The following is a copy of a letter sent to the English Football Association on Thursday 6th December, due to the slowness of the SFA to recognise Bob's ability. For news on their reply and other Bob developments, sign up for free to Bob's Special Weekly Newsletter through the link above...

*

XXXXXXXXX
Broughty Ferry
Dundee
Scotland
XXX XXX

Thursday 4th December

Hello!

I am writing, God help me, to apply for the England manager’s job. Now, before I go on, I should hold my hands up and admit that I’m Scottish. I’m a Dundee man, and I always have been. And that’s not going to change, I’ll tell you that for bloody free. Don’t you be trying to make me say I’m from London and live on Old Kent Road or anything like that. Or Fenchurch Street Station, or Northumberland Avenue or any of the greens. Regent Street and that.

When we play Monopoly, Frank always goes for the greens and I always tell him the same thing. ‘For Christ’s sake, take it easy Frank. If you blow all your money on the greens then you won’t be able to buy any houses, let alone a bloody hotel’. But he never, ever listens and it always ends up with him having a tantrum and turning the board over.

There’s one other thing that you should probably know and that is that I have already applied for the Scotland job and, as far as I am aware, that is currently under serious consideration by the SFA. I was getting a lot of pressure from people in Broughty Ferry to apply and in the end, I’m not ashamed to say, I buckled.

But, for goodness sake, don’t feel that I’m only using you as a safety net. I think I could bring a fresh approach to things down there and really shake things up and, if I don’t get the Scotland job, then I can be on the next train down. I would need someone to meet Frank and myself at the station however, as we’ve only seen London on Only Fools and Horses, Eastenders, and Bergerac.

Frank says he met a couple from Birmingham in Tenerife a few years ago and they were perfectly OK and my friend Chappy Williams has a cousin in Newcastle. Other than that though, we don’t really have too many pals down that way. But I think that’s a good thing, because it will force us to come out our shells a little bit. Especially Frank. He’s only started speaking to people in Fife in the last few years.

I know what you’re thinking. What would Bob and Frank say to the boys before they go out? How would they turn them from duffers into Bobby Dazzlers? I’ll tell you that right now. I’d wait until a minute before kick off, make sure they all had the right gear on and that it matched and so on, and then I’d say –

“Right boys, here we go. Now, listen up and listen good because I’m the gaffer here. Some of you are probably thinking ‘Where’s the gaffer from? He doesn’t talk like us’. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m from the Ferry, Harbour View Road to be precise, just down from Safeways. I know what you’re thinking, that it’s not called Safeways any more and that it’s called Marks and Spencers. I’m going to tell you two things. The first is that I will never call that shop anything other than Safeways until the day I die. And the second is that the game is about to start and we should really be talking tactics. So listen up. I want you to go out there and have some fun. I don’t mean mucking about, pulling down each other’s shorts or doing Chinese burns. I mean having fun with the ball, passing it about and scoring wonderful goals. Because that’s what it’s all about. OK, off you go then boys. Lead them out. Not you Frank. Frank, why the hell have you got a strip on? Captain?! Jesus Christ Frank, how could you be the captain? You’ve not English, you’ve got bad knees and you’re 58 years old. Sorry about this boys. You lads go out and we’ll sort this out. I’ll see you out there. Best of luck. Right Frank, get that gear off and stick your bloody tracksuit on. We’ll talk about this later”.

What do you think? I look forward to hearing from you on this. Send me your best offer, let’s not embarrass ourselves by haggling.

Your Servant,

Bob Servant