That honour belongs to Bobby Robson

Joe Kinnear has hit the headlines for upsetting want-away winger Charles N’Zogbia. In an interview he pronounced the player’s surname as “Insomnia”, which would have been a brilliant joke if he meant it.

While the Frenchman has used the comment as an extraordinarily tenuous excuse to jump off Kinnear’s sinking ship, one of his co-workers took a managerial insult in a much more light-hearted manner when Bobby Robson was in charge:

Reporter to Newcastle’s Shola Ameobi: ‘Do you have a nickname?’
Ameobi: ‘No, not really’
Reporter: ‘What do the lads call you?’
Ameobi: ‘Shola’
Reporter: ‘So what does Bobby Robson call you?’
Ameobi: ‘Carl Cort.’

Robson and Kinnear, however, aren’t the only managers to forget their own players names. The bastion of naming errors is undoubtedly Jack Charlton, who regularly confused one of the world’s most famous footballers with a Moors murderer:

“It’s possible that I may have called Liam Brady Ian on a couple of occasions. I was stuck with this reputation for forgetfulness. And it became a bit of a party piece with me. Announcing the Irish team to the press after training, I’d go, ‘Bonner, Morris, Houghton, Moran - and that big lad, what d’you call him …’ and someone would prompt me - ‘McCarthy!’ - without realising that I was taking the mickey yet again.”

Newcastle star mistakenly believed his pigsty home was burgled

Fearing he had become the latest Premier League burglary victim, Shola Ameobi recently phoned the police to report a break in. The concerned Newcastle striker told Northumbria Police that several items including his chequebook had been purloined from his £500,000 mansion. However, shortly after making the call, he realised that he hadn’t been burgled at all - his house was just really messy:

Police called the incident a ‘genuine misunderstanding’ and a source told the Daily Mirror: ‘We were told thieves had taken a number of things, the most important one being the chequebook.

‘Given what soccer stars earn, that was obviously a matter of great concern. Then we got a call back saying nothing was missing after all.

‘Perhaps he had had a party and the place just looked as if it had been burgled.’

It must have been an incredible party if Ameobi has absolutely no recollection of staging it…

Newcastle bonus: Ameobi isn’t the only Magpie to brush with the law. Oba Martins has been in court after being caught doing 106mph. Amazingly, he kept his licence. Actually, he’s a famous footballer, so it’s not that amazing.