Imitation might not be the sincerest form of flattery for the people who write the Guardian’s daily email about football gossip – The Fiver.

Reacting with the elan of a chided teenager, The Fiver dedicated last Wednesday’s edition to ripping the piss out of the newly launched Times football email – Ahead of the Game. Mocking the launch thus:

Yes, folks, we’ve had a brainwave! The Fiver is dead – long live Behind The Times, our original, groundbreaking, new, crazy, alpha-male email about FOOTER!!! So sign up to our flagship new venture, and we will send you FIVE minutes of F.U.N. about FOOTER to your inbox EVERY DAY!!!! AT 5PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s a bit like the Fiver… only TRULY USEFUL. And about FOOTER! Yes, you heard that right! It’s about FOOTER! And you really can use it!

And later:

120

The number of minutes Ahead Of The Game should wait each day at 4pm before sending out their all-new funny email about footer. That way, they could save themselves a load of unnecessary bother by simply cutting and pasting the contents of the Fiver and sending those out (but not before correcting all our spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and adding some funny jokes).

Followed by reams of links to old news stories.

Funny? Well, for a bit.