Sport

If you want to get ahead, get a fat head

DodgyTackle

A SCIENTIFIC report published this week in the Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiological Journal (I'd buy one now and again) has confirmed that footballers with big fat, wide heads are far better than people with small, skinny, narrow heads at scoring goals and attempting to wipe out opposing players with heavy tackles respectively.

Boffins at the University of Colorado Boulder - I didn't make up that last word - monitored almost 1,000 players who competed at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, analysing their facial-width-to-height-ratio (fWHR) - or for those of you not wearing duffel coats, sandals and nylon socks, the-size-of-their-domes-andcoupons (tSOTDAC).

When all their quadratic equations were added up, multiplied by steak and kidney Pi and divided by E=MC caramel squared over the next four years, a direct correlation between tSOTDAC and the amount of goals and assists from a forward was established; the higher the figure, the more likely the striker was to make a decisive impact during an important match.

The analytical data also revealed that players with higher tSOTDAC/ fWHR were more likely to be complete and utter dirtbirds - probably because they were relatively rotund, murdered with heartburn and too slow in making the tackle in the first place. "Previous research into facial structure of athletes has been primarily in the United States and Canada," said Keith Welker, lead geek of the groundbreaking paper. "No-one had really looked at how facial-width-to-height ratio is associated with athletic performance by comparing people from across the world. "There are a lot of athletic data out there. We were exploring contexts to look at aggressive behavior and found that the 2010 World Cup, which quantifies goals, fouls and assists, provides a multinational way of addressing whether facial structure produces this aggressive behavior and performance and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Good man, Keith. There's your coat. Maybe catch ye later sure. So, in other words kids, the secret to becoming a combative World Cup goalscorer would appear to be honing those chops, lollipops and Rabonas on your X-Box, scoffing junk food, ice cream and sugary drinks by the skipload and increasing that all-important chin count until a scout from one of the big clubs across the water notices you/gets stuck squeezing past you.

And see if your ma has any doubts about this way of getting a head/ahead? Tell her that big Dodgy Tackle said big fat heads are the type of heads earning all the big dough in football and doing all the damage up front at World Cups and stuff these days. Good luck with the over-eating and living the dream. A hat-trick of jam doughnuts, a brace of those Reese peanut butter cups and a quart of Sprite Zero will do rightly for giving you the (big) heads-up.