Category Archives: Football

Diamonds Are Forever

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It’s been a stop-start beginning to the season, both in terms of the incessant international breaks that dictate the calendar at this time of year and the stuttering football we’ve witnessed. On the whole though, with some dodgy looking away games already out of the way – things aren’t looking too bad with us sat in 2nd place, 4 points behind Chelsea.

Though he’d never admit it, Howard Webb must dread being allocated our games. Despite seeing off Newcastle quite comfortably, you just knew that the next day’s headlines were going be made by some perceived injustice stemming from the fact he was in charge. This time it was a stray Van Persie elbow and the fact that Webb had the temerity to rule out a Newcastle goal because it HADN’T fully crossed the line. Pathetically, Radio 5 actually opened their sports coverage with this story the next morning. Talk about playing to the masses…

Despite ultimately ending in defeat, the Tottenham game a week earlier was a stormer – such a shame that it it took us being 0-2 down to garner any kind of response from the players or the crowd. It’s become a familiar script: we start off slowly and seem content to simply sit and contain – the tempo only increases once the realisation dawns we’ve fallen behind and oh shit, now we’ve suddenly got a game to chase.

Giggs was awful yet again and the reasons for starting him get less and less clear as the months/years tick by. I mean, starting Giggs and Scholes together was clocked by most of us as a big no-no 3 or 4 years ago, yet we’re still persisting with the idea now. Just play The Brand, that useless lump Anderson even, get the tombola out to see what that throws out…just not Giggs and Scholes in tandem anymore. Next month they’ll have a combined age of 77. SEVENTY SEVEN. Enough now. Please.

Still, it was a great 2nd half after Rooney’s introduction – very nice to see him bang on it with his touch seemingly back in place. The OT crowd woke up briefly too, for the 1st time in ages it actually felt like I was at a football match. Once upon a time the schrill sound of school kids was only heard at reserve games or pre-season friendlies; nowadays it’s a weekly occurrence…and a fairly welcome one as at least it punctuates the silence from the home crowd and the incessant ‘who are ya’s and ‘Fergie’s right, your fans are shite’s emanating from the away section.

Having been ripped to shreds by Spurs during that 1st half, we’ve managed to get back on track via the introduction of what Fergie has proudly christened ‘the diamond’ – without getting too ‘zonal marking’ about things, it basically looks like we’ve temporarily abandoned ‘the doughnut’ to experiment with the novel idea of playing midfielders…in midfield. I know, amazing isn’t it?

The diamond got its first outing in the (urgh) Capital One cup tie at home to Newcastle – and what an utter shitcunt of a competition that is these days. How United manage to get away with charging nigh on full price for reserve games is nothing short of scandalous – but they’ll continue to do so knowing most ST holders are obliged to buy a ticket regardless of whether they actually want to go…the prospect of not wanting to miss out on a Cup Final ticket is surely the only explanation why any non-masochist would subscribe to the ACS and willingly pay to watch such garbage.

I don’t know anyone who looks forward to these games and whatever minor relevance the competition might have enjoyed in years passed has long since expired. All season ticket holders I know watch the draw hoping we’re handed an away tie so their card isn’t charged another £40…there’s something very, very wrong when that’s the case. Ditto the amount of people who buy a ticket and can’t face attending…and those like yours truly who are brainless enough to pay, turn up, then disappear at HT for the more appealing prospect of watching the 2nd half in the pub. I guess if we’re daft enough to offer up our credit card details to the club, then we’re also daft enough to merit the routine shafting we’re dealt.

Talk of routine shaftings brings us to the first European away trip of the season. I’m too old and my mortgage is too big to contemplate a 4 day, autumnal jolly to Transylvania, but a good time was enjoyed by all who made it, I’m reliably informed. Nice weather, friendly locals, beer at 60p a pint, far enough away to put off the knobhead contingent…Cluj was always destined to be a good trip.

“None of our lot arrested, 2 hours sleep out of 55, got banned for life by Jet2.com…just a good piss up really”, was how a younger family member succinctly summed up his experience. Oh and if you were confused and somewhat disturbed like I was about the large amount of shirtless ballooning going on – that was mainly down to 50 odd Polish barmies who turned up in our end, apparently. Thankfully they didn’t start Poznaning and lower the tone further still.

Watching at home on telly only hammers home how deathly dull the group stages of the Champions League have become – even Tyldesley and Townsend in the commentary box were struggling to sound remotely enthused during the 2nd half. Like last year, we’ve been beneficiaries of a ridiculously easy draw that virtually guarantees progression to the knock-out stages. Unlike last year, it doesn’t look like we’re going to contrive to fuck things up spectacularly this time round. Progress of sorts, then – perhaps another routine final humiliation at the hands of Barca isn’t out of the question?

Copyright Red News – October 2012

www.rednews.co.uk

Perfect 10

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My first ever meeting with a real life footballer was a cringe inducing, sobering experience which taught me a valuable lesson: never speak to them. I was 14 years old and playing pool in Menorca when I was shocked to discover a familiarish face on an adjacent table. It was that bald bloke who used to play for Southampton. Without a second thought I approached him and politely enquired “Excuse me mate, are you David Armstrong?” “Yes”, he replied. And that was that.

Footballers are strange looking creatures in the flesh. We see them regularly at the match, they’re on the telly constantly and appear plastered across huge billboards advertising whatever stuff they’re paid to advertise. It all builds up a sense of familiarity that is only dispelled when meeting them in real life.

I realised this for the first time after stumbling across Robbie Savage whilst doing the weekly shop a while back. What a weird looking bugger that lad is, the narrowest shoulders and the thinnest arms I’ve ever seen on a man. Now I consider myself a natural athlete and have never felt it necessary to spend even 10 minutes in a gym…but he made my underwhelming frame look like Tarzan in comparison.

A few years ago I bumped into Ole Solskjaer before a gig at the Apollo and was taken aback by how different he looked from how I ‘knew’ him previously. Despite standing 5’10” tall according to Wikipedia, he seemed much smaller…and at risk of sounding all homoerotic about it, his walk alone was enough to set him apart from us mere mortals. No swagger as such, just all lithe and sinewy – he struck me as the sort of bloke who’d make a magnificent diamond thief.

The Premier League today is full of ‘talents’ you could describe as athletes first, footballers second. I’m thinking of players like Glen Johnson or Micah Richards here, limited skills but incredibly well developed athletes who’ve been coached and trained to within an inch of their lives – they have the ability to run up and down for 90 minutes, make bone crunching challenges then do something half decent with the actual ball when the opportunity presents itself. Essentially though, with different guidance and choices – these lads could just as easily be making a living lugging bricks about or playing rugby league.

Wayne Rooney was once hailed as the antidote to players of this ilk filling up Premier League team sheets. Rooney, we were informed, was a resolutely English, Alf Tupperesque throwback to the heroes of yesteryear…an instinctive street footballer raised on egg and chips as opposed to multivitamins and protein shakes. A breath of fresh air and a talent to cherish in a modern game laden with maladroit, muscled freaks. This was the consensus of opinion regarding Rooney the prodigious teenager, however – it can’t really be applied the 26 year old, 2012 version who should by now be approaching his prime.

Rooney’s annus horribilis the season before last and subsequent patchy form last season, (only masked by an exemplary goal return) have led to renewed speculation about his attitude and fitness. Ferguson’s comments (“Wayne is a boy that needs games, you can see that from the frame he’s got”) were innocent enough, but could be interpreted as a timely indication of his private feelings on the matter. Perhaps most tellingly of all, there was no apoplectic Fergie response when his quotes were run by the Mail alongside old pictures of Rooney emerging from the sea whilst on holiday with his similarly ‘big boned’ parents. One is left with the distinct impression that relations between the manager and his star man could be described as ‘strained’ at best.

So Rooney has been left to (ahem) digest all this and in the light of Van Persie’s arrival, faces a potential battle for his place in the team upon regaining form and fitness. Anderson meanwhile, another player with long suspected re-fuelling issues, appears to have abandoned all pretence of being taken seriously and judging by the recent pics posted on his Instagram account, is now experimenting with self-parody.

One might naively expect a player lacking stamina and consistency who’s no longer considered for his national side, to spend the 2 week break putting in some serious shifts at Carrington – possibly attempting to get in peak condition for the season’s resumption. Not Ando, no. Instead he’s having it large in Dubai posting pictures of his dinner on the internet and sporting a shiteating grin that positively screams ‘I don’t give a fuck’. I’ve long lost hope of this clown ever kicking on and fulfilling the promise he held as a teenager – I’ve given up, he’s beaten me and fair play to him. You’ve got to admire the chutzpah of the lad really, despite not being an A grade footballer he’s proven himself to be an international class wind-up merchant.

A player who could never be accused of carrying excess weight is our bequiffed Spaniel in net. Dave De Gea turned in a MOTM performance at Goodison and then (in conjunction with Vidic) followed this up with a spectacular gaffe in the Fulham game. No biggie though, one would have thought, it’s exactly the sort of thing that happens once or twice a season to every keeper. Not according to Ferguson however, who then proceeds to drop him for the Southampton game, happily telling reporters it was all due to the Fulham error and he’d be back in a couple of weeks.

I can’t have been alone in thinking ‘what the fuck?’ at this decision. Last term we only saw the best of De Gea after Lindegaard’s injury had made the keeper selection a no brainer. Constantly switching did nothing to help defensive stability during the early part of the season and only served to highlight his perceived weakness in dealing with crosses – to the extent teams began to target him purposefully. As the season progressed and De Gea’s form and confidence improved, it ceased to be an issue – yet here we are back at square one with the ‘vulnerable young Spaniard’ back in the spotlight. He’s young and he’ll make mistakes, which pretty much everyone accepts…so I fail to see how holding him back and trying to shield him from journeymen cloggers like Rickie Lambert is going to aid his progress.

Due to the Editor’s say-so (those pesky print deadlines again), this article was submitted prior to last weeks game at Anfield. So I’ll conclude by passing on my sincere hopes that the team decided to turn up for the game for the first time in a decade or so and that no reds in attendance felt moved to join in with the fuckwitted #mufcfamily’s call for us to join in with massed, communal singing of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ in support of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. We should respect the scousers for their ongoing fight but never lose sight of the fact that in football terms, they remain the enemy. 

Copyright Red News – September 2012

www.rednews.co.uk

Heroes and Villains

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So here we are again. August rolls round and it’s time for another 9 months of money, gossip, lies, tantrums, tabloid exclusives and halfwitted millionaires…yes comrades, the football IS BACK!!

Once upon a time I’d spend the summer months counting down the days until the start of the season. The fixtures being published was a big deal, as was transfer market activity, a new kit being released, pre-season friendlies…this season it seems to have arrived too quickly. A couple of months off without the expense, the stress, feeling compelled to watch SSN, not having to engage in mindless bantoh with fans of other clubs…it’s been great and as things stand, I’m sorry it has to end. But it does. I know I can’t spend the entire winter watching beach volleyball on telly, despite such a prospect holding more appeal than seeing Michael Carrick start the season at centre back.

Given what happened on that final day in May, most people I know of a red persuasion have spent the last couple of months suffering with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. As the day arrived, only the most foolhardy seriously expected results to go in our favour…but the manner in which everything unfurled, Jesus Christ it was brutal. One thing I can confidently predict about this season, no matter what lies ahead, it won’t be as anything like as painful as the closing moments of the last. Just horrific.

With City winning the league and Chelsea fluking their way to a scouse-like, scabby European Cup win, the scene was surely set for England to win the European Championships. Mercifully we were spared such a sight and true to form, the national team saw fit to deliver exactly what anyone with a modicum of sense expected of them…absolutely fuck all. Completely out of their depth and as inept on the big stage as always, it was a relief when they went out. Watching the quarter final vs Italy was a tortuous experience, one felt relieved for the rest of Europe that defeat on penalties meant viewers were spared a repeat performance in the semis.

The tournament as a whole proved similarly underwhelming and there was an air of inevitability about proceedings throughout the entire fortnight. England struggled the reach the quarters, the Germans were better than the sum of their individual parts and Spain won by virtue of being able to pass the ball better than anyone else. Once upon a time these tournaments were something to look forward to, packed with action and incident that made for genuinely gripping viewing. Euro 2012 only confirmed suspicions that international football has been eclipsed as football’s biggest spectacle – it delivered none of the madness and drama the latter stages of the Premier and Champions Leagues’ had provided only a few weeks previously.

It was left to the Olympics to provide the sporting spectacle of the summer and fair play to the cockneys, even an embittered Northern curmudgeon like myself has to admit they did alright. I tuned into the opening ceremony in full-on, ready to take the piss mode but was surprised to witness something which was at times touching, heartfelt, funny and most extraordinarily, actually very entertaining. Even that sour faced old bag herself, the Queen made me smile for the first time I can ever remember.

For something that basically amounts to a overlong minority sports day, the Olympics did make for enthralling viewing at times. Aside from our achievements in the velodrome or on the running track, many of the other events continue to baffle. The BBC’s coverage was so focused on Team GB, they virtually suspended all other news coverage for the duration to report on our progress in the ‘twatting around in little boats’ and ‘making a horse dance’ disciplines.

Thankfully, the overlong closing ceremony (like watching a re-run of the 1993 Brit Awards on a cocktail of industrial strength acid and ketamine) saw us quickly regain a taste for healthy cynicism to replace the happy and glorious, victory vibes we’d been gorging on throughout the preceding fortnight.

The moment the tournament finished, sports hacks were tasked with dealing with the imminent transition back to Premier League concerns. A handful, namely Rob Beasley in The Sun, predictably opted to run with the ‘aren’t footballers absolute bastards in comparison to our brave Olympic heroes’ line. Such stories have appeared after any non-football, sporting success in recent times, namely the rugby world cup win or ashes victories – the general inference being that football is a game played and watched by utter shitheads.

Of course, football is fucked up – this isn’t a new revelation. It’s easy to take a snapshot of the game in 2012 (mercenary players, financial doping, the greedy opportunism of owners etc, etc) and reach the conclusion that the sport now exists at gutter level. The Olympics has the advantage of occurring once every 4 years, for the rest of the time the majority of its events are marginalised, with participants out of sight and out of mind.

If football happened once every 4 years, then I’d expect our players would be held in similar regards to ‘heroes’ such as Ben Ainslie and Chris Hoy. If that pair lived in the Premier League goldfish bowl, the public would soon be treated to a different spin on their backgrounds, personalities, families and the lives they choose to lead. Football is tainted by money and greed and the likes of Terry, Tevez, Rooney….whoever…are clearly a product of this environment. I fail to see how they are to blame for its existence though.

Still smarting from the Sneijderless summer of 2011, I was determined to give transfer speculation the swerve this time around, having now resigned myself to the fact that we are never going to sign a midfield player ever again. Going off the players brought in, I’ve come to the conclusion that Fergie has looked at Barca’s revolutionary, strikerless formation and is set to present our own version, ‘the doughnut’ – ie ‘nothing in the middle’. Presumably, any midfielder still under contract will be allocated a new position (centre back, right back, winger or striker) using the tombola that was successfully trialled during the league cup run of last season.

The Van Persie capture, despite not being the player most of us hoped United would splurge millions on this summer, has at least provided a pre-season fillip that’s been missing since the purchase of that other ‘final piece’, Berbatov back in 2008. Like Veron before him, Berbs is now ducking out of the exit door – putting an end to an at times dazzling but overall, hugely underwhelming United career. Let’s hope Van Persie avoids injury (and Fergie’s tombola) and instead enjoys a Sheringham-esque career upsurge on the OT stage. Anyway, before we judge too harshly the profligate purchase of a 29 year old crock, it’s perhaps worth remembering Liverpool spunked £11M more on Andy Carroll. Bargain.

Copyright Red News – August 2012

www.rednews.co.uk