Streatham Rovers FC - Club Statement February 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London, ENG: Today Streatham Rovers Football Club have issued the following statement for immediate release:

Streatham Rovers Football Club has been made aware of allegations published today in a local newspaper regarding the fate of a lost dog that went missing in the Norbury area on Thursday 22nd December 2022.

The "so-called" newspaper has insinuated that the dog - a "beloved family pet named Berkeley" - was "lured to the gentlemen's toilets of the Greyhound Lane Stadium in Streatham where it was subjected to a horrific fatal chemical attack by an employee of Streatham Rovers FC."

We would like to list the various errors in this article:

Tony Moss, who some of you will know as prolific and wide-ranging poster 'Peckham_Tony' on the online fan forum, is not a paid "employee" of the Football Club. He occupies a position on the Club Committee, responsible for Stadium Security, which is entirely voluntary.

The dog did not give the appearance of a "beloved family pet" as it prowled the empty stadium on Thursday 22nd December 2022. Eyewitness accounts described it as looking "dishevelled", "mongrel-like", "potentially rabid" and "not unlike a wolf".

Saying it was "lured to the gentlemen's toilets" make this sound like some sort of Pied Piper scenario. What really happened is Tony was contacted via WhatsApp, caught the P13 bus from his home in Peckham to Streatham Station, popped into Tesco Extra, bought some pork chops because the Christmas rush meant they were out of most lines of sausages, walked into the Greyhound Lane Stadium's Clubhouse, viewed the canine via binoculars whilst eating a previously prepared packed lunch, before deciding that the beast was too potentially dangerous to disable by normal means.

Tony set about using one of the complementary tins of Xtermin8 Rat Poison we receive every year from the Xtermin8 Rat Poison Football League to fashion an improvised "dirty bomb" which he placed in the gentlemen's toilets under the Shufflebottom Stand. He utilised the aforementioned pork chops to tempt the animal into the lavatory, lit a short fuse with a lighter, and hurriedly closed the door and created an airtight seal around it with wet towels and youth team kits.

Within a few short hours the dog's squealing and murmuring finally stopped. So, no, not a clean kill but not quite "horrific" either.

On closer inspection the following morning approximately 80% of the animal had liquidised, and - whilst I have no veterinarian training - that suggests to me its nervous system went into shutdown mode, not unlike a laptop, so it's doubtful whether it felt any pain whatsoever.

We note that the owners were blissfully unaware of the fate of their dog, and were still putting up 'Missing' posters as recently as this week, and will now have likely received some very upsetting news thanks to the meddling of a local newspaper desperately trying to find any grim and unpleasant stories it can in a desperate bid to boost their longterm decline in circulation.

I ask you, in all sincerity, who is more at fault here? Us for dealing with what could well have been a rabid Belgian hound that emerged from the Channel Tunnel and could easily have sunk its teeth into the jugulars of a beautiful six year old girl, or this muckraking excuse for a newspaper?

We would also like to refer you to Xtermin8 Rat Poison Football League Rules & Regulations, Article 19c, Section VIII which clear states that "any disciplinary hearing regarding allegations of animal cruelty by a Member Club will take into account supporter and public safety as a mitigating factor."