Sky Sports News reporter uses vanishing spray to keep QPR fans away from him

One of the most inexplicable developments of the Sky Sports Newsification of transfer deadline day has been the hordes of easily excitable fans that gather around the network's reporters outside various stadiums and training grounds across England. They stand there for hours on end just for the chance to be seen on television celebrating rumors of footballers boarding airplanes or seeing a doctor.

At times, these street dwellers can get a little too close and make the reporters feel like they'll be torn apart if they don't say what the mob surrounding them wants to hear.

But Sky reporter Gary Cotterill came up with a novel use for the vanishing spray made popular at the World Cup and now being used by the Premier League — putting a line on the asphalt and ordering the gathered QPR supporters to stay behind out. Of course, the thing about vanishing spray is that it disappears long before deadline day coverage ends. And when it does, Cotterill would be defenseless.

After treating the heathens behind him this way, Cotterill went on to suffer an indignity of his own when QPR manager Harry Redknapp — a man who never met a deadline day interview through a car window he didn't like — refused to stop for a window-side chat.

And that's when Gary Cotterill went full Partridge.

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Brooks Peck

is the editor of Dirty Tackle on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow on Twitter! Follow @BrooksDT