Sports Calendar

November 19, 3.40am: Caller, who appeared agitated but rational, reported being disturbed by a recurrent dream in which he found himself publicly exposed in a lime-coloured catsuit, clinging to a scantily clad woman barely known to him and spinning about the place in the company of Jimmy Tarbuck, Emma Bunton and someone from breakfast television whom neither he, nor anyone else, could quite pin down.

()Caller stated that the dream, which had a nightmarish, fantastical quality to it, occurred weekly and tended to leave him sweating, short of breath and badly dizzied.

Therapist stated that he in no way wished to compromise the anonymity that was essential to any phone helpline, but that one possible explanation for this disturbance was that the caller was Mark Ramprakash, of Surrey and Strictly Come Dancing fame. Caller seemed satisfied with this conclusion and call ended.

Call duration: 3min 40sec

November 25, 10.16pm: Caller reported that his attempts at sledging tended uncontrollably towards the infantile. To his own distress, he had recently found himself calling to a batsman from the slips: “Smelly socks and no returns.”

Caller added that his own responses to being sledged were similarly embarrassing and playground-based. He had been known to reply, “I know you are, but what am I?” and even, once or twice, had placed his fingers in his ears and repeatedly shouted, “Not listening! Not listening!” while making loud ululations.

Therapist enumerated the three key areas on which the mature sledger profitably concentrates, namely: 1) the batsman’s weight; 2) the batsman’s wife; 3) the weight of the batsman’s wife, as measured from an intimate vantage.

Therapist then organised an impromptu role-play session in which the caller was encouraged to imagine that the therapist was a batsman and to sledge the therapist in whatever way he thought fit. Caller responded well, shaking off some early inhibitions and becoming increasingly forceful, confident and proactive in his sledging.

Call was terminated when the therapist eventually took grave exception to the caller’s repeated allegation that his mother was a Mongolian brood mare.

Call duration: 2hr 43min 37sec

November 28, bang in the middle of supper: Caller, who appeared to be speaking from a distant location, informed the therapist that he had been specially selected to receive the opportunity to win the holiday of a lifetime, with thousands of runner-up prizes of DVD players, digital cameras and personal stereos — but that first he would need to answer a few simple questions about his home insurance cover.

Therapist concluded that the caller was as close to mad as made no difference and hung up directly.

Call duration: 13sec

Charlton need to bond, team bond

IT WAS alleged this week that Luke Young, the captain of Charlton Athletic, organised a morale-building, team-bonding night out and that only four team-mates showed up — a disappointing turnout in the circumstances.

Nevertheless, the smaller-scale team-bonding event would have its advantages. You might really get to bond, for example, if there were only four of you, rather than, say, 24. It would also mean more goes on the go-kart/bowls down the bowling lane, or whatever.

Simpler trips to the bar, too. And much less of that tedious fluffing about when the bill comes. (“But I only had the poppadums . . .”) Still, only four people? It doesn’t exactly suggest togetherness at The Valley. What that team need is a bonding event of some kind.

Rooney works on his sign language

MORE signs of the sorry slough in which Wayne Rooney finds himself up to his shins. Confronted, after Wednesday night’s debacle in Croatia, by a wrathful England fan, hissing with indignation, the struggling forward reacted by raising two fingers in the fan’s direction. Two fingers! An on-form Rooney — a Rooney fully at ease with himself — would have stuck one on him.