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Here at ToePoke we like a bit of lunacy. After all, it’s the nutters we all tend to remember; Zizou’s headbutt, Eric’s Shaolin fly kick. You get the picture. There are more nuts in football than in an (original) Ronaldo tranny scandal. And to kick it off, we’ve got the Godfather of headcases, Luciano Gaucci.

Granted, signor Gaucci is not the most recognisable name in the football universe, but his exploits more than justify his place at the ToePoke zenith of mentalness. From 1991-2004, he was the Chairman of Perugia; 13 years spent single-handedly destroying the team’s credibility.

In 2002, he sacked South Korean forward Ahn-Jung Hwan after the striker scored the goal that eliminated the Azzurri from the World Cup. The day after, he was quoted as saying, “I am not going to pay the salary of a guy who has been the ruin of Italian soccer”. Assumedly, he was informed of how much of a bell-end this made him look, and offered to reinstate Hwan’s contract. Hwan said no. And so the mentalness continued.

Whether this incident damaged Luciano in some way, we’re none too sure, but we’re happy to imply that it turned him stark raving bonkers. After all, a year later he signed Al-Saadi al-Gaddafi to the club. As in, son of everyone’s favourite Alan Rickman impersonating dictator, Colonel Gaddafi.

Through extensive archival research, it has been revealed that it was Gaucci’s intention to team him up in a three-pronged attack with Jaffar Amin and Keith Chegwin. Unfortunately, The Sons of Darkness proposal fell through.

Other notable mentions on the Luciano nut front include his two attempts to bring women footballers to the club. Hanna Ljungberg and Birgit Prinz thankfully rejected such advances. Which is a good job, because Gaucci is to footballing equality what Silvio Berlusconi is to monogamy.

Lest we forget, there was once a time when he wasn’t lambasted. Despite all of his fat-faced fuck-ups, he brought the wider world to the attention of Hidetoshi Nakata. Unfortunately, amidst such gems and sensationalism, there were always one too many Jay Bothroyds.

Got a suggestion for our next ToePoke mental? Rather than sending us it in a letter made from newspaper cuttings, let us know via email here toepoke.net@gmail.com