Articles of Faith (9 page)

After the second of West Ham’s listless defeats at the hands of the vindictively efficient Everton I snided my way into the directors’ lounge, as I was curious to meet the dignitaries within. Since writing this column I’ve had incredible access to West Ham players and behind-the-scenes personnel and I must say I’ve found the place to be reassuringly domestic.

The staff have an unaffected familiarity with each other and most of them have been at the club decades; the shop-floor banter between them could be found in any factory or call centre across these islands. I witnessed Lesley and Barbara behind the bar in the players’ lounge discussing with eye-rolling boredom the concern of a trainer who informed them that they ought to avert their eyes, as Lucas Neill was coming through in just a towel.

Lesley: ‘I said, “I’ve got two grown-up sons – he’s got nothing under there that’s gonna frighten me.”’

Barbara: ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

I heard Ron, whose job I was unable to ascertain, glibly dismissing the heart attack he’d had the previous week while filling a see-through bag with unused chops off the hospitality table.

Lesley: ‘Did the doctor tell you to watch what you eat?’

Ron: ‘What’da they know?’

For me, exchanges of this nature are as warm and familiar as dozing on my grandad’s lap, and far more accessible as he’s been dead for 15 years. Just to clarify; I only dozed on his lap as a child, not into my mid-teens, just before his death. A lapful of adolescent drug addict could only exacerbate bowel cancer and anyway I’d long grown out of the habit by then. The white radio-clock he’d received from Ford had long stopped but still it hung on the kitchen wall in Dagenham. A plastic monument to his years of toil, a black-and-white photo of him humbly accepting it was in the adjacent cupboard.

As he lay delirious with death approaching, on the settee, TV on as ever, I watched through tears as he struggled to remember Jimmy
Greaves’s name.

‘Who’s that?’ he enquired, peering beyond the screen and into the cosy, hazy past.

‘That’s Greavsie,’ I said, all sad. Bert was a West Ham fan of course, like my Dad, and would’ve been thrilled at the new privilege I now enjoy, though probably too embarrassed to actually get off on it the way I do. I’m intrigued by hierarchy and a Premiership football club is a fascinating place to observe social strata. First there are the fans, themselves organised into myriad groups; then, in the ground and behind the scenes, security and hospitality and catering; the now sadly defunct Hammerettes; training staff; directors; and, fanfare please, the players. I was titillated by Tony Montana’s ascent through the cocaine cartels of Florida and South America in the movie
Scarface
: first he’s hanging out with street dealers, then local Mister Big-type characters, before climbing to the top of the power pyramid where corrupt politicians teeter.

‘The Lyall and Greenwood dynasties truly had the demeanour of aristocracy, a Cockney monarchy’

My own experiences at Upton Park parallel that exactly; Lesley and Barbara are cut-throat Cuban street dealers, Ron and Danny and Tom from security are local Mister Bigs and at the top of the pyramid are the families of John Lyall and Ron Greenwood. And me, well obviously I’m Tony Montana, strutting around in a white suit with a machine gun and a powdery moustache.

The analogy had broken down long before you were asked to accept me as a cold-hearted, hot-blooded killer; Lesley and Barbara wouldn’t last five minutes dealing charlie on a corner in Miami and the respective Lyall and Greenwood dynasties have more in common with the House of
Windsor than that ostentatious tat palace that Tony and his cronies were holed up in. They truly had the demeanour of aristocracy, a Cockney monarchy.

Clearly aware of the duty of legacy, they charmingly introduced me to their children; when Murray, John Lyall’s son, said, ‘This is my son Charlie. John’s grandson,’ it was touching. Neil, Ron Greenwood’s son, a gentleman like his father, was hospitable and gracious, never betraying for a moment that my nervousness was evident. I met a few members of the current board but wasn’t with them long enough to make an assessment of them or their intentions towards the club. But the presence of the club’s two most successful and beloved managers’ families was heartening.

If the line from this game’s inception to the present day can be preserved perhaps we can protect its soul through Ron Greenwood and John Lyall, my Grandad Bert, through Neil and Murray right to Charlie. Not his little brother Scott though. He supports Chelsea.

Two thousand and eight then. We’re now so far into the future that Kubrick’s space vision looks like a turgid and unambitious ‘what the butler saw’. I suffered a bit of football fatigue over the holidays as well as that vomiting craze that swept the nation like jacks or pogs – or saying ‘whaaasssuuuup’ but with such commitment that the utterance becomes projectile.

I feel personally aggrieved by Liverpool’s failure to stay with the pace. I really thought this might be their year; to kids growing up now the Reds will be like United were when I was a lad – a team for whom there is an incomprehensible reverence that have never delivered a title in their lifetime. I suppose they have at least triumphed in the watered-down, hyped-up Champions League but the Scousers demand domestic success from their side and now it increasingly seems that will not be under Benítez.

‘Matt apologised as if Arsenal’s dominance were bad manners and he’d failed in his duty as a host’

I did not go to Upton Park for West Ham’s magnificent victory against Manchester United and was in fact so delirious with my Scrooge ‘flu that I was oblivious to the event until baffled and congratulatory texts began to flood in. I was at the Emirates on New Year’s Day, however, where the Hammers played like a side who felt like they’d done enough work for two matches in their previous encounter – which is a mentality I often employ sexually after the euphoria of the debut has reached its giddy climax, often secretly making eye contact with my cat as my co-participant ponders the whereabouts of the former shaman who now half-heartedly writhes, more for exercise than pleasure.

Arsenal move with the fluidity, grace and purpose of a couple who remain very much in love, the kind of yogic coitus that I like to think Sting
and Trudie Styler have. Arsenal pass confidently from deep positions and are unencumbered by needless flair but make the functional aesthetically titillating – again, how I imagine Sting and Trudie.

I don’t want to give the impression that I give undue attention to the private lovemaking of Gordon Sumner and his missus, it’s just a convenient analogy. I’ve never pondered it alone, biting my lower lip, eyes rolling skyward as I twitch out ribbons of guilty glee. I don’t put on that ‘fields of barley’ record and pretend to be him while canoodling with a porcelain sex doll. I don’t think you can even get porcelain sex dolls, which is a prohibition of choice that will, surely, ultimately lead to the collapse of consumerism as the anaesthetic of the West.

I went to the Arsenal game with lifelong Gooner Matt Lucas. I don’t often attend away games and even as we approached the magnificent arena the angst of unfamiliarity was all about me. The people drinking outside the pubs on the Blackstock Road were not of my fraternity; lacking there was the bonhomie of the frequently defeated, replaced instead by a peculiar sense of assurance; men louchely swilled back
booze safe in the knowledge that they were not about to witness a bout of lazy humiliation.

It was a world away from the gallows goodwill of Green Street where a lunatic pervasion of detached joy prevails; revellers indifferently jig and swirl, regardless of the likelihood of 90 minutes of torture, like a grinning gin-bleached hag merrily giving suck to a stiff blue tot.

When Arsenal scored twice, so quickly that the whistle’s echo could still be detected, Matt apologised as if Arsenal’s dominance were bad manners and he’d failed in his duty as a host. I assured him that he couldn’t be held responsible for his team’s superiority and spent the rest of the game admiring the architecture and listening to the away support’s relentlessly amusing chants with fellow Hammer and companion that day James Corden.

My favourite was ‘sit down if you love Tottenham’ – there is little standing at the Emirates so by the song’s clever logic the home fans were tacitly supporting their hated foes. Their riposte was quite good – ‘You need more foreigners’ – but all were united in the minute’s silence that preceded the match to mark the sad death of Motherwell’s captain, Phil O’Donnell, a reminder that, whilst pithy, Shankly’s maxim was ever an empty witticism.

I’m on the Isle of Wight caught up in the seductive nostalgia of umpteen childhood jaunts, avoiding paparazzi (two of them, the same two – I can see how Britney Spears has got entangled with one, the proximity begins to feel like intimacy; I almost invited one of them into my bath this morning out of a combination of curiosity and pity) and to tell you the truth nobody reminded me to write this article until moments before the deadline when I was off shooting clays with my chums.

Ah, the power of the establishment. Whilst you may deride it and attack it from the foothills prior to ascent, on arrival at the summit it is very difficult to eschew the baubles and the Barbour. That is why the revolution will be tricky – it takes great discipline not to check your principles at the door of the Groucho and allow your ideals to be neutered by piña coladas and fellatio.

Big Sam Allardyce became the eighth casualty of a particularly bloodthirsty season. I don’t recall so many managers having fallen so early on before and Sam was remarkably philosophical, saying there’s little point in bitterness or regret in these situations and that’s true, but it must be challenging to stifle those instincts regardless of the pay-off.

‘Allardyce was vulnerable as soon as Ashley took over but they do seem a bit trigger-happy on Tyneside’

He was ever Freddy Shepherd’s appointment so I suppose he was vulnerable as soon as Mike Ashley took over but they do seem a bit trigger-happy up on Tyneside; if I’d behaved with such profligate abandon whilst cracking off clay pigeons I’d’ve felled two photographers and perhaps an instructor to boot as opposed to the breathtaking displays of marksmanship that have led to me becoming something of a local hero and, possibly, if the legislation can get through before the ferry departs,
mayor. All power ought to be wielded in a considered and responsible manner.

Allardyce surely deserved a season, but I suppose if you own a football club that you’ve loved since childhood and are not happy with the fashion in which it’s being run you must act. Like in a marriage, though that’s not an analogy that I can personally validate so perhaps, more reasonably, a holiday.

If you go on holiday with a lover and after the first night you realise that you, in point of fact, despise your companion; the way they eat, address
waiters and are cruel to the street cats of Lindos, perhaps it’s prudent to give them the old heave ho’ and try your luck with a chamber maid. Or in this case Harry Redknapp.

I’ve said before in this column that I love Harry, I think he was great at West Ham and has done wonderful work at Portsmouth but most importantly he is the most amusing manager working in top-flight football.

Once, on
Goals on Sunday
where he guested with Paul Merson he told an anecdote of Merson’s early career at Fratton Park and the special attention granted to gifted players. As is well publicised, Merson had
problems with addiction relating to gambling and alcohol and during one traumatic period he requested some time off to go to Tony Adams’s addiction clinic.

Harry consented acknowledging that Merson would benefit from the treatment. When Redknapp relayed this story on telly he went: ‘Merse came to me saying can I have some time off to go to Tony’s clinic cos I’m having a bit of trouble with the booze, the gambling and the birds…’ Merson interrupted here, saying: ‘Not the birds Harry, I was still married then, remember?’

Harry cared not a jot that his candour had retrospectively devalued Merson’s marriage and blithely ignored his former charge’s appealing looks. ‘Anyway I give him the time off then I got a phone call from a mate, saying “I’m in Barbados, I’ve just seen Paul Merson on the beach.” I goes “No. Merson’s in Tony Adams’s clinic” – turns out he was lying but he came back the next week and scored twice.’

The upbeat ending of the yarn was somewhat lost on Merson as he was now just staring blankly into camera having been off-handedly outed as a philanderer in a story meant to illustrate his wayward talent.

Some say Redknapp deserves a big stage on which to display his under-appreciated skill. But he is adored at Pompey and will be forever loved in East London and, whilst Newcastle are a fantastic club with incredible supporters, I don’t think their administrators deserve a great manager like Harry.

The Dionysian versus the Apollonian, romanticism versus pragmatism, forever we oscillate and vie between these two contrasting ideas. A wise man once remarked to me that the Third Reich was an example of what happens when you put an artist in a position of power; although many of Hitler’s atrocities were committed as a result of him being a right bastard as opposed to an artist – there’s nothing in pointillism that suggests that genocide would be worthwhile.

I suppose what he was saying was that a personality whose mind is
governed by poetic ideas like Bavarian myth and the operas of Wagner oughtn’t be put in charge of foreign policy and defence because they’ll pursue impractical objectives to achieve, in this case misguided, romantic ends.

Kevin Keegan’s reappointment as Geordie messiah made me reflect on this theory. Now, I’m right behind any second coming, it appeals to me, a Geordie messiah, why stop there? Let’s have Harry Redknapp as a Cockney Moses and Martin O’Neill as an Ulster Herod. I am enthralled by
narrative and Keegan’s return is a great story; he’s an intriguing character who, I gather, is a little embittered about the way he’s been handled by the English press and feels he has scores to settle.

I was initially baffled when I heard the news but on reflection it makes perfect sense particularly if regarded as an insular romance between the people of Newcastle and Keegan rather than a managerial decision made by a massive franchise. Because logically, surely, this doesn’t add up. When Keegan took Toon on its euphoric romp from the foot of Division One to the summit of the Premier League the footballing landscape was very different. Newcastle were loaded and had few rivals in terms of spending power; that, coupled with Kev’s then-untarnished ebullience, was sufficient to bring them tantalisingly close to glory.

‘Perhaps it’s not for us to understand the Geordies and their rose-tinted fetish of the miner’s son’

But if you look at the top flight now can one really envisage Keegan outsmarting teams bossed by David Moyes, Juande Ramos, Mark Hughes, not to mention the big four and Cockney Moses and Ulster Herod? I suppose when you’re in love such things cease to be relevant.

‘He’s got a suspect temperament.’ ‘Oh I know but look at his hair.’ ‘He struggles tactically with defence.’ ‘Yeah, but when he looks into my eyes I feel like I’m the only person on earth.’ ‘He makes emotional decisions then walks away when he feels the heat.’ ‘Look, just fuck off will you, I love him.’

For Newcastle fans those fêted few seasons under Keegan still have the power of transcendental love, an idyllic holiday away from the glum drudgery of under-achievement and of course they will once more be guaranteed cavalier, adventurous football – he is the anti-Allardyce.

Perhaps it’s not for us to try to understand the Geordies and their rose-tinted fetish of the admittedly adorable miner’s son – few outside of east London will appreciate the adulation felt for ‘vicious-looking’ Julian Dicks, and Robbie Fowler could probably push an old lady in a wheelchair into the Mersey without relinquishing his status as ‘God’.

In a sport increasingly compromised for capitalist ends perhaps we should celebrate this tiny triumph of the heart over the head, while Liverpool’s beloved Rafael Benítez looks like he’s about to be ‘Jolled’ good and proper by a board that clearly don’t respect the feelings of the Kop. The Toon army is being heard.

To me it seems that Keegan can but fail, but what the bloody hell do I know, I’m no expert and I don’t support Newcastle but as a fan of football and romance I should be cock-a-hoop at this recalcitrant disregard for reason.

Perhaps Alan Shearer will join as his no. 2; they could commence each home match with a
Women in Love
-style nude wrestle in the centre circle while Michael Owen blows cocaine into their anuses. Why not? It’ll be a bonding experience like no other.

Keegan’s appointment is romantic rather than pragmatic but does that make it wrong? I suppose the correct answer is ‘who cares?’ It’s made thousands of people incredibly happy and unless he’s had a massive change in philosophical direction in the interim period the consequences are unlikely to be as horrifically profound as Hitler’s elevation. Just to be clear: Keegan good, Hitler bad.