop. “Admittedly it means that we have to get on a set tube to the ground and back, but I think as long as we’re on the platform with 10 or so minutes to spare we’ll be fine.”

Spurs supporters have booked a table for 34,000 at the Leicester Square branch of Garfunkel’s tonight for a pre-game meal of hamburgers and curly fries, although this decision was reached amid controversy, with many fans saying they would rather go to an Angus Steak House or Planet Hollywood.

Most Chelsea fans meanwhile will be amassing at the London Hippodrome for a performance of Starlight Express, despite a rival group opting to take in Jersey Boys.

But supporters of both clubs are being warned to keep their wits about them amongst London’s city slickers. Official advice released in a joint statement stressed the importance of travelling with a bumbag to avoid pickpockets, and on no account to follow signs on Oxford Street that are advertising a golf sale.

MANCHESTER CITY manager Roberto Mancini is facing up to a period of rebuilding after he told every member of his playing squad and staff that they would never represent the club again in the wake of their disappointing 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.

The manager first told waiting media that he would attempt to sell Mario Balotelli after his red card in the match, but in a fit of pique he then returned to the press conference to add that in fact everyone else was shit as well and he would never let them back into the City of Etihad Eastlands Arena Ground, even if they asked nicely.

“I have had enough of being disappointed,” said Mancini, “every week David Platt has been turning up and sitting next to me looking really bad for his age.

“In fact this ban applies to everyone, I announce here and now that Sheikh Mansour will also be moved on, his days of spending billions of pounds on overrated mercenaries are behind him.”

Mancini arrived at the training ground today to face the grim realisation that he would have to put out the cones himself.

He then ran around them for a bit and went for a cup of tea. It was only at this point that he realised Michael Johnson had also turned up because he had been away all weekend celebrating the resurrection and death of Jesus Christ, missing the squad cull.

It is thought Johnson will now represent the team for the remaining six fixtures of the season, although Mancini hasn’t ruled out turning out himself if he feels Johnson is struggling to hold his own playing solo in the best league in the world.

Mancini has denied that he may be forced into a humiliating backtrack over his decision, saying that it is for the best of the club, adding: “If I let everyone come back what kind of message is that going to send to the squad of Michael and myself?

“We have a togetherness and trust as a squad and while the addition of nine extra players on the pitch may help in theory it will only undermine this wonderful team spirit we have created.”

Mancini added that along with Johnson his blue and white scarf had also survived the cull, though it is due a wash.

AN ENGLAND fan was thrown into a state of panic today when he looked at a map and realised for the first time quite how long it will take him to travel around Poland and Ukraine to watch his national team this summer.

Toby Sprout – who admitted he has done “zero preparation” for his trip – explained to reporters how he nearly choked on his morning bowl of Shreddies when he saw that some of the stadiums are up to 900 miles apart.

“It’s a complete joke,” Sprout said. “I assumed that because two countries were hosting the tournament they would be small countries, like when Northern Ireland and Wales hosted the World Cup in 74, but it turns out Poland and Ukraine are massive.

“What are we meant to do, fly everywhere?,” he added, laughing, before looking again at a map and realising that this was the only sensible option.

Such has been the general lack of organisation among England fans that the FA and the Foreign Office have set up a website specifically to help them navigate their way around the tournament, while foreign secretary William Hague has arranged for leaflets to be sent to prospective fans, explaining cultural sensitivities such as the Ukranian tradition of only eating borscht with sporks held in the right hand.

“The last thing I want is for embassies to be inundated with England fans asking for consular assistance because they didn’t know that you weren’t allowed to talk about religion after 6pm in Poland,” Hague said. “It’s really important that we get this right because we all know how prone eastern Europeans are to sudden bouts of bloody violence.”

It wasn’t all bad news for Sprout, who was relieved to see that the Foreign Office travel advice website says that Communism has been all but eradicated across vast swathes of Poland, and that in the some of the less economically depressed cities there may even be outbreaks of a carnival atmosphere.

“Also, everyone on TripAdvisor says the beer is really cheap,” Sprout added. “So worst case scenario I’ll just get bladdered with my mates in Warsaw and watch all the games on a big sceen.”

ARSENAL STARLET Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has received a stern warning by former superstar Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who has advised the pacy wideman about the dangers of having a very long name.

Vennegoor of Hesselink, who carved out a reasonably successful career at Celtic and Hull City, issued a plea yesterday for Oxlade-Chamberlian to consider changing, or at least shortening his name lest he fall into the sad spiral of mispronunciation and misspelt birthday cards which befell him.

“Having a very long name was great at first,” he said, “all the girls loved me and there was a novelty factor too. I really stood out on a team sheet.

“I won’t lie about it, there were other perks as well. No-one would have a long name in the first place if it wasn’t really fun.

“You’re popular at your club because of the boost you give to shirt printing revenue, you get slightly more of a commentator’s time which makes you feel really special, and it’s also a good timewasting trick to get booked in the final minutes as it takes the ref ages to write your name.”

But it wasn’t long before Vennegoor of Hesselink learned the brutal pitfalls of having a 20-character (excluding spaces) surname.

“I noticed after a while that Scottish commentators got bored, and started referring to me just as Vennegoor, then as “Venn…” and finally just by my shirt number, like a created player on Pro Evo.

“The interest from women dried up when they realised what a hassle it was with me taking two minutes to sign every autograph, the extra letters on my shirt started to weigh me down and a name of that length is just ammunition for cruel tabloid writers.

“My absolute low point came in 2005 when Marco van Basten admitted the real reason I hadn’t got an international call-up that month: my name was too long to fit in his Nokia’s phonebook, so he just hadn’t bothered to save me in it.”

Vennegoor of Hesselink attended The Priory Rehabilitation Centre And Temporary Home For Those Suffering With The Ill-Effects Of Having A Very Long Name in 2006 to get himself clean of his name, and emerged with a shortened name, “VoH” which he has stuck to to this day, apart from a relapse in 2010 when he began wearing his fully-named Celtic shirt on nights out.

He has pointed to the dangerous example of Theo Walcott, who was initially named Theodore William Turner Walcott-Smith, but spent so long thinking of how to shorten it that he forgot to practice and subsequently became rubbish at football.

The Dutchman has gone so far as to fill in deed poll forms for Oxlade-Chamberlain with suggestions for new names for him that include “The Ox” “Crossmaster” and “Desire 2.0″.

Vennegoor of Hesselink delivered them by hand to Oxlade-Chamberlains door last night, but Oxlade-Chamberlain elected not to let him in.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE insiders have admitted they are worried that the increasingly rampant popularity of King Kenny may be damaging the reputation of the monarchy as a whole, the last thing they need in a jubilee year.

King Kenny of Liverpool and the Wirral, a hugely popular member of the Royal Family during the 1980s and early 90s, is now seen a loose cannon who has associated the family with things they thought they had left behind including racist incidents, an inability to adapt to the modern world and Stewart Downing.

“We are not going to lie, we fear we have another Fergie on our hands,” said a Palace source, adding. “We mean Sarah Ferguson not Sir Alex, obviously, only an idiot would draw comparison between Kenny Dalglish and Alex Ferguson.

“The marriage of Wills and Kate did so much for the family’s reputation but we now worry all that will be undone by the this relatively minor royal. We have done so much to avoid being seen as the kind of people who waste money on needless luxuries, but then we see £16m splashed on Jordan Henderson which could have been put towards another yacht.”

Royals are worried that King Kenny’s behaviour will add to calls from the left-wing press for Britain to become a republic with a freely elected leadership, possibly operating with a coalition between Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier. However, that seems unlikely in a year when the Jubilee promises to provide an extra day of bank holiday.

Many in Liverpool feel King Kenny is taking an unnecasary beating, believing that he does so much for the city’s reputation abroad and in attracting tourists. A recent poll said he was the second greatest tourist attraction in the city, after the This Morning weather map.

King Kenny refused to comment on the pressure but insiders say he was terrified everytime he saw a white Fiat on his recent scouting trip to Paris.

FRESH WORRIES have been raised about the future of several key parts of north London this morning amid the news that Tottenham’s spectacular on-pitch implosion has become so severe that a black hole has now been created.

Key landmarks such as the Olympic Stadium, Seven Sisters tube station and the Aldi on Tottenham High Road are all thought to be at risk after the spacetime phenomenon manifested itself at the former site of White Hart Lane overnight, already sucking in all of the low-quality chip shops and housing within a half-mile radius.

Spurs’ dramatic and sudden drop off in form has been so strong that the previous feelgood feeling around White Hart Lane suddenly contracted, being replaced with a negative energy force fierce enough to rip a hole in the very mass of the footballing universe.

“As I understand it every time a Gareth Bale cross fails to beat the first man or David Bentley remains an unused substitute it angers the Thunder god,” said Spurs boss Harry Redknapp, speaking from a dark swirling spiral invisible to the human eye, but reporting seeing E=mc2 and other popular equations flying past him at random.

“What we’ve got to do now is get out of this mess with three points against Chelsea. And find a way out of the very dark place we’re in currently.”

The black hole is visible from high points in north London such as Alexandra Palace and the top of the Wembley arch, but those hoping to catch a sight are advised not to look directly at it, lest they be consumed by its fearsome and mysterious powers.

Sightings have also been reported from south London, but due to the distance involved those who have witnessed it are actually looking two years into the past, a fact that has played havoc with the league’s fixture organisation for the rest of the season.

Celebrity Alex James impersonator Professor Brian Cox, who supports Brentford, is excited about developments, calling Spurs’ plight “the most spectacular implosion I’ve seen since D:Ream’s second single”.

But there is widespread confusion among even the most experienced quantum physicists as to why the Emirates stadium has not been affected by events mere miles away, with the most likely explanation so far that it is a result of the “very different atmosphere” there.

EVERTON HAVE been issued with a written warning over their recent conduct, which the FA says is at odds with the culture they want to see at the business end of the season.

David Moyes – who has adopted an increasingly wacky touchline persona of late – has been told that he can no longer start Royston Drenthe at centreback or wear a comedy tie for the last game of the season, while lark-prone pair Duncan Ferguson and Neville Southall have been banned from Everton’s training ground.

The letter also calls on Marouane Fellani to get a haircut and explicitly bars Moyes from doing his Freemason’s handshake before the game in a bid to put off opposition managers – a Toffees tradition that stretches back to the days of Howard Kendall.

FA chairman David Bernstein today said that the business end of the season is “when the messing about has to stop”.

“All teams – but Everton especially – have to learn that come March it’s time to pull your socks up, keep an eye on your club’s share price, and try to win games.

“Everton’s attitude is emblematic of a lot of sides who don’t appear willing to accept that the ’silly season’ is over. How else do you explain scorelines like Man Utd 17 Arsenal 5, or the continuing presence of a Welsh club in the league?”

But Everton’s youth academy boss Alan Irvine defended Moyes after last night’s loss against Arsenal, telling the FA to “lay off” him.

“The thing about Moyesy is that having a laugh is in his blood – you can’t switch that off overnight. He’s always playing practical jokes and putting the lads in stitches, whether that’s by replacing the training ground canteen’s lunch buffet with hundreds of toffees or prank calling players late into the night before key games. It’s all part of what makes him such a great manager.”

That explanation will likely do little to placate Bernstein, however, who heaped praise on Norwich City, and in particular manager Paul Lambert, for “treating every stage of the season like the business end of the season”.

“Lambert’s clearly never told a joke in his life – so maybe Moyes can learn from that,” Bernstein said. “You won’t see any choreographed celebrations at Carrow Road, which must explain why they’ve been doing so well.”

A SLICK video calling for Terry Connor to be removed from his post as Wolves manager has become an internet sensation, racking up 23 million views on YouTube and raising concerns about its maker, Kevin Doyle.

CONY2012 features evocative, slow-motion shots of Manchester United putting 14 goals past Wolves on Sunday, and manipulative scenes involving youth players who claim to have been drafted into the first team squad against their will.

Within hours of the videos release last night the #CONY2012 hashtag was trending on Twitter, with millions of users desperately preaching the need to “raise awareness” about Terry Connor, without proposing what should actually be done about the “evil” Wolves boss.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said user @randombicycle. “What that awful man has done to the poor, disadvantaged people of the West Midlands is absolutely horrendous. It’s almost as bad as when Bryan Robson was in charge at West Brom.”

Before this weekend no one knew much about Connor outside of the thickly-forested and remote hills of the Black Country, but thanks to CONY2012 children around the world have united in their hatred of the former Brighton forward.

Schools as far away as Ipswich and Stoke have been showing the film and asking pupils to write about what they think should be done about Connor, who friends say has been “completely misrepresented”.

Celebrities such as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Florence (but not the machine), and the opera singer out of the Go Compare adverts were quick to jump on the bandwagon after Joey Barton tweeted about Wolves’ plight and denounced anyone who didn’t agree with him as #helmets.

But there are concerns as to the intentions of the film’s maker, Kevin Doyle, who spends much of its running time walking around Wolverhampton looking hot and encouraging groups of children to make posters calling for Connor’s head.

Doyle is alleged to belong to a shady evangelical group who want special rights for forwards who used to play in Ireland and are paid far too much money.

The striker was arrested last night for a public order offence after being caught masturbating in the middle lane of the Walsall bypass while muttering about badly organised offside traps, with fellow CONY2012 video maker Sylvan Ebanks-Blake explaining that it had been an “emotional” week for his team mate.

Black Country experts have said that regardless of Doyle’s intentions, CONY2012 doesn’t tackle the real issues facing Wolves, namely CEO Jez Moxey’s fascination with building half of football stands, Emmanuel Frimpong’s overuse of the imaginary word “dench”, and the impact of high gold prices on the manufacturing costs of the club’s kit.

DAVID CAMERON ramped up the rhetoric over Maradona’s disputed Hand of God goal today, claiming that England is the rightful owner of the goal and the controversy surrounding it around because of our proud history of heroic failures.

“The quality of the plucky loser is embedded in our national psyche,” Cameron told reporters, “so we demand that Argentina relinquish their bragging rights to the goal and allow us to wallow in the injustice of the whole incident.”

In recent weeks the PM has drawn plaudits from the nation’s tabloid press, which have backed England’s claim to the Hand of God with belligerent headlines ridiculing the Spanish translation “Mano di Dios” and reports of Prince Harry flying to South America in full England training regalia after a three-year stint training at the Lilleshall Academy.

But liberal goalkeeper and pundit David James has criticised the renewing of hostilities, arguing that the goal belongs to Argentina and describing England’s obsession with it as embarrassing.

“Let’s not forget that the Sun’s ‘Gotcha’ headline only referred to an enthusiastically won throw-in by England, and nothing more,” James said. “Do we really want to embarrass ourselves again by picking a fight with a nation that everyone else in the world much prefers to us?”

James’s stance was echoed by actor and activist Sean Penn, who arranged a press conference this morning where he said “England is the only country in the world that thinks the Hand of God belongs to them”, before introducing Noam Chomsky to the stage to talk about their forthcoming collaboration on a film exposing the struggles of the much-victimised short corner.

Cameron as been accused of exploiting a populist cause to distract from the brutal cuts being made by the coalition to goal line technology research, though religious observers have pointed out that the entire issue will be moot as and when God sends his son back to Earth to claim the Hand of God as his own.

BARCELONA MANAGER Pep Guardiola has distanced himself from links to Chelsea and England by saying he wants to spend a year spending some quality time with the latest version of Football Manager.

Guardiola, who has been playing the demo version of the game on the coach to away trips to try it out, has said that he feels he has taken Barcelona as far as he can and needs a new challenge, one in which he won’t have to leave his house.

“It is all very well winning La Liga and the Champions League in real life,” said Guardiola. “But the proper test for the modern manager is to pick up your MacBook and spend a day getting your DMC’s pressing levels spot-on. That is what seperates your Sir Alex Fergusons from your Less Reeds. That and success in the real world.”

Guardiola is planning to follow many virtual managers and start his first career as the team he supports, Barcelona, but says after a couple of seasons of that he is eyeing the popular “take Rochdale to the Champions League in 10 seasons” challenge, adding that he hopes Chris Kiwomya is still listed as a free transfer like the last time he attempted this challenge in the late 90s.

While Guardiola’s closest allies in the game are backing his decision, Spanish football expert Guillem Balague has warned him that it may not be as easy as he thinks to be a success in the virtual world. “It is all played at a much more frantic pace, you can get a season done in about two days” he said.

“He also needs to resist temptation to use the editor to give himself loads of money. While it will lead to short term success you will feel very little self worth once you have closed the laptop lid.”

Guardiola however says that after playing on the demo he is confident he can transfer his skills, saying he is delighted to see that the team talks aspect of the game is exactly the same as real life, with five options ranging from “we can win this” to “do it for the fans”.

However, he added that he is “baffled as to why coaches that he knows for a fact don’t like him in real life rate him as world class within the game”.

If all goes well Guardiola has said he may have to take a second year out of the game as he is hopeful of an invite to a prestigious network game with Mick McCarthy and Ron Atkinson.