King Kenny - a victim writes

Occasional dabbler James Hamilton publishes on his own blog a really rather brilliant piece on the return of 'King' Kenny Dalglish to Liverpool, from the perspective of a Man Utd fan.

Intro of the Year

According to Baltic legend, when the Arctic storm wind blows down from the mountains across the tundra it heralds the arrival of the Great Wizard, Nischergurje, from the north. In his left hand he carries a gold drum hammer and in his right a Magic Drum, with which he summons his comrades.

‘Do you hear it on the wind? Do you hear its beat! beat! beat!’. The call goes out, enticing the listener to inclusion with those who are already under its spell.

Tim Headley in This is Anfield on Fernando Torres' possible transfer from Liverpool FC to Chelsea.

You schmooze you lose

"Come on lads, schmooze! Schmooze like you've never schmoozed before!" cried Cameron, rallyingly.

But alas the last desperate Schmooze Offensive by Cam, Becks and Will was in vain, as the Russkies bought won the 2018 World Cup.

I don't think we should bother again. All that toadying to the fool Sepp Blatter (I always get him mentally mixed up with Silvio Berlusconi) and the various corrupt foopball types is very undignified.

Cantona speaks

Philosopher-Footballer, indecipherable actor and uber-frog Eric 'King' Cantona reckons we should all withdraw our money at once, thus 'bringing down the banks'.

Not sure why we're supposed to want to do that, but this is the man who said that thing about the seagulls (the second best thing ever said by a footballer. The best thing ever said by a footballer was Joey Barton's succinct views on the England players who released autobiographies after the 2006 World Cup: 'We got beat in the quarter-finals, I played like s**t, here's my book'.) so it seems pointless to question it too deeply.

Cantona of course appears in Looking for Eric, a film which, even by the standards of Ken Loach, patronises the working classes to an extraordinary degree. The plot - in which ManYoo fans gang up to play a trick on a bully, and the main character talks to an imaginary Cantona who helps him win back his ex-wife - reminded me of those Friday afternoon children's films that used to be on BBC. There'd always be a bully who needed a comeuppance, and imaginary sporting heroes would often pop up to mentor the put-upon hero. In fact, the only thing that prevents Looking for Eric from being marketable as a kid's film is that it has more swearing than Scarface.

Now this is how you play foopball

There's so much junk and money in the modern game of foopball that it's necessary to occasionally remind oneself why it used to be called 'the beautiful game'...

Xavi-Iniesta

I'm glad Spain won the World Cup because they played the best football. It was admirable that they stuck patiently to their 'ticky-tacky' passing to overcome, 1-0 every time, the increasingly efficient spoiler tactics of Portugal, Paraguay, Germany and Holland.

Also, I can't bear the sight of Arjen Robben. It would take a long time indeed to tire of punching that face.

----

PS. when Xavi-Iniesta retires, it should go and live in the Himalayan hut with Isner-Mahut.

England fans

The Fabio-ed sign of the Lord Raglan (pub just down the road from me) looks rather forlorn, post-Sunday. Now more like a Wanted sign.



The Yard thinks English football supporters are all stupid for getting angry about useless performances. It’s possible that he doesn’t hang around much with people who have little St George flags on their cars or a big ones hanging from their windows, but in fact both of those patriotic expressions are perfectly consistent with expecting Brazil to win the World Cup or having a few quid on the Argies.

Of course you hope for a win in the same way that you hope your team wins the FA Cup, but what people expect from England is a bit of a run. For the players to be inspired by the big stage rather than shrivel on it, to be more than the sum of their parts and to play at their top level or perhaps a little above, rather than the 35% capacity which I estimate was the team average (Wayne Rooney, superstar of so many ads and endorsements, was at about, generously, 10%). The 1990 team got knocked out by Germany too but they got a heroes' reception and an open top bus. Never blithely assume people are stupid; England fans know the score.

Oh all right then

Germany were better than England but not as much as everyone says. The disallowed goal was the first critical moment because 2-2 at half-time would have made it a completely different game, England would have had momentum and Germany would not have been able to play on the break in the second half. The second critical moment was Gareth Barry’s failure to hit the ball first time from an England corner; he tried to trap it, failed and Germany scored the third from the break. Up until then I was fairly confident England would equalise as they were in control.

Germany would still have been a better team than England but, as everyone who knows the game knows, football is a game in which the worse team often wins, through luck, fight and critical moments of inspiration or individual error. Being the superior team merely increases, in theory, your odds of creating more chances than your opponent. Over a league season the best team always wins; in knockouts they often don’t. The margins are very fine: for the winners, flukes are always forgotten and for losers bad luck is never forgiven.

In hindsight it is easy and fun to say how rubbish we were because the thing we English enjoy most after winning is wallowing in a loss. At the World Cup finals there is only one winner and 31 losers. Therefore there will always be reasons why 31 teams failed. For England, take your pick.

None of which is to excuse the consistently poor showings of this so-called ‘Golden Generation’, a team of neurotic talents who have underperformed every time they’ve been put on the big stage. This time, Capello found a way to make them perform in the qualifiers, but failed in the tournament. In tournament football, you just need to get lucky enough to find a team that functions for a brief period. Capello’s biggest mistake was sticking rigidly to a formula which obviously wasn’t functioning in this particular brief period. But then again, had that Lampard goal stood, he might have won, and there’d be another roll of the dice and another chance for it to suddenly click.

The ‘root and branch’ theories about why English football is doomed to failure are irrelevant. England’s cricketers have been pummelled for years for their poor limited-overs efforts. The rest of the world, we were told, had left us way behind, we’ve got it wrong at the root. Suddenly, by who knows what series of flukes and inspirations, the team has found a way to function and we’re world T20 champions and duffing up the Aussies at will. The strange thing about sport is that you never know when success might suddenly sneak up on you. Mostly, it doesn’t, and the default state for sports fans is suffering and disappointment. This is something that those for whom sport is a constant companion, rather than a quadrennial distraction, know in their bones.

Great performance by England

...to beat Australia and go 3-0 up in a five match series.

And that is all I have to say about this weekend's sport.

Boosh!

Booosh! Paaarp! Booosh! Paaarp!
Gerrard's cross!
Paaarp! Booosh! Paaarp! Booosh!
Terry’s block.
Boooo! Paaaarp! Paaaarp! Boooo!
Same formation?
Booosh! Booosh! Booosh! Booosh!
Like Playstation!



I love foopball. And props to Fabio for the finest immediate post-match interview by an England coach ever recorded.

Boo Two

“When England beat us they were incredible. Incredible. And for 20 minutes in the game they were perfect. Boosh! Pass. Boosh! Control on the chest. Boosh! The volley. Everything fast. It was like PlayStation,” said Slaven Bilic, referring to England's 5-1 thrashing of his Croatia team in September to qualify for the World Cup finals. “And now...when I watch them against USA...what has happened to your team?”

Good question, Slaven Bilic. It’s the one Fabio Capello is paid £6 million a year to answer; so it’s his fault. But they’re the same team and formation that thrashed Croatia 5-1 ‘like Playstation’, so it must be the players’ fault. They didn’t try hard enough, they have no heart. They tried too hard, became self-conscious and failed to express themselves. There’s something unique in the English mentality that means our players freeze on the big stage, which is why we never win the World Cup. France and Italy, the two most recent European winners, have been just as bad, so it’s just the way sport goes, nothing unique about us. Two draws against weak opposition is a catastrophic start. Unlike Spain and France, we’re unbeaten against weak opposition, so in context it’s far from a catastrophic start. If we can’t beat Algeria there’s no way we’re going to beat Slovenia; we’re exiting in humiliation. We always start slowly when we’re going to have a good competition – jeered off the pitch in the 1966 opener, scraping through in 86 and 90 – the shock will force us to radically change, improve and go all the way. It’s the usual: unconvincing progress from the group stage then a couple of good performances followed by elimination on penalties by Germany or Portugal.

England’s draws against the USA and Algeria thus far in the World Cup have been consistent with all of the above theories and predictions. Somebody will of course be right but they shouldn’t brag about it and say ‘I told you so’, any more than a sweepstake winner should claim clairvoyant powers. We are riding along right at the very edge of Time: behind us is an incomprehensible tangle of damn things; in front, the glare of the great unknowable at which the mind blanks. Helpless, we sound our vain opinions like vuvuzelas parping into the void.

Booooooo

Boooooooooooo. (Paaaaaaaaaaarp.) Boooooooooooo.


I hate football.

Vuvuzela Johnson

Gaw complains here about British football’s culture of stubborn anti-intellectualism. Football is undeniably thick, but sometimes I wonder if it’s for the best – I mean, just look what happens when an intellectual opines on the game (h/t Frank Key).

Now Boris Johnson is a man who treads the fine line between clever and stupid with no little nimbleness for a large man. Heard a wonderful turn of phrase from him on the radio this morning, remarking on his desire that vuvuzelas be banned at the 2012 Olympics: “I don’t want to diss the vuvuzela, they are clearly very intoxicating things to parp.”

Push the red button

The BBC is apparently looking at streaming a vuvuzela-less World Cup via the red button. I can see this muted alternate reality being very appealing for the more soporific games. The first round matches of the group stage are always the worst (apart from the final) because nobody dares to lose, there are too many sendings off and the ball is always a crossbar-clearing balloon created by Adidas who for some reason see weightlessness as the endgame of ball innovation. Vuvuzelas are a new distraction, at least. Lionel Messi says that playing amongst them is like being deaf. Only the Germans, such as Worm’s wife, aren’t complaining, having thus far been the one side apart from South Korea to play well. Jamie Carragher says this is because they have a sneaky advantage having practiced with the Adidas balloon in the Bundesliga last season. The other explanation for the Germans playing unexpectedly well is, of course, that they are Germans. Apart from regularly beating us on penalties the most dastardly thing the Germans have done since 1945 is to adopt Three Lions as a terrace chant. In a packed pub garden on Saturday evening, an hour before kick-off, my friends and I agreed that Three Lions is bloody fantastic football song to sing, which it is. Watching England games in pubs also means that the noise levels are so high anyway that you can’t hear the vuvuzelas and there is no need to push the red button. English fans in South Africa are complaining that the vuvuzela drone drowns out all their singing. On the other hand, if we’d had vuvuzelas at Euro 96 the Germans would never have been able to adopt Three Lions, so it’s all relative.

Agent Green

Yes it was a terrible blunder but surely this headline in the Belfast Telegraph is taking it too far into the realms of conspiracy?

Update- alas, they've fixed the Belfast Telegraph website, which originally said "Steven Gerrard's flying start ruined by USA's Robert Green" .

Wavin Flag

The World Cup starts today. I hope South Africa will be good hosts, certainly the song about wavin yo’ flag is a goodie. When I am older I will be stronger – unusual that and rather moving. In recent days I have remembered how much I love World Cups. What would my view of the world be without football? It would be like the American view. Would we even have heard of such countries as 'Paraguay', 'Ivory Coast' or 'Italy'? The Brazilian national team is a world treasure. This year the Spanish have the potential to be the most beautiful team ever and all things being equal they’ll win it – though the strength of football is that all things are never equal; no other major sport produces more upsets because there are so many different ways to score and prevent goals.

It’s not essential to my enjoyment that England are present but it’s preferable if they are because no matter how the party turns out it’s always better to have been invited. I will inevitably get my usual surge of patriotism when England come up against a biggie - we’re always best as underdogs and for as long as I can remember England have suffered with always performing just about as well as the opposition – dramatically raising their game against Germany or Argentina and equally dramatically lowering it against minnows. But that’s all part of the tradition.

My favourite one was Mexico 86. I was nine years old and I can still taste that World Cup. All the colours were turned up to max and Mexico might as well have been Mars. On the day of the final I was staying at a friend’s house and we had to beg his dad to let us watch it – he was Royal Naval officer and a dreadful rugby snob who referred to football as ‘soccer’. He poured utter scorn on my nine year old enthusiams and dreams and I’ve still never quite forgiven that type. In those days the players were still Our Boys going off to do their stuff against the Martians. Today familiarity with the world’s best players through the cosmopolitan clubs has removed much of the exoticism; and Our Boys are loathed as overpaid, overhyped brats.

I wonder now though, whether the fact that everyone accepts that they’re overhyped means that they’re now underhyped. As for overpaid, you can’t really blame them for taking what’s thrown at them and at bottom they are still what footballers always were: big boys who want to run and kick and score goals. I think they deserve sympathy: they’re the generation of players for whom retirement will consist of an endless empty existence in a dream home, listlessly potting pool balls in the basement games room while upstairs a fattening WAG plots the most effective way to fleece them at the divorce court. But that’s when you’re older, so to hell with that, just wave yo flag...

Damn right we'd be goin on n on n on about it

The Google-conquering post about Why the Scottish Hate the English continues to attract comments. Most are very poor fare indeed but I must draw your attention to this corker from Anonymous, who writes in a Comedy Scots accent:

btw that isnt even the proper reason y we dont like the english

1. if someone scottish wins an important event such as a gold medal at eh olympics or suhin hes british, as soon as he loses hes scottish again.

2. if england win anythin suddenly they are the best in the world and the media go on n on n on about it

3. yeez have yer heads shoved so far up americas ass

4. yeez think ye r superior to every other country

5. everytime the world cup comes around ye hink yer gonna win when ye always seem tae get put out after the group stage

6. yeez hink there is suhin wrong wae scottish money when its clearly legal tender

7. aw yer wee 'chavs' hink theyre ment

theyre is so much more a could say but a canny be arsed


I have to say it’s hard to take issue with any of the specific objections raised by Anonymous Comedy Scotsman. This is by some distance the most coherent and fair dinkum anti-English comment yet. Certainly point 5 is both topical and irrefutable, as our footballers prepare to head out for South Africa this summer.

Now, nobody can accuse me of lacking patriotism, but I’m also reasonably sane and like all true football-lovers I’m always much relieved when England have been eliminated from the World Cup or the Euros. The pattern (and I cannot put it more succinctly than did the Old Batsman: unconvincing progress to the quarter-finals before elimination on penalties to either Portugal or Germany) is inevitable, its torment blunted only by its sheer familiarity. Once Ingerlund’s players have gone - and with them our dim, embarrassed hopes of a scrap and scrape to undeserved glory - it is possible to relax and enjoy what remains of the sporting spectacle.

However, the comment above has lit a jingoistic spark. I hadn’t fully considered the implications of an England World Cup victory. For however much pleasure that unlikely event would bring us Englishmen, the pain for the Scots would be tenfold. We could suffer the insufferable triumphalism, the knighthoods (arise, Sir Wayne), the Trafalgar Square tickertape parades, and even the politicians’ bandwagon jumping, simply by reminding ourselves that on the wrong side of Hadrian’s Wall the Jocks are gnashing their teeth, tearing at their scarlet locks and praying for Armageddon. It is almost too much to hope for. Come on England!

Role models 2: 'Typical Germans'

On the subject of Respecting The Ref (for which important virtue we can forgive rugby players the odd eye-gouge) I was fascinated by Sir Alex Ferguson’s complaint that the Bayern Munich players effected the sending-off of Rafael da Silva by hounding the referee in the manner of ‘typical Germans’.

I can only assume he was referring to the cold and sly professionalism of their hounding. Ferguson’s boys do their ref-hounding in the British style: with aggression certainly; with passion, sure; but always with honesty and heart on sleeve.

Role models

Fairywarming heart-tale stuff as the unpaid players of stony broke Portsmouth FC make it to the FA Cup final, thanks in part to Kevin-Prince Boateng (above) who, you will notice, has several tattoos of John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood adorning his person.

Such commitment and spirit is rare to find in professional sport these days. If only those overpaid, cheating, egomaniac, sly, prima donna rugby players could be more like footballers, eh?

100 Japanese schoolboys

Via this comment by Tim Newman I find the following video on James Hamilton's blog, in which a professional J-League team take on 100 schoolboys. James admires the way the pros figure out a way to overcome this unusual problem; for myself, I just find the sight of the boys charging through midfield in impossible swarms very funny.