The Second Serve: Blow Your Whistle

New To Club Popbitch?
Get previous Second Serve issues [here]
The Popbitch Popquiz archive is [here]
The Daily Audio Quiz archive is [here]

“Nearly all members of boybands it seems have at some point a mental breakdown” Robbie Williams

A second serving of scandal and slander Subscribe
Email stories to us club@popbitch.com
* More Referee Scandal
* More Media Bogs
* PLUS: The last word on Barrioke

>> Band Aid <<

Fame, what is it good for

The story of the comedown from life in a boyband drags on. There’s a great BBC series currently telling this from the perspectives of band members who lived through the crazy excesses. As you can imagine, it’s not all good.
This isn’t the space to go into the psychological impact of instant fame, but we can address one of the other concerns that keep coming up in these documentaries – just how overworked and underpaid these bands were.
We remember sitting down with some of S Club after the band split. What came over was how they never really got the chance to enjoy being popstars because they were on such a work treadmill. Jo recalled being at the Brits and winning an award, and the band being told as they got off the stage they had to leave, get on a coach and make an appearance elsewhere tomorrow. When they asked if they could just stay for an hour and enjoy their big win – they were told no. They looked wistfully over at the other artists about to celebrate, and just left.
She said it was moments like these, gone forever, that made them feel saddest.

There’s a carol concert hosted by Eamonn Holmes in Chiswick on 5 December, with Jo and Jon from S Club singing – in aid of rescue dogs. For £30 quid a ticket!

>> Red card? <<

Done for dissent

Last week’s big question suggested there were potentially more stories to come out on Klopp-hating, gak-loving ref David Poote.Tabloids had received some screengrabs they were keen to publish; chat messages the ref shouldn’t have been sending to a young fan.
But perhaps something didn’t stack up – as the weekend grooming splash got nixed.
Instead, we’ve done a quick round-up of other a few other refereeing scandals from around the world.

A gay referee in Brazil has claimed that 30% of male soccer players in the league were gay or bi. (He didn’t offer up any evidence for this, however).

>> Fake news <<

Sex tapes in Turkey

Last month, Turkish ref Elif Karaarslan was suspended by the Turkish Football Federation’s refereeing commission for starring in a sex video with one of her bosses. Only, she says, it’s absolutely not her, but an AI fake.
The poor ref had to endure football fans watching a video of a AI version of herself having sex with her 61-year-old referee supervisor.
The only upside, she gained half a million Instagram followers from it.

An ex-referee now TV pundit, Fernando Colombo, says her TV work got so popular that she was rung up by an escort agency and offered $2k a time to meet with their clients for “intimate” time. Probably not something that happens to Howard Webb or Mark Clattenburg on a daily basis.

>> Heads or Taylor <<

Swift retribution

Whatever Taylor Swift does she seems to generate endless social media fodder. Even going to a NFL game.
Ever since she started dating Travis Kelce, his team, Kansas Chiefs, can’t seem to stop making headlines.
Last weekend’s conspiracy theory even managed to reel in a referee. Sarah Thomas is the NFL’s most prominent female ref, and last weekend she was officiating Chiefs v Broncos. Before the game she stopped to chat to Tay-Tay, even getting her family up on FaceTime to say hi to the megastar (according to a sports reporter who says he witnessed it all).
When the Chiefs won a close match 16-14 Broncos fans, and general internet shit-stirrers, went into overdrive, alleging pro-Chiefs bias. That this was just part of a campaign by the NFL to try and engineer a Chiefs’ three-peat at the next Super Bowl.
Then again, if you were going to try and massage a whole season’s football results, perhaps getting Swift to say hi to a referee’s family in a very public setting, might not be top of the list of things you’d plan to do…

In Dec 2023, Turkish team Ankaragucu conceded a 97th minute equaliser in the Super Lig, precipitating club president, Faruk Koca, to run on the pitch and punch ref Umut Meler in the face. Meler was then kicked by the rest of the Ankaragucu team while he lay on the ground. All Turkish football was suspended in the aftermath.

>> Bad habits <<

Looking in the Mirror

Anon writes:
“Seeing as newspaper lavs have been a thing, I’ll tell you about my time at the Mirror, when we occupied floors 21-23 of One Canada Square, Canary Wharf.
“The main toilets on the newsroom floor were obviously a high-traffic area. Until one Christmas party, I found a better one, located near a rarely-used photography studio down on floor two. Perfectly clean, quiet and untouched, I was elated. It was my secret.
“Until the next day when I went down, and out of the door came editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley with a newspaper under his arm.”

To add to the story about Reach plc and Vice banning emoji reactions on company calls, it happened at Future Publishing too, after their CEO received so many negative emojis when answering questions submitted by staff.

>> Soap Opera <<

Before Barrioke

PC writes:
“More on Barrioke – when Shaun Williamson was at the height of his Eastenders fame, he was notorious around the show bands of the Kent area near to where he lived because he would always get somebody to ask if he could get up and sing with the band.
“Every band on the circuit took great joy in telling him to fuck off. He even tried to gatecrash the rehearsal of some of the bands and offer advice to their singers. Advice that sounded a bit like, hop it and let me have a go.”

Ant says that Katie Price tried it on with Dec after her I’m A Celeb stint, but he wasn’t having any of it.

>> Prizebitch <<

Could you be a contender?

There’s a pair of tickets up for grabs for the Q&A of The Contender, with the director, on 28th Nov.
Before Big Brother, before The Truman Show, there was Nasubi. The incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone… and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV in Japan.
Send us a joke and the winner gets the tickets to the Curzon Cinema. Soho, 28th Nov.
club@popbitch.com

Stone Roses Ian Brown was spotted at Manchester art fair looking at a urinal with the words “you suffer, but why?” sprayed on it.

>> Hmmms <<

A few quick things

Answers to last week’s audio round?
[2ManyDJs Introversy]
Adam Rickett now runs a craft booze shop/bar
[In Knutsford]
Nick Cave’s rules for men
[Read in the Atlantic]
New t.A.T.u. cover
[All The Things She Said]

Thanks to: AA NZ

Old Jokes Home

Q: Why do make-up artists take so long to kiss?
A: Because their lips stick
(Sorry)

Fancy Another?