Sushi Blues

NIC'S BACK, PADDIES WHACKED.
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

No significance at all, that headline. I post it merely to annoy the Phony Celts. If you're on of them…………………………up yours with a wire brush.

Speaking of which, the tournament lead-up to the match against Argentina (rightly regarded as the most significant match thus far) had its usual fill of incident and bullshit in other games and in our media.

The Irish got two draws and also drew the usual amount of media blarney after playing mediocre opposition in hohum matches. I wish the Irish and Mick McCarthy much good fortune but I can do without the outrageous sentimentalised muck following every reasonable result after the minor miracle of qualifying. Mick McCarthy even claimed they "murdered" the Krauts. Which of course is the biggest load of bollocks since yet another startled player found he was qualified as a Paddy through his Transylvanian fifth goat out of a Patagonian Taffy who once administered a soixante-neuf to a Cheeseheadette who had interviewed someone on Saint Patrick's Day while quaffing a Bailey's with a distant relative of Eamonn de Valera's who wore a Gaelic "Football" left boot. I tell you, only the Irish could get away with this kind of nonsense. It should be stopped forthwith, but it won't be. It will only get worse. Gawd help us if the Irish ever manage to put together a team which actually plays good footy instead of the schizoid-depressive celtic kick and rush mélange we usually get.

The next Irish match is against the hapless Saudis, one which they'll probably lose or scrape through by a single fortuitous goal. If it's the latter, stand by for endless streams of media shite about Dublin, Guinness, partying, Molly Malone, Jack Charlton's fishing trips, Roy Keane's obduracy and Mick McCarthy's prescience. If they LOSE, on the other hand, watch for the very same wankers claiming, "Roy Keane Knew Something We Didn't."

Still, you have to say it's infinitely preferable to three types of our own home-grown dickheads. The first is the braindead dicksplat who says England is a south-east team or, "worse," a cockney team, conveniently forgetting most of England's greatest players have been from the provinces and usually selected regardless of location. All the dicksplat does is demonstrate the worst type of provincial inferiority complex. The second is that surviving nasty product of the Awful Eighties, a tiny minority of Essex neo-nazi Englishmen and their camp followers from minor clubs like Gravesend and Northfleet United or Carlisle or Romford…………and that's without disrespect to any club. The third is, of course, our mainstream media. Honourable exceptions apart, most of them are free-loading, talentless liars on a phony hype mission.

No question the best match so far was Brazil V Turkey. Lots of good open play by both sides, sadly disfigured by an appalling fraud by Rivaldo which drew a derisory fine of half a day's pay. Thus proving, as if you needed telling, that FIFA needs a good clean out from top to bottom. I quite liked the look of Hassan Sas, wide left for the Turks. Pity the game was almost ruined by the kind of unearned, sickening Brazil-effusive TV commentary you could find in a box of concentrated saccharine pills manufactured by some unregulated Swiss transnational based in San Paulo.

But the match which gave me greatest pleasure was USA V Portugal. You can't help but like the enthusiastic Yanks, some of whom were a gorgeous tribute to suburban middle class Yank orthodontistry. Brilliant white teeth glinting, they looked like they were on their way to a high school prom. When they got fouled they even seemed to get to their feet saying, "Goshdarnit!" The Portuguese just couldn't cope as the Yanks kept running themselves daft, especially Beasley on the left, a very handy looking speed merchant. When the second goal deflected in and you took yourself down off the ceiling you thought, grinning, "Aye, aye! Could this just be……..?" And when the third got bulleted home after a superb right wing move it was obvious even the Portuguese were going to have a hard time. It was a great, great win, far better and much more earned than any other, even the Senegal win over The Frogs. The game needs a successful Yank team and so do dedicated American enthusiasts.

At the time of writing, French survival hangs on a thread of wet cotton after a bad tempered 0-0 match against typical Uruguayan thuggery. Not that The Frogs were squeaky clean. Henry got sent off after a dreadful over-the-ball that was still ninety percent better than when he tried to decapitate Davey in front of the Park End last season. On that occasion he got away without so much as a word in his ear from the dingbat who refereed. But France-Uruguay was an edgy, tenuously exciting game with sudden spasms of flowing footy. The better chances unfortunately came and then fortunately went away from Uruguay. The ageing French empire appears to have crumbled almost beyond repair but nobody I know wants the Uruguayans to stay in the competition. The Beautiful Game being what it is, i.e. infinitely unpredictable, trust the Uruguayans to score one of the goals of the competition, a magnificent left foot volley by Rodriguez against Denmark.

Senegal scored the goal of the competition to date with a superb single touch move all the way out of defence against, erm, Denmark. The Gravedigger was an interested specky for this one as the ball zipped past him effortlessly, lovingly caressed all the way down the pitch and into the Danish net. Us Blue Bellies could sympathise with feeling for their 'keeper.

It gave me great pleasure too to see the South Koreans beat a dreadfully pedestrian Poland so easily. Having once been design manager for a Korean company and spent considerable time in Seoul I know just how much it will mean to them. It was despicable the way Havelange double crossed them and forced co-hosting with The Nips, for whom the Koreans have an all-consuming, burning…………shall we say…………historical resentment. And anyway, they taught me Taekwondo, which has been and is very useful at fraught moments. So I knew they too would run until they dropped. As it was, it was the Poles who dropped first. When I phoned Korea with congratulations the party was well under way and audible even from here. Some of them actually think they can win it. I hope the landing isn't too hard.

The standard of most of the other matches was averagely competent, nothing to get excited about. Maybe the knock-out stages will improve things. Prospective sudden elimination concentrates the mind wonderfully.

As a midweek lead up to the England match, BBC 2 showed near exquisite excruciating taste in finally broadcasting "The Falklands Play." It was banned when first produced in the aftermath of the Falklands War. Only the English Establishment could tell you why. Me, I'd have banned it if only because of its propaganda lies, lousy acting, crap writing, comically bad costumes and putrid directing. Maybe it was because it showed Reagan and Haig as precisely what they were, a pair of empty-headed extreme right wing Yank deadbeats with a near-nazi ambassador in Jeanne Kirkpatrick. It couldn't have been banned on the basis of accuracy since, amongst other things, it showed Admiral Lewin explaining the Belgrano had to be shot as a sudden pincer threat to the Task Force, that submarine Conqueror couldn't follow it into the Exclusion Zone because the Burbo Bank is too shallow. You have to sigh when you hear this kind of lying propaganda even at this distance in time. Some "sudden pincer threat," that, 250 miles and fourteen hours away…………………assuming the Task Force ignored its orders, turned off its radar, stopped air patrols, stopped dead in the water and kindly waited for an attack from the near half-century old cruiser. Some "shallows," those……………………fifty metres, and the Conqueror requires only eighteen metres. For them, anything which gets the flags waving I suppose, even harrowing needless deaths. You wept for the brave young men and women put in harm's way to suit a fucking mad harridan and a junta-gang of loony comic opera Uniforms.

In much more appropriate proletarian taste was a Channel 5 match-eve programme entitled "Argy-Bargy." This took an irreverent, firmly tongue-in-cheek look at the roots of rivalry between Greasy Tangoing Cheating Argentina and our beloved Stiff Upper Lip Swinging England. Footage of the great Bobby Moore at his peak made your heart ache for what was lost. I don't know who the female voice-over was but she was the perfect choice for the fans-type narration, particularly when softly she called Maradona "…………a short arsed cheating little git……………" without a trace of vehemence in her delivery. It is a safe bet it had the Argy ambassador to the Court of St. James shifting in his large trousers. Anyway it is true. We all know it. And so do drugs-testers on two continents.

How different, I ruminated, between that sardonic humour and the disgraceful treatment David Beckham got from the media after his sending off in France '98. There was only one thing worse and that was the way some "fans" reacted as a result. Those with long memories of Euro 2000 will remember it culminated (after the game which knocked us out) in a group of them shouting to him they hoped his infant son would die of cancer. Thus the grubby scum in the media were dutifully copied by the grubby scum in the crowd. There's a lesson in there somewhere but it will probably get missed by the culprits. It was one of the most shameful post-80s episodes in the English game. Fortunately, and to his eternal credit, Becks stayed in England and got his own back in the best possible way with a series of devastating displays for his club. I cheered every single time he did it. Gradually the scum went out on the ebb tide. David Beckham won, and in the process proved his ability as a human being as well as a great player.

On the morning of The Match the Swedes went and did for Nigerian prospects with another solid 2-1 win. I only caught the last fifteen minutes, enough to see the Africans hit a post and create chances they would expect to bury most times. The result really put the cat among the pigeons. Realistically, we had to win against the Argies to give us a good chance of going through. A draw would leave everything hanging by the same piece of wet cotton The Frogs were dangling by.

Circumstances and mood dictated I went with me bezzie mate to The Glebe in Walton for the TV broadcast. On the day I had no inclination for city centre masses but I was delighted on the journey to postal district 4 to see large numbers of taxis and other cars with The Cross of St. George flying. Pubs everywhere had all kinds of the same stuff dressed around windows and over back fittings. Phony Celts must have been eating (what passes for) their hearts out. By the time we got to The Glebe I was expecting the place to be bouncing. So naturally it was empty.

On the telly, the "experts" were Ian Wright, Martin O'Neill and ex-pinky Hansen. You couldn't get three more different personalities. Wright is an empty-headed berk who relies a lot on waving hands and exposed ivory teeth at regular intervals. He says "Man" a lot, in an exaggerated cockney accent. O'Neill's spectacles slid down his nose in graduated phases as he sought to impart a sense of Ulster intellectuality to what passed for discussion. Hansen, you have to hand it to him, long ago discovered that all you have to do as a media pundit is Speak Very Loudly In Ringing Tones With An Air Of Quasi-Conviction. Funny thing is, he's almost always wrong. The ménage a trois was conducted by Gary Lineker, a man so vacuous you wonder if he's actually a graphic cartoon. After the first few sentences from them you yawn and start paying attention to outrageous spontaneous opinions all around you. By the time the match kicked off the pub was half full of attentive, well-behaved if slightly woozy England fans.

Vassell out, Nicky Butt in. Owen and Hesky up front, the latter in the centre, his only position.

The opening phase was quite flat, the Argies on top for the first ten minutes or so. You watched glumly in anti-climax as our inability to pass properly told against us. The opposition had the kind of shape and self confidence you associate with experience. We won the ball a lot but didn't really know how or what to do with it once we had it. I gnawed at my finger nails expecting the worst. There's no point having commitment in anything unless you really FEEL it. Human beings are instinctive creatures, not dessicated suburban counting machines.

But gradually England asserted themselves after some narrow squeaks. Michael Owen's game perked up so much you could almost see the Argies twitch every time he got the ball. Lumbering old Emile Heskey played an excellent supporting role while the England midfield toiled. Every now and then he dropped back willingly and won an important tackle, just enough to spoil a promising Argy build up. We got back into it. And then the Hawarden Terror tricked the Argy left defence and banged a shot through a defender's legs and against their right post and back out. To my amazement we were on top and the Argies were plainly rocking. Hargreaves went off injured and Trevor Sinclair came on and promptly ran them ragged down our left.

It was untidy but who gave a fuck? Our younger players reinforced the owl-arse annoyance of surviving veterans from the '98 clash. Eventually the Argies lost their composure and started the old tricks. Batistuta got booked after a nasty little foul and then luckily stayed on the park after sticking a disgusting greasy elbow in Becks' kipper. Meanwhile, Pettichino lived down to the Argy reputation and started booting and nudging anything which moved. Eventually narky Ashley Cole got pissed off with him and cleaved right through him as a demonstration that enough was enough. He should have been booked or even sent off but Pierluigi Collina knows how to let a game flow. At least that's what I said to assembled company in the bar.

In fact of course the Argies should have been ahead by this time. Batistuta missed a clear central header and a tremendous left side volley just cleared our bar from the edge of the penalty area. It was edgy stuff.

And then a minute before half time we attacked down our left via Sinclair and Owen. It ended with Owen weaving into the box left side and going down like a lead zeppelin. Naturally, like you, I was out of my seat yelling, "Penalty!" even though I didn't actually detect any real contact. After the Hand of God I am not inclined to take any prisoners. Becks hit the penalty straight down the middle and we were one up, The Glebe dancing all over the place and bemused younger members of various families staring at their parents making complete arseholes of themselves.

Half time, and the experts pontificated with the usual hindsight of mere existentialism. No wonder they are held in contempt by the fans.

Second half, Heskey off, Teddy Sheringham on. Wrong move, I thought. Well, it was me who was wrong. The only thing Teddy lacked was after burn. Plainly, he still smouldered from the Argy gloating after the previous loss. The result was we got right on top through sheer force of willpower. And then………………a truly glorious English moment. Seventeen passes out of defence, side to side, as classy and cool as they were the exception and the ball looped into Teddy, extreme right side of the penalty area. He did everything right, an absolute classic right foot volley which had you out of your seat yet again, this time yelling, "Goooooaaaaaaallllllll!!!!" as it screamed in. Alas, it was too straight and the 'keeper kept it out. Had it gone in it would have been every bit as memorable as that great Brazilian goal of the 1970 final.

Then, classically again, Michael Owen wriggled clear on the right and just dragged it wide of the left post. A goal then, and the Argies were dead corned beef.

We went into the last fifteen minutes and dropped back, scarcely crossing the half way line. You could hardly watch as the Argies poured forward with superior passing ability but no real clue as to how they would break through. They got frantic with worry, which suited us right down to the ground. Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell got first to everything in the centre and the midfield just funneled back to the edge of the box. The commentator bullshitted away nervously about, wait for it, The Bulldog Spirit.

Pierluigi blew the final whistle and The Glebe went ballistic. It was a well deserved win against the odds. So we got pissed. On the way home, England flags were everywhere…………………………not good for those with a provincial inferiority complex.

But don't tell the Phony Celts. They aren't through yet. If Allah has anything to do with it the Saudis might just get annoyed enough to ask his help.

Me, I'm an Englishman and proud of it. Bring on the Nigerians

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