I received an urgent fax from the ether today…with only one day to go before the football season begins in England, Mystic Pete communicated with me, his vessel on the earthly plane, with this year’s football predictions. Now I know Mystic Pete has had his moments in the past (four years in a row the teams he predicted for the champion’s league all got knocked out in round 1, newcastle to win the league the season they ended up sacking bobby robson, etc etc), but there is no reason to doubt his prognostic prowess. “…another title for Man United…” he said not-so-cryptically, “…spurs coming fourth; arsenal fifth maybe, but only because everyone else are still too rubbish to get there…” He went on, “barcelona for the champion’s league…” (thierry henry is quaking already) “…cardiff city to get promoted, but not as champions…derby, wigan and birmingham to go down…marseille to finally break lyon’s deadlock in france…fernando torres to score loads of goals…gareth southgate will be first manager on the chopping block, and boro will stay up as a result…” Oh yes, and the obligatory “…spurs for the fa cup…” Yeah you say that every year mate, please give us a chance for once! He even had a few predictions for Euro 2008: “…don’t worry england, you’ll get there, and i’ll hazard northern ireland and scotland will too…mystic pete used a calculator…”

And the mists evaporated and Mystic Pete was gone, for another year, off to predict football scores in other alternate universes. You can see his full list if you follow the “Mystic Pete” link (on the old blog). I bear no responsibility.

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully