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Roy and Peter
Roy Hodgson is probably one of those guys who shouldn’t tell jokes, anytime, anywhere. But he chose to at half-time, in the most important football match of his life, probably to ease the tension that must have been filling the room at the time. The gag he pulled was an old one, told a million times before and never, I’ll bet, has it been construed as racist. Thanks to a treacherous member of his squad who ran to the press, that label was hung round Mr Hodgson’s neck, briefly, until it was laughed out of court by every other person in the room at the time, and firmly squashed by the FA.
Yet there are people who still won’t let it lie. A complaint has been made to the FA by something called Race for Sport, which has been described as an offshoot of the Society of Black Lawyers, which is run by a man named Peter Herbert. ‘You’re kidding, QJ’ I hear you gasp. Well no, I’m not; it really does exist and it is given credence and airtime by our media in its endless search for headlines. Here’s what I believe: any organisation that is based in ethnicity alone is potentially racist in its outlook and should be prohibited. Anyone who thinks that’s extreme should imagine the reaction if a few barristers . . . I resist the urge to call them ‘baristas’ . . . were to get together and establish the Association of White Lawyers.
There are people, possibly Mr Herbert among them, who will brand me as racist for committing that thought to print. I can assure them that I’m not. All I want is a level playing field; I want Martin Luther King’s dream world, where we are judged not by the colour of our skin but by the content of our character. Those who foster and play upon ethnic distinctions are blocking the road to that goal.
Persecution
If I was a young man today and faced with a choice between being a professional sportsman and a traffic warden, I’d probably opt for the peaked cap. Why? Because traffic wardens are treated with more dignity and respect.
Take the case of Andy Murray as an example. Andy has had back surgery recently. He is in the early stages of rehab, still many weeks away from resuming his tennis career, but mobile enough to keep an important appointment this week. There he was, spruced up and ready to go to the Palace, with his partner and his parents, to pick up his OBE, when there was a knock on his front door. He opened it and there was a man, a stranger, demanding that Andy piss in a bottle, and that he witness him doing so. And he had to, no choice, even though it made him late for his investiture. It’s called out of competition testing, it’s compulsory and those who do not make themselves available are labelled ‘drug cheats’ and banned from their chosen sports. Human rights? They don’t have any.
Such is the crazy world of any modern professional athlete. If I picked up a squash racket again, even at my advanced age, maybe there’s a Masters’ circuit I could play on. Would I consider it? Only if I could give the man with the bottle a simple message when he turned up at my door.
How to embarrass oneself
Som
e guys invite you to play in a bounce game, and you’re photographed in their shirt, something your Barça pals will never let you forget.
BBC non-headline of the week
‘Andros Townsend: Roy Hodgson’s joke did not cause offence’
How to embarrass one’s wife
You take her to Madrid, then talk some local guy into having his photo taken with her, in his work clothes even, just to prove she was there.
Que?
Just back from Madrid of which more later, but first, a quiz question.
What are these?
How are the mighty fallen
This is what our broadsheet journalism has come to. This is a non-story with no substance at all, as the reader comments make very clear. I must give up the Torygraph and switch to the Sun, where they seem to have a greater regard for truth and accuracy.
The trouble with Harry
Thing is, ‘arry, most people like you, apart from Arsenal fans and Chelsea fans, but your CV didn’t justify your appointment.
Okay, I’m non-PC
This will make me unpopular in some quarters, but I don’t care. Yesterday afternoon, I happened to catch the end of Final Score on BBC, where I saw Robbie Fowler make an on-air apology for something he’d said earlier. At the time I had no idea what that was.
Mr Fowler is a recently retired footballer, employed as a football analyst. It seems that in commenting, spontaneously, on an incident between two players in the Spurs-Chelsea game, he described them as ‘acting like a pair of girls’ in their confrontation. For that, he was made to humble himself by the producer of the live, unscripted show; although he was clearly unhappy about it. By this decision, the story was given legs, and it has run into Sunday. If said producer had restricted himself (or was it herself?) to a quiet word with Robbie after they had gone off air, his allegedly offensive comments would not have been rebroadcast across the nation this morning.
I had a similar experience with BBC, when I said something on air that the man in the production box felt might offend; the presenter was forced to apologise for my remark. If I had been asked to do that myself I would have invited the man in the box to piss up a rope or something similar, but poor old Simon Mayo had no choice, such is the BBC’s fear that any spontaneity falling outside its strict guidelines might offend the public at large. (He told me after the event that there is actually a form that must be completed when such an incident takes place.) The same thing happened then as happened to Robbie Fowler this morning. The media picked it up and I was subject to online abuse and threats from the sort of racist moron who seems to have free access to the Daily Mail‘s online edition.
For the record, when I saw Mr Torres drag his fingernails across Mr Vertonghen’s face, my thought at the time that he was acting like a Jessie, and if I’d been in Robbie’s chair I’d have said just that. I guess this means that football commentators and live match analysts are now forbidden to use the term ‘hand-bags’.
To complete what might seem like a silly Sunday, but is actually pretty serious, I read also this morning that my fellow Motherwell supporter, Tam Cowan, has been suspended from his BBC show over his Daily Record column in which he dared to describe a women’s football international as ‘turgid’ and ‘guff’. Tam is a comic; irony and sarcasm are his stock in trade, and so his language can be florid. The Record made this clear in a PS to his column, in which they posted his personal email at the paper, and asked for complaints to be directed there. Sure, the editor knew that people might be offended, but he knew also than many more people, including the few who watched that international football match on BBC Alba, in a virtually empty Fir Park, would agree with the basis of the comments that lay under the wisecracks. Tam Cowan has worked for BBC for years, they know what he is and they’ve been happy with the audience figures that his popularity generates. Yet yesterday they dumped on him without a second thought.
The BBC, our national public broadcaster, presents itself a a bastion of free speech. It is nothing of the sort; it has become its enemy, and that needs to change.
Value
Half-way through Spurs vs Chelsea and it’s obvious why the Premier League sells for billions around the world. There was more football in those 45 minutes than in most full games in most other leagues.
The Moyes effect
After Manchester United side were beaten 4-1 by Manchester City, David Moyes confessed that the pain may not be over just yet. “It was always going to be tough,’ he said ‘following such a great manager with a great team and I think people with real football knowledge will know there are probably some changes to be made.”
I suggest that people with real football knowledge will think that the pain was self-inflicted. Mr Moyes sent out a team without a midfield runner, with a centre-back at right back, with £27m worth of Fellaini played too far back to do any damage and with a passenger on the left wing. A couple of weeks ago he was saying that he was perfectly happy with the squad at his disposal; now it seems he isn’t. I’ve seen most of Man U’s games since he took over, and it seems to me that there are two major problems; the way the team is set up and the manager’s apparent inability to make obvious tactical changes in the course of the game.
The signs are that the club will do well to finish in the top four this season.
Good luck. mate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24209800
The football transfer window is so obviously in restraint of trade that the mere threat of an action might scare FIFA into a compromise. I hope so.
Hoops
At the risk of upsetting those of an unshakeably blue persuasion, last night I watched Celtic put on a remarkably classy performance in Milan, where they were unlucky not to leave with a point. Even the Spanish commentator said so. The difference between the two sides was a late own goal, (they called it a deflection but it was more than that) and a free kick that may have been dodgy, since Balotelli had been play-acting all night.
We have a habit of rubbishing our own game at every opportunity, but last night we were done proud.
Not fine at all
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24117963
When a person, even an eccentric like Paolo di Canio, can be fined £8,000 for speaking the self-evident truth, the body that imposes the penalty needs to take a serious look at itself.
Sadly missed
And so the Champions League proper is with us again. But this season it just won’t be the same.
Fuzzy
Only one Man U signing yesterday, and Moyes is getting stick. Actually folks, it’s Ed Woodward, the Chief Exec who does the business, not the manager, so cast the stones in the right direction, eh, but at the same time congratulate him for refusing to shell out £16m for Baines, at his age.
A tall ordure
It’s all football today.
I see that a former FIFA World Player of the Year has left Madrid and gone back to AC Milan. Probably just as well; here in Spain nobody was ever too keen on inviting ridicule by wearing a replica shirt with ‘Kaka’ on the back. It reminds me of the time Celtic signed another Brazilian, name of Scheidt, and had to plead with the Scottish media to call him by his first name, Rafael.
¿Que?
I am reasonably up with it on football matters; I played the game in a very minor way until only a couple of years ago, when my body suggested that it might like a rest, I watch a lot and I read a lot about it and all its modern intricacies and intrigues. I have just finished a book called ‘I am the Secret Footballer‘ and soon I will start another called ‘The Secret Player‘, which my friend Martin, who edited it, assures me is even better.
For all that, there is one thing I cannot understand. Leaving the cash involved aside, for that is just silly and a reflection of the fact that today’s industry is mostly about screwing money out of the fans, can someone please explain to me how a presumably sane man could pay more for Gareth Bale than for Cristiano Ronaldo?
Double fault
Anyone noticed that Rory McIlroy’s decline has been more than matched by that of his girlfriend, Caroline Wozniacki, once the No 1 player in her sport, now well down the rankings?
I have a theory, and it is this: mixed doubles involving golfers and tennis players never work for either party.
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