WEEKLY WHINE

Look away, Joe

Well, you may have heard about last week's ammonia incident in France's Ligue 1 last weekend. If you haven't, here's the condensed version. Paris Saint-Germain visited Olympique Marseille on SUN 16 OCT 2005 and were horrified to discover that the air in their locker room was full of ammonia. The team had to wait a half hour before another locker room was prepared; on the bright side, as they were waiting, they did get to meet Clara Morgane, a French pornographic actress.

Naturally, this is just another chapter in the long history of sports teams trying to get a leg up on one another. From the University of Iowa's pink away locker rooms to the "malfunctioning" air conditioning at Boston Garden, you're going to see this more and more as sports become more and more corrupt.

So if you're a team and you've been trying to think of a creative way to screw over your opponents before the match even starts, you don't need to any more, because the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED] has done that for you.

FORGET THE UNIFORMS

This happened a couple of years ago in San Diego, CA, USA. The Chargers wanted to wear their white uniforms, but the Denver Broncos said, "Um... we only brought our white uniforms." The Chargers responded, "What the fuck did you do that for?" Sure, the Broncos were fined for it, but did they win the game? Well... nobody on our panel can remember.

GROUNDSKEEPING EXCITEMENT

Popular especially in baseball, where the grounds crew will leave the grass long if a ground ball team is visiting, soak the basepaths if a running team is visiting, and so on. But it can also be applied to other sports. For instance, curlers might want to adjust the ice temperature, golfers can install sand traps at the tees, and Scrabble players can swipe a few Ms and Us from the bag.

TELL YOUR FANS WHERE THEY ARE

So that your fans can play drums outside their hotel all night. Note that this has been known to backfire. Green Bay fans frequently moon the visiting team's bus, which once prompted Randy Moss to catch a touchdown pass and perform a mimed version of the same thing at them. It also prompted Joe Buck to become Tom DeLay.

SEND PROSTITUTES TO THEIR HOTEL ROOMS THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MATCH

Note that this has been known to backfire. Ronaldo has said that he had a quickie with his then-wife prior to the 2002 Men's World Cup final. And we all know how that went down.