Sunderland’s Darren Bent fired a shot which hit a red beach ball and deflected past goalkeeper Pepe Reina in the fifth minute to hand Liverpool a 1-0 defeat, thus ruining their entire season and enraging all Kop fans.

In a far-fetched version of an own-goal, the ball, branded with a Liverpool crest, had been thrown on to the pitch earlier by a young Liverpool fan. He might be dead now.

As far as the ruling by the ref to count the goal? A Premier League spokesman said: ‘The beach ball was an inanimate object so the referee should have stopped the game as soon as he was aware it was on the field of play. However, the difficulty would be if he didn’t see it until it was struck by the match ball.’

Either way, that stupid SOB was relegated from the Premier League to the Championship for this weekend’s rounds.

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