Articles of Faith (15 page)

It’s super soccer Sunday! It’s super soccer Sunday! In addition to being Easter (oestrogen? Oh yes, it’s all to do with eggs) the celebration of Christ’s resurrection and the rebirth of nature itself through the sexiest of the seasons – spring – Manchester United play on-form Liverpool and Chelsea take on the Gunners at the Bridge.

A toy shop round the corner from me in Hampstead has a sign in its window confirming its holiday opening times which reads: Good Friday 10am–3pm, Easter Sunday 10am–3pm, Holy Saturday 10pm–3pm. Holy Saturday? There is no Holy Saturday, it’s just Saturday, a Saturday like any other. Holy Saturday sounds like an exclamation made by Robin on discovering that Batman had only recruited him for weekend bumming. However holy Saturday may be in the eyes of Hampstead’s toy shop owners, it is as a child’s plaything compared to the divinity of Sky Sports’ super, special soccer Sunday.

‘I think there is only one messiah appearing this Super Soccer Resurrection day and that is Cristiano Ronaldo’

Easter after all yearly shifts, being celebrated in March, February or April as God sees fit – I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly we had to contend with a new Easter 2, ‘this time it’s personal’ turning up mid-June. As a religious festival it is all too capricious, a whimsical affair obeying only the cosmic wandering of the moon. Whereas super, special, sugar-free Sunday special soccer-day is a regulated occasion appearing at the behest of Sky, whenever they deign the event ought to occur.

I wonder if the final match of the season in 1989, when Arsenal beat Liverpool at Anfield to win the title, when Michael Thomas scored the
winner, had been prescribed by Sky? Or if the Stanley Matthews final should retrospectively be regarded as the super Stanley soccer final? We’ll never truly know. The only thing of which we can be certain is that football matches are now scheduled for the convenience of Sky TV and although, I’m sure, there’ll be many negative side effects due to the rise of billionaire media tyrants, one positive we can all take from the monopolisation of our sporting culture is a magnificent day’s viewing on Sunday.

Starting with the incomparable
Soccer Supplement
in the morning, a programme so assured of itself that it doesn’t even say goodbye at its conclusion but its participants continue chatting as the credits roll, indifferent to our eyes, on to
Goals on Sunday
where we reprise the previous day’s events with Chris Kamara and whoever partners him this week after the regrettable departure of Rob McCaffrey, then the main event –
Super Soccer Sunday
, an alliterative football festival which will pin us all to our couches, grateful for our relentlessly rewarded immobility.

I hope they don’t find a way of making Mondays entertaining or before too long we’ll be committed to a lifetime of vicarious titillation, whilst the seasons come and go and Easter sprays random festive celebration
across the pages of the calendar like an indiscriminate teen onanist decorating Keeley Hazell’s paper chest.

Manchester United will win the title this year. They have steeliness to their play and stability that one cannot imagine capitulating. Liverpool squandered the opportunity to end their barren spell by neglecting to capitalise on the remarkable form of Fernando Torres.

Of course, Rafael Benítez can argue that by resting him earlier in the season he has facilitated Torres’ recent form, but this I believe to be balderdash.

A friend of mine did some work with Liverpool and told me that Torres is an incredibly serious young man, which is pleasing to me. He’s so beautiful and skilful that he could be forgiven if he were giddy and frivolous, forever letting off fire alarms and pinching girls’ arses, but apparently he has the demeanour of a young clergyman, poring over scriptures and worrying about his soul.

I think he could’ve played another 10 games this season and had he done so Liverpool would still be in contention. Arsenal seem now to be tainted by Eduardo’s terrible fate and tread the turf as though desecrating his grave, but this is an opportunity for them to turn that around as Avram Grant’s Chelsea seem not to have the stomach to overturn first-class opposition.

Reportedly the team has become detached from his leadership and he is seen as a dead man walking, yet if ever there were a time for such a figure to triumph it’s Easter. I think there is only one messiah appearing this Super Soccer Resurrection day and that is Cristiano Ronaldo – I think it is he we shall all be worshipping come the festival’s close.

The pervasive anti-climactic pang that accompanied Wednesday night’s defeat in Paris will be present throughout the European Championship this summer so I hope I can learn to love it. The niggling affection of my England support is like scratching a long-amputated limb; did our country ever possess the qualities I lament? A night in Munich? Victory by a single penalty against Argentina? Was Gary Lineker ever more than a snack-grabbing sauce-pot?

‘“I am the Maradona of oral sex,” claims sweet old man’

This was an especially drab showing, throwing those memories into doubt. Haunted by an extinguished love affair, the memories of distant bliss seem to absurdly mock the tedious present. Fabio Capello seemed pleased enough in his post-match interview; part Nan, part David Hasselhoff, he drily batted back enquiries, often without awaiting translation from the looming, pale translator, played by Bernard Bresslaw as a scheming undertaker.

Ray Wilkins, with the newly depilated Richard Keys in studio, offered an explanation for Capello’s ability to respond to questions without awaiting Lurch’s interpretation – ‘With foreign,’ he began, ‘you can understand it but you can’t speak it.’ Personally I can neither speak nor understand foreign but Ray, who played for several years in Capello’s Italy, must’ve been forever confidently nodding at waiters and wailing street widows before drawing them a picture of his response – ‘I’ll have the sausages’ or ‘He’s gone to a better place.’

Looking at Capello’s Munster linguist it was difficult to imagine José Mourinho fulfilling the same function for Bobby Robson at Barcelona. I bet he gave dear Bobby’s Spanglish ramblings his own spin; I reckon there are still people in Catalonia who consider Sir Bobby to be a preening narcissist after receiving his persona solely through the Special One’s filter –
‘“I am the Maradona of oral sex,” claims sweet old man’ screamed one headline.

Now I don’t speak a word of Italian, but I still believe the undead interpreter was editorialising when asked if there was anything positive to be taken from the performance. Amidst all the rolling ‘r’s’ and repressed melodrama I distinctly heard ‘Joh Kohl’, which I know from my time spent in Tuscany is Italian for ‘Joe Cole’. After Capello had finished, Nosferatu took to the mic but peculiarly neglected to include any mention of the former West Ham hero. Given the nature of the question, we can only assume that Capello had said that Joe Cole’s contribution was positive; then, for reasons known only to himself and Bram Stoker, the interpreter omitted any Cole praise, perhaps fancying the nimble midfielder for a latter-day Van Helsing who could at any moment appear in the corridor and plunge a stake into his dark heart.

Aside from his backroom staff of Transylvanian exiles Capello has further bleak characters to ponder. What’s eating John Terry? The once
strident epitome of English grit, stripped of his captaincy now seems to be castrated and unfocused – perhaps since the departure of the world’s most handsome misinterpreter he has lost his way, a conundrum doubtless enhanced by the arrival of Avram Grant, who could easily inhabit the same graveyard utopia as Capello’s grim sidekick.

David Beckham clocked up his century, but apart from one cross and a lovely bit of embroidery on his shirt made no impact. Perhaps Capello’s instruction to concentrate on crosses was deliberately left untranslated by the Draculian ghoul in charge of communications. I bet everyone’s game suffered with him swooping about the dressing room; trying to avoid garlic – not easy in Paris – he must’ve been a bag of nerves.

England were proper shoddy Wednesday and I feel more disheartened than I can recall by the lack of invention, structure, imagination and flair. To whom do we turn now that Goldenballs’ seed can no longer be depended upon? Where do our hopes now rest?

Perhaps we should adopt the policy once favoured by Royalists and consider skipping a generation when electing our next deity – forget Charles and move straight to Wills. Let’s not fret further about Shaun Wright-Phillips or Peter Crouch, let us bound merrily to Mark Noble and the incomparable Freddie Sears, whose name ought be eulogised in the form of a parody of The Beatles hit ‘I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends’ – not ‘Billy Shears’ as Ringo sang but FrEeEeeDddiEEe SeEAaaRs. And God bless Paul Jewell.

I didn’t see the Champions League games because I’ve been spending all my time with child actors, Adam Sandler and a guinea pig – in a professional capacity of course, I’ve not become a bizarre pervert with remarkable contacts.

Out here in Hollywoodland access to football is limited but proximity to mind-bending glamour is at an all-time high, why, one can scarcely leave the house without being smashed in the face with dirty great lumps of fame. That is why this week’s column is jam-packed with genuine scoops, such as you might get from a genuine journalist – unlike a genuine journalist however I have licence to provide as much context as I wish and here it is.

‘The conversation may’ve lasted nine minutes before security prised my jaw from his divine ankle’

On Tuesday night I performed a stand-up show with comedian Greg Proops who you will remember as the Elvis Costello-looking American gent from
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
The crowd of about a hundred people were strewn with stars such as Flight Of The Conchords, Fearne Cotton, Drew Carey, James May (out of
Top Gear
– that threw me), legendary producer Tony Visconti and Colin Hay – the bloke who wrote ‘I come from a land down under.’ To be there at all was bliss but to perform was very heaven – aside from the plaudits and accolades that dripped from the ceiling like hot wax I was able to check the lyrics from Men at Work’s best-loved hit – ‘where beer does flow and men chunder’ is just one of the evening’s revelations; which is a terrible advertisement for the Antipodes.

Afterwards, in the spirit of celebration, I headed off to what can only be described as a swanky karaoke bar, keen to impress all present with a
flawless rendition of ‘I come from a land down under’ without even glancing at the screen. However this breathtaking plan was put aside on arrival to ‘The Villa’ as there, within its confines, immaculate, impeccable and drinking bottled water sat David Beckham. That’s right, David Beckham. Fearne Cotton cannot ever have been so hastily elbowed aside as she was when my hungry eyes met those ever twinkling peepers of dear David.

The next few minutes occurred as if unfurled from a celestial fairground; whirling lights and giddying mist, my hand on a sinewy shoulder, flashing blue eyes and a chuckle like cool water over smooth pebbles – all the while ‘A land down under’ lulling me into a waking Shangri-La. What follows are the snatched reminiscences of a conversation that may’ve lasted as long as nine minutes before security prised my jaw from his divine ankle.

Obviously, he’s utterly lovely and sweet, this we all know, and my favourite moments from this encounter were these: at one point he said, quite unaggressively and entirely in keeping with the tone of the natter, ‘fucking’ not as a verb of course, merely for emphasis, I can’t absolutely remember the context because of the pounding of my heart but it was something like ‘Yeah, LA is a fucking nice place to live.’

Now he’s a 32-year-old professional footballer from Essex, swearing oughtn’t really draw comment. I suppose it’s because we see him speaking on TV so frequently courteously that it was like seeing the Queen apologise for a fart. A further highlight came when we discussed a forthcoming LA Galaxy fixture:

Me: Is it at home?

DB: Yes.

Me: Oh. I’d love to go. Ooh, do you think you can get any tickets?

DB: (with wry curling smile) Yeah I think so mate.

One can hardly imagine a situation where David Beckham would be denied comps for his own side’s games; he could probably get tickets to
La Bohème
at Sydney Opera House with a snap of his fingers. How daft of me. Then after apologising for ‘talking shop’ I asked what he made of
the current England set-up and his own fitness and how playing in the MLS will affect his international career.

He said that Fabio Capello is a great manager who was fantastic at Real Madrid and will turn England around efficiently and expertly over the next six months. He said that training and fitness in MLS are as good as in Europe because American sporting technology and ideology is so advanced. And he said that he will keep playing internationally for as long as his legs will carry him.

David Beckham, on the basis of my encounter with him is a charming, intelligent and charismatic man who emanates warmth and star quality in a manner comparable to Princess Diana – for this alone he ought to be kept in the team for as long as he’s willing to turn up. And for any who doubt the ability of this extraordinary athlete and ambassador, indeed any who would seek to cross him on or off the pitch, I think Men at Work put it best when they said ‘you better run, you better take cover’.

‘I hear that some regulars at the Bridge would prefer Chelsea to be knocked out of the Champions League and to drop out of the title race just to be rid of Grant. Astonishing.

Sorry. Sorry for not doing my article last week. If you were disappointed then I know how you feel, I used to be terribly upset when Jon Ronson’s column failed to appear in the Weekend magazine supplement that accompanies this very paper, on one occasion bothering to text him to personally berate him for his absence.

It’s not that Tim Dowling, the fella they got in to replace him wasn’t any good it’s just I felt, and in fact feel, a strong sense of identification with Jon’s writing especially when he scribbles from the core of his incessant embarrassment and uses his column to score points in domestic clashes. I still miss his contributions and now only look at Weekend at all because of Dave Shrigley’s cartoon – if he leaves I shall simply leave Weekend untouched like the detested Jobs and Money section, too boring even to line the cat’s litter tray – he’d become constipated rather than defecate on all those tedious career opportunities.

‘I think that I exemplify a common phenomenon in my admission that I put aside my disdain for the Blues whilst Mourinho was at the club’

When José Mourinho left Chelsea he did it in the certain knowledge that he, like Ronson, was irreplaceable. It would’ve required a manager with the looks of George Clooney, the brain of Richard Dawkins and the charisma of Charles Manson to assuage the sentimental tumult inspired by his departure. I do not like Chelsea but I was sad to see him leave and I think that I exemplify a common phenomenon in my admission that I put aside my disdain for the Blues whilst he was at the club. He made Chelsea palatable.

Figuratively the scenario is reminiscent of a girl I once dated who had
an atrocious personality (cruel, racist, joyless) but a really nice arse. She was like her own arse’s irritating best mate – I had to tolerate her to get to the arse. The arse in its spellbinding beauty made her many flaws tolerable – she later revealed she’d only gone out with me because she liked my cat so don’t feel too sorry for her.

Mourinho was like that girl’s beautiful arse – while he was at Chelsea few cared that they played stifling football for a humourless billionaire, we were too busy ogling the arse. Now that gorgeous set of buns has been replaced by the saggy rump that is Avram Grant no one gives a monkey’s
that the results are quite impressive, we still mourn the departure of the tanned hide of the Special One – ‘I hate it that you’re leaving but, boy, do I love to watch you walking away.’

I hear that some regulars at the Bridge would prefer Chelsea to be knocked out of the Champions League and to drop out of the title race just to be rid of Grant. Astonishing. As he himself pointed out, who would’ve thought when Mourinho wiggled off that Grant would still be in the running for major honours this late on in the season? One suspects that Chelsea will win nothing, naturally. That United will wrap up the title in the next few games and that Liverpool will bounce them out of Europe but none of this matters to Roman Abramovich, who is apparently poised to give Grant a hundred million to reinforce his squad over the summer.

What’s going on? Why does that seem so absurd? Why are we so unwilling to accredit Grant? I’ve a friend who’s a season ticket holder in SW6 who swears blind that during matches Steve Clarke and Henk ten Cate conduct tactical powwows, literally, behind Grant’s back as if snogging out of sight of an unwanted chaperone. Players are breaking ranks to announce to the press that they never would’ve joined the club to play for him and more childishly that they call him ‘the professor’; not in the way Arsène Wenger is called ‘the professor’ – affectionately, because of his keen, tactical mind – but because they think he is a right dickhead. A dickhead professor who no one likes.

Didier Drogba is said to be leaving, only delaying his decision on destination until old sweet cheeks has picked a club, and many more, reportedly, will follow. Quentin Crisp said, ‘Charisma is the ability to influence without logic’, and this is the key to Grant’s problem – he can do all the publicity he likes or sit through a press conference issuing only yes or no answers but he’ll never manipulate the manner in which he’s perceived because he cannot make us put aside logic in the way that Mourinho could. The only thing I can remember from all the press I’ve read about Grant is that his wife once drank urine on an Israeli TV show. It’s gonna take a lot more than that.