Sushi Blues

Jules Rimet, Pickles And Other Rambling World Cup Shaggy Dog Stories.
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

Oh gawd. The World Cup's almost here again and I haven't bothered reading any of the previews or listening to any of the gossip. Which means I'll just have to watch the games and make up my own mind and ignore the self-styled "experts." Oh well.

The experience would be a damned sight better if we didn't know that FIFA is as raddled with corruption as it ever was under João Havelange, and that by and large the footy media are a useless gang of contemptible, vicarious free-loading leeches. With some luck the FIFA issue will be brought to a head and Blatter handed his overdue P45. No such fortune where the media are concerned though. TV talking heads will continue to talk completely vacuous shite to each other while the rest of us shake our heads at their sheer inconsequence and lack of originality. Give me your average fan's opinions any day, however inarticulate and scattered.

Take this "expert" thing - please - for example. How many times have you heard some ex-player or manager forecast something the exact opposite of what transpires out on the pitch? Whenever I hear them spouting the usual Footy Newspeak I am reminded of one of Howard Kendall's great stories of when he started in management. It seems there was a group of young men of similar ambition at some managerial seminar or other. Bobby Robson was holding forth. He had been to Brazil, he said, and he had seen the light. All the kids practiced on the Copacabana and that's what gave them their unique ball control. "The beach is The Answer, I tell you, the beach!" Somebody finally got pissed off with the diatribe and said, "Look, Bobby. If the beach is the answer, why aren't Blackpool and Bournemouth top of the league?" Thus proving that all theories have a common sense limit. One of the admirable qualities of the English working class is an unvarnished approach to pomposity: Fuck it right off.

Today's young fans are not the first to experience this kind of esoteric nonsense. When the great 1950s Hungarians first exploded English footy self-delusion you had to read some of the wittering to believe it. There were all kinds of loony theories floating around, wear shorter shorts, play a deep lying centre forward, practice more with a tennis ball or, worse, a tin can in a back alley. Albert Quixall even took ballet lessons.

Subsequently, Wolves, one of our contemporary leading teams, decisively won a series of floodlit friendlies against foreign opposition on live TV. Suddenly the arguments reversed course and became Little Englander, "Why don't we stick with our Long Ball Game? Look at how Wolves destroyed Honved!" It hardly seems to have occurred to anybody that our game was just tired and worked out, that's all, rather like the entire country in the wake of a terrible world war. It was surely no coincidence that most of the national and club teams which dazzled everyone in the 50s were from nations which escaped the worst of blitzkrieg devastation. Still, the ensuing lively debate played a small part in the revival lead by Busby's Manchester United, at least up to the horror of the Munich Disaster. It was no coincidence either that United's surge was on the back of young players with a new attitude. By the time the 60s got under way the seeds were laid for England's 1966 triumph.

Every footy dog has his day. This was never better proved than when somebody stole the Jules Rimet trophy after England won it. It was subsequently discovered by a mongrel called Pickles out taking his owner for a walk. It seems the mutt lifted his leg against some bushes and hey! there's the glorious trophy covered in dog piss. You can't get any more basic than that. Later still, a tearful owner explained the mutt with a fortuitously loose bladder had died when he strangled on his own lead after chasing his tail. From inner pain to triumph to disaster in ever decreasing circles. The "experts" could learn from this but probably won't.

You can't leave this "expert" stuff without reference to Brian Glanville. Brian is still alive, just, and has been writing honestly on world footy for many years. Actually he isn't a bad writer at all and he certainly doesn't mean the game any harm. He was writing about it long before it became chic and/or cool. He has written a few acceptable footy novels and some of his articles and reports are truly outstanding. But sadly Brian, an Arsenal fan, suffers from Home Counties Petty Snobbery. He can't help it because those are his roots. When the Dutch suddenly surprised everyone in the late 60s and early 70s Brian came out with this derived Total Football shite. I can't remember the origins of the term, though I think it came from some Mitropan coach with more than an inclination to intellectuality. Nevertheless, it caught on like wildfire. Every bastard started using it, even your average peon on the Street End. Even the great Johann Cruyff started referring to something called Dodal Futboll.

Eventually Brian's pompous prose found its way into Monty Python's Flying Circus and he got satirised and parodied mercilessly. These are perfectly just desserts for anyone who starts believing his own publicity. I am convinced Glanville's name is the origin for the title of the Python movie Life Of Brian. It never seems to occur to people like Brian that maybe it was simply time for the Dutch to have their evolutionary moment in the footy sun. Like all empires, theirs rose and fell too. In footy, these things happen because a lot of good players all come along all at the same time. Or maybe it's just because they happen.

If you talk of the sun you can't avoid talking about the Brazilians. Apart from solar gain, they've got the phonetics going for them. It's those two syllables and the "z," see. Not only that, some Brazilian women are so gorgeous they would have you for breakfast and you'd serve it up for them. Unfortunately most of the talk about Brazil footy is on a par with Glanville's Total Football enema. So we might as well get it right at the beginning: The Brazilians have produced two great teams, in 1958 and in 1970. Apart from those, their only other team to make you blink was in 1982. The rest just weren't up to the hype and that includes too many individuals. I remember my Dad saying in 1966, disappointed, "They haven't done anything since they've been here." I had to agree since we saw all their matches together and lamented the butchery committed on Pelé. And The Black Pearl remains the greatest football player I have ever seen.

Still in South America, I have never liked Argentine football. It hasn't quite fallen to the depths of Uruguayan thuggery but it came precious close to it at one time. Great individuals like Maradona have never erased my instinct that over-cynical gangsters are too often on and off the pitch in Buenos Aires. Nobody will convince me that that tackle on David Beckham was anything other than a precisely calculated effort to put him out of the tournament. Maradona's tragic fate somehow seems wholly fitting for the Argentinian game. Which is why I hope we give them a comprehensive stuffing when England meet them yet again in Japan. Given our injuries the chances are slight. C'est la vie.

The best European hopes lie of course with the French and the Italians, more the former than the latter. So far we have escaped tedious Newspeak for the French resurgence. Gawd help us if the idiot Franglais mob get loose on it. Surely the French have too many good players not to make it at least to the semi-finals. As usual, the Italians are capable of everything and nothing. With them it will depend on mood and whether they can prolong it if it gets to be good. You can safely bet some Bologna professor or other has drawn up a chart of biorhythms and neurotides. Somebody has to have an explanation ready to avoid a torrent of rotten vegetables at Rome Airport in the event of humiliation at the hands of someone like Northern Samoa.

There is continual propaganda too about the inevitability of an African success. Well, sure, but it depends what kind of time scale you have in mind. The sooner the better in my opinion. Later is more like it, with the possible exception of Nigeria. If a winning team manages to emerge from the social tragedy of African life it will be a welcome miracle.

The Asian and Oriental game is still in embryo and won't produce anything other than the odd shock. I still have fond memories of the North Koreans bladdering the Italians in '66 and the expressions on the faces of the Portuguese when they went 3-0 down to them at Goodison. It would be nice to see a repeat. Anything's possible given the small number of Japanese players in European footy.

I hope I am wrong but surely injuries have done for England's chances. Even a great player like Michael Owen cannot compensate for the disasters of losing fully fit David Beckham, Stephen Gerrard and Kieron Dyer, to say nothing of questions about Nicky Butt and other junior players. It would be nice if Ireland could provide some solace by going far and of course you can never tell what wicked mischief lurks in Hibernia. Alas, it has as much prospect as a chocolate fireguard in July, especially now Mick McCarthy has done exactly the right thing in telling Roy Keane to do one.

All things considered, then, the World Champions are likely to be Cameroon. Fact is, like you and all the TV Talking Heads I haven't got a clue who's going to win it. That's the beauty of the game.

Like you, I'll be putting my feet up, supporting England and avoiding the company of the phony Celts. You know the type, the dick splats who "support" Ireland because their fifth cousin six times removed once had a pint of Guinness in an "Irish" bar in Atlanta. There's only one bigger group of anuses and that's the BNP loonies draped in the cross of St. George.

Me, I'm English and proud of it. Ask me anything. I'm an expert.

C'MON ENGLAND! WERK IT UP DEM, LIKE!!