These are worrying times for John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood.
Concerned readers have been emailing me to ask about the possible consequences for John should Portsmouth Football Club, his favourite team, go out of business – and rightly so, because although John is no Muggsy Spanier, Paul Kingsnorth or Jase Rooney, nonetheless he is a key character in Think of England’s motley cast. What, these readers have been asking, will become of the antiquarian bookseller with PFC engraved on his teeth if there are no more matches to attend?
The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is that if Portsmouth Football Club as it is currently manifested ceases to be, then John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood would in fact become Portsmouth Football Club. This is the result of an ancient pact or possibly curse or at the very least something signed in blood which requires a designated Chosen One to take on the burden, or ‘essence’ as it were, of Portsmouth Football Club, should the Club, in the sense in which a ‘football club’ is normally understood, fall.
Indeed, unbeknownst to many outside the city walls of Portsmouth, the current John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood is merely the latest in an unbroken two thousand year line of antiquarian booksellers called John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood to have held the office. Of course for the vast majority of these John Portsmouth Football Club Westwoods the position has been purely ceremonial as the possibility of the official purpose of the Chosen One coming to pass has seemed laughably remote. However, given the extraordinary debts now facing the club, the present John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood faces a real danger of having to taken on the terrible burden for which he was so cruelly bred.
If, as seems increasingly likely, John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood does indeed become Portsmouth Football Club, then according to folklore and FA Regulation 274 Part B Subsection III, John will simply drop the “John” and “Westwood” elements of his name and be required to remain at all times within the city walls except for away matches. Fans will still be able to ‘support’ him, purchase merchandise including stickers and replica shirts, wear tattoos bearing his crest etc. Season tickets will remain valid for him but on-the-gate purchases will also be available and may even see a reduction in price. He will not, of course, be permitted to play in the Premier League but will instead be required to enter the Ryman’s League Division One South for the 2010/11 season, where he will have to take his chances with the rest.
Never mind any of that, this is what you have to do. Punt around the far east, find a country with a wage structure that pays peanuts. Set up a supply chain, any old rubbish will do, flog the stuff to the idiotic British public, make circa one billion, sorted, club out of trouble. Be seen at home games wearing the shirt over the gut, swill beer and clap.
ReplyDeleteThe supporters will lap it up.
Baby been keeping you awake again?
ReplyDeleteso what you are saying is that John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood is merely an avatar, the imprinted 2000 year old collective Portsmouth Football Club memory, passed down through the generations through totemistic Solent-aboriginal dreamtime? When he dies, what will the other elders do with his bones? Break them apart and suck out the marrow?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it seem somehow appropriate to sacrifice him now? A sort of bloody propitiation of the football gods? In the centre circle at half time, next home game. Rip his heart out using a scale model of the Spinnaker Tower to the hypnotic chant of 'John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood' from your previous post. We could learn a lot from the Incas, you know.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Pompey should take a leaf out of Johns dads bookshop and open the doors 24/7 at Fratton Park with a large honesty box stationed in the car park.
ReplyDeleteThere was a poignant moment on the radio today when the future of JPFCW was imagined: surrounded by grandchildren asking 'what are those tattoos of grandad...?' 'what is Pompey'?
ReplyDeleteIf they do go bust and have to restart about 5 leagues below the Blue Sq, it would be funny seeing him turn up at the side of a local park where the reformed club might have to start off from with all his gear and his hat.
ReplyDelete