Dennis Wise finally explains why spending £1million on a player who is no good, was actually an excellent idea.

In a hefty dose of nostalgia that left readers longing for the good old days, the weekend newspapers were once more cluttered to the brim with high-level comedy courtesy of Newcastle United. Amongst the more interesting revelations from the fall-out of Kevin Keegan’s tribunal, was that Dennis Wise pressured the Messiah into paying £1million for a player nobody at the club had actually seen play, with the sole intention of keeping some South American agents on board.

Wise should have spent the weekend bathing in shame at his behaviour, yet rather had the gall to show his face on television during yesterday’s Super Sunday Sky offering. True to form, the man who Alex Ferguson once said, “could start a row in an empty house,” has come out fighting, insisting these payments were worthwhile and part of a broader plan. Loveable Dennis explained:

“The long-term idea was we would have a relationship where we would have first option on all the best young South American kids, and that was important to the club.”

All well and good. Except we here at spoiler HQ have been racking our collective brains all morning to try and think of any South American youngster (for the sake of argument, under the age of 21) who has ever even remotely achieved anything in the Premier League. The best we could do was Mauro Zarate’s brief but ultimately doomed four months at Birmingham City two seasons ago.

Are we wrong? Or is Dennis Wise defending the indefensible? Tell us below…

It’s zillionth choice striker Xisco!

The Spaniard pictured with some of his close male friends

As the player whose arrival at St James’ Park signalled Sir Kevin of Keegan’s impromptu exit, it’s little surprise that Xisco never became a fan favourite.

Dennis Wise’s greatest foray into the transfer market was shipped out on loan to Racing Santander last week, but it has been revealed that this move was born from controversial circumstances.

In his last days at Newcastle, the Spaniard complained of a groin injury and missed training for nine days. Subsequently, he insisted that he would need a further two weeks to recuperate. Just three days after saying this, however, Xisco successfully completed his first training session with Racing. Ruling out the possibility of a miraculous recovery, the player has had the gall/stupidity to admit that he forced his exit by faking the injury.

Ratboy turns up for Chelsea captains’ lap of honour

Several months ago, a small aggressive man with rat-like features went missing from the north east. His last known employer was Newcastle Utd football club, and he was last seen in the company of a rotund cockney. Thankfully, The Spoiler’s manhunt is now over*, as Dennis Wise was yesterday spotted on the playing surface at Stamford Bridge.

Following the victory over Blackburn, the world’s favourite person named Dennis Wise (well, second favourite if you count fictional ex-cons who run Baltimore boxing clubs) performed a lap of honour with John Terry, Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris and Roy Bentley. Chelsea’s most successful captains were honouring Bentley’s 85th birthday, giving the majority of the home crowd their first ever glimpse of players who played at Stamford Bridge before 2003.

*Technically, the manhunt was over in March, when the popular former Newcastle Executive Director made a public appearance in Swindon for the Christian Roberts Testimonial in a fetching pink kit. But let’s not get technical, OK?

Spoiler bonus: Here’s thirteen-year-old Wisey on Record Breakers.

Vintage Ratboy footage marks anniversary of FA Cup giant killing

While Liverpool supporters will pay their respects at the Hillsborough Memorial game at Anfield tonight, today represents a very different kind of anniversary for Wimbledon fans.

It is 21 years to the day that the Dons caused one of the biggest upsets in English football history, by beating League Champions Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final. The Crazy Gang - whose members included Dennis Wise, Vinnie Jones and John Fashanu - proved too strong for the likes of Alan Hansen, John Barnes and Peter Beardsley on the day, coming out 1-0 winners thanks to a Lawrie Sanchez header. Unfortunately, the Wombles were denied the opportunity to compete in Europe, thanks to the ban on English teams caused by the actions of Liverpool supporters in the 1985 Heysel disaster.

It’s amazing to think that just eleven seasons earlier, top flight Wimbledon were a non league side. If such a fairytale rise through the leagues is ever to be repeated, it will probably be done by the club’s current incarnation, AFC Wimbledon. Started by fans when the original club was brutally murdered by Adam Crozier’s FA and sold to a Milton Keynes franchise in 2002, AFC will begin next season with the likes of Luton and Oxford Utd in the Blue Square Premier.

The video above is taken from the BBC’s coverage of the 1988 final (the last one to be screened on both the BBC and ITV), and shows Dennis Wise getting thoroughly embarrassed on the coach journey to Wembley. Say what you like about Wise and Vinnie Jones (who used to affectionately refer to his aforementioned colleague as ‘Ratboy’), but footballers simply aren’t as funny and honest as this when interviewed on camera any more.

Toon legend backs other Toon legend to beat the drop

After maintaining radio silence for most of yesterday, Newcastle Utd finally admitted they will be re-employing Alan Shearer for the final eight games of the season. (They also released a separate statement to confirm that Dennis Wise has been sent him with no supper. “There are no plans to appoint a replacement in this role,” they emphasised.)

No one is more delighted by the surprise appointment than Paul Gascoigne, who writes about his old England team mate in today’s Sun:

I would like to think that Big Al’s first team talk would not need to be much.Just looking at the man, and knowing what he has achieved at Newcastle - and throughout his career - should be enough.

You have to respect him, what he has to say and his knowledge of the game.

Gascoigne continued to praise the new manager, and insisted that love of things that are black and white compensates for his lack of experience:

The thing about Alan is that he will have the players eating with black and white knives and forks, driving black and white cars… everything will be black and white.

He has black and white in his veins.

It looks like Marcello Lippi is wrong

Everyone agrees that Dennis Wise has done a super job as Executive Director of Football at Newcastle Utd, and one of his greatest achievements is the signing of extremely popular Spanish striker Francisco Jiménez Tejada, better known as Xisco.

Our friends at Kickette stumbled upon a site named Football Boners (we didn’t ask), where they discovered pictures of the 22-year-old having fun on the beach.

Check out more reasons why Xisco won’t be next on Danielle Lloyd’s hitlist after the jump…

Has anybody seen Dennis Wise lately?

There’s a bit of a mystery unfolding on Tyneside - no one seems to be able to locate Newcastle Utd’s Executive Director of Football Dennis Wise.

The man whom Vinnie Jones warmly refers to as “Ratboy” hasn’t been in the directors’ box at St James’ for a few months, and apparently played no part in the January transfer window negotiations. Out of pure concern for his well being, The Spoiler called all his known contacts - Mike Ashley, Dick van Dyke, Danny Baker, Jason Statham and Trigger - but no one has seen him.

Regardless of his whereabouts, the rumour vine suggests Wisey is about to part company with Newcastle. It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t want a man who has sourced fantastic talent like Xisco, who drove out King Kev, and who preferred to take his family to the theatre in London rather than attend important matches, but that’s just how ruthless the folks who run the club are willing to be in these difficult times.

Following the news that Leeds Utd refused a recent Newcastle bid for rising star Fabian Delph, we compared Dennis Wise’s scouting network to that of one of his contemporaries