Andy's Glasses

Here’s some breaking news!!! If you bang your head repeatedly against a really hard object (brick wall, wooden floor, heavy old football, car door, someone’s fist or an 18 stone prop forward), its going to fuck up your head. Holy shit!!! Who’d’a known that????

I’m not making light of head injuries, they are horrible. And for those suffering from long term concussive blows, like boxers, like footballers and certainly like rugby players, the future is not looking great.

This week Kenny Sansom has been confirmed with Alzheimer’s. A footballer, even though he only played for Arsenal. Possibly just ‘random’, because at about 60 there is a percentage of the general population who do develop this horrible disease. But coming after Geoff Astle and Jackie Charlton and now brother Bobby, a pattern starts to emerge which is somewhat at odds with expected probabilities.

Boxing has long been under scrutiny, as should any sport where ‘victory’ comes in the form of a serious concussion. What we call ‘a knockout’.

And now rugby player (and brilliant World Cup winner) Steve Thompson has been diagnosed at 42 years of age, with ‘early onset dementia’. Probably caused by Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is, basically, getting beaten around the head every day for several decades. The poor man now has no recollection whatsoever of that glorious day in 2003 when he, Johnny Wilkinson, Matt Dawson and me (vital role in my lounge) won that World Cup final in Australia.

What’s doubly cruel is that so many old Spurs players can still remember every match, every loss, every tragic disappointment and every failure over entire careers.

But rugby has ‘beefed up’. No more 5 foot 9, 10 stone weaklings. Only BIG boys need apply. Heavyweights but blessed with lightweight speed. Thus tackles now involve earth-shaking collisions at amazing speeds. The scrum has been softened in that no longer do the front rows ‘engage’ with a mighty fucking crash. But still… but still…

In America the NFL suffered a massive class action lawsuit about ‘neglect’ of players who ended up permanently injured or brain-damaged. But that’s America. Litigation Central. Cynics (errrr… that’ll be me then) can’t help wondering whether those players would have heeded health warnings before they signed their multi-million pound a year contracts to play.

Rugby is not a rich sport like Gridiron. And if it changed sufficiently to remove injury potential it would no longer be rugby. Same with boxing. And this is not America where someone is always ‘to blame’. No-one signs up to early onset dementia, it is possibly the worst thing ever. But similarly, no-one plays top level rugby without appreciating its inherent dangers.

I had lunch one day with Ledley King, one of the Spurs Gods. He’s lovely. And has no knees left, so to speak of. No cartilage in any knee-like region. He’ll doubtless be plagued and debilitated by this more with each and every year. But would he sue? Sue Spurs? Sue the League?? No. Because he chose to play and chose to continue playing when any common sense would have dictated otherwise. His choice. Bless him.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Look, I never wanted to be a tv critic, but as this dire, dreadful, despicable disease destroys and devastates, causing death and destruction and… diarrhea? (sorry, needed a ‘d’ word), then I’m given time to observe televisual entertainment, provided for the masses because its cheaper than giving us all drugs, in a way I’d never previously had time for. 

And our latest ‘fix’, now that all the marrying Australians have divorced each other, was Queen’s Gambit.  Have you seen? If you haven’t, then put down your phone/pad/pc/sexbot right now and watch it. Because there’s never been a better little series, ever, in the entire history of… of Netflix. And other than Match of the Day, on all of tv, ever!! 

Its about a girl. That’s controversial in itself. I normally only watch programs with boy heroes. Yet this girl is controversial. Because…  (pause for drama) she plays chess!!! Which, apparently, in the late 1950s and early 60s, women weren’t allowed to do. At least, weren’t encouraged to do. Obviously due to biological constraints and differences. Rooks can be heavy. Or due to social standards and appropriate behaviour as bishops can be phallic (ever seen The Thomas Crown Affair???). Or possibly due to the other biological fact that women aren’t really clever enough to be involved in such cerebral activity. I’m makin’ no judgments, just sayin’ like they did in 1961. 

The girl is definitely odd. But her oddness just grows on you throughout the series until you’re truly madly deeply in love with her. Even when she takes a knight with her pawn when she should have exchanged queens. But this isn’t about chess. Although, its all about chess. Because its about attitudes, its about amazing fashion, wonderful cars, superb cities (although according mein Berliner daughter: ‘it was all filmed in Berlin!’) and it definitely about the revenge of the woman scorned. Scorned by her parents, by society and by her own sheer weirdness. OMG its wonderful. 

But as its finished I have to be thinking forward. Like a shark, I must keep on moving. Well, keep on changing channel, possibly. Movement optional. And I want to see the Tottenham documentary on Amazon. Which I admit, for any ‘normal’ person, switching to a tv network that is installed on their tv, would not be a massive problem. Yet, for a superstar techno-spaz, it can be challenging. But I got there in the end. And in Tottenham  Hotspur; all or nothing, I think I’ve found my next big love. Yes, I am that fickle. 

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When Mauricio Pochettino was sacked by Spurs I was devastated. And later, that very same day, when Jose Morinho was appointed new manager, I was… even more devastated. Distraught. It was ‘the worst day of my life’ (pre-covid). It was ‘the end’.

Well, ‘the end’ ended yesterday. And has metamorphasised into a new beginning. As even the most die-hard, stick-in-the-mud, obsessive, resistant-to-change, Spurs-flamboyance devotee (that’ll be me then), has ‘seen the light’. The Morinho light. And now, like the team, like players and fans of all the clubs he has so successfully managed, I’m starting to get it. Because it is working. And never has the Morinho way been exemplified better than it was yesterday against Arsenal. We’d seen it against Manchester City, seen it working well. We endured it against Chelsea. And yesterday the Morinho Method was definitively deployed against Arsenal. Who are either haplessly inept or simply made to look so by a tactician so masterful, and a team so ‘on message’, that if it had been anyone but the Arse I’d have felt embarrassed for them.

Here’s a statistic for you. Remember, only football statistics have any validity. Morinho has managed Premier teams 11 times who have ended with less than 30% possession. And won 9 of those games. Drawn 1, lost 1, if you’re interested.

Thus his preferred method of play is ideally suited for Arsenal. A team who, in every match, have more possession, more shots on goal, more passes, crosses, more fucking EVERTHING, without ever actually scoring a goal. They’re so busy admiring their elegant passing and flowing moves that they can’t actually be worried about something so trivial as ‘end product’.

I described such a method as footballing masturbation when deployed by Man City the other week. Arsenal have elevated it to become the absolute ultimate wankers in the League. Bless ‘em.

Mikel Arteta is obsessed with crossing the ball. That’s all they do. Very un-Arsenal, but that’s his plan. So Arsenal yesterday produced 34 crosses. Better than the 30 last weekend when they also lost. They cross the ball without having any attackers capable of heading it. Spurs 2, then later 3, centrebacks, all big boys, had just no problem clearing every single one.

But the defend, defend, defend plan only works if you can produce something at the other end. Otherwise every game ends up at nil nil like last the Chelsea one. And there is currently no strike pair on the same planet at Son and Kane. Obviously aided and abetted by a host of other talent, but more ‘planet Earth’ talent. Those two turn 1 point into 3, week in, week out. If either gets injured, we’re fucked, but for the time being 30% possession feels like just where I want to be. Oh, and top of the table, I almost forgot (AS IFFFFFF!!!!!!)

Happiest Monday ever

A xxxx

Roald Dahl was an anti Semite. He wasn’t a neo-nazi, wasn’t really politically affiliated at all. Didn’t hold extremist views, wasn’t a ‘white supremicist’, he just didn’t like Jews. Any of them. He didn’t know me, specifically, but he wouldn’t have liked me if he had done. On principle. Not the principle that I’m not a very nice person, but the other one, that I’m a member of ‘that club’. That ‘tribe’.

Oddly, I really like him. As a writer. And having read virtually everything the man wrote, often repeatedly, again and again as the kids (when they were kids) went through their James & the Giant Peach phase, or their Matilda phase, or The Twits, and even through the critical hypersensitivity of knowing the author was an anti Semite, there are no tropes, no references, no allusions to anything of that type in any of his work.

Dahl was no Jeremy Corbyn. Because he admitted openly his dislike of the Chosen People. Whereas Corbyn proclaimed (and is still proclaiming) his innocence whilst doing everything short of nuking Stamford Hill or organising his own pogrom.

The Dahl family have in fact published an apology. Sincere and heart-felt. As this version of Jew-hate was so out of character with a man so brilliant and cuddly. Even though his ‘kids books’ are all exceptionally dark and sinister, they are also exceptionally funny and clever.

The apology is, apparently, buried quite deep in the Roald Dahl website. You have to search quite hard to find it. Adhering to the theory that when something wrong or bad is published, it is a banner headline, but the apology is at the foot page 17, just under the article about the birth of a new panda in Xendong.

Dahl actually stated in an interview that Hitler might have had a point. You really can’t get more antisemitic than that.

But Alexa can.

Yes, everyone’s favourite link to music, news, weather reports and the Chinese secret service has been accused of antisemitism too. And with good reason. Because if you ask her loaded questions about ‘Jews controlling the media’ or ‘the protocols of the elders of Zion’, she will find an answer that google selects for her on the closest available website. Which is often www.nazis-live.com or www.no-bagels-for-me.net. Or she stalks the dark web for extremist right wing answers. Like Donald Trump does.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Alexa’s a bitch. I just wish I could bring myself to hate Roald Dahl, but I find it difficult. Particularly when reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He remains my absolute favourite anti Semite.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I come to bury the Essix Gels stereotypical image, not to praise it. But while I’m here I might as well clear the air? No. Possibly just use an example of the terrible injustices perpetrated on the maidens (not in any virginal sense, trust me) of that county. Merely to show you how terrible the implications have become so I can tell you how they should and must be banished. So here’s a joke. My favourite- NO, the most awful Essex girl joke, but typical of many.

What does an Essex girl say after sex?
“Do you all play for the same team?”

And that is just terrible! And must be stopped. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary, no less, is breaking with centuries of tradition and changing an entry. Normally, as words change over generations through nuance and context, they simply add. But for Essex Girls they’re actually going to remove the bit that says, basically and in OED-speak, that they’re all slags. Very generous of the OED. They’re probably leaving the bits about whining, dressing as slappers, being thick, stupid and talking loudly, because they’re perfectly acceptable? They’re accurate??

And this is a subject very close to my heart as I grew up in Essex. And as my heart is only about 2 feet from my penis, Essex Girls were that close to my heart for most of my ‘adolescent years’. The OED doesn’t mention the terrible ‘estuary’ accent, the glottal stops, dropped Hs and witch-like cackling but you only need to watch ‘The only way is Essex’ to fully appreciate the nature of the beast. Not that they’re all beasts, lots are real babes. At least until they start speaking.

So whilst this whole topic really is way beneath my normal standards of equality and diversity and positively reeks of misogynistic sexism, for which I can only apologise on behalf on the total bastards who first did the whole ‘Essex girl’ thing, the female inhabitants of my favourite home county, and the one with which my cricketing devotions lie, deserve a better press. A better reputation. A mere mention of your home town should not invite scorn, derision and possibly rape. However earned it might be. Some Essex girls are delightful, demure, puritanical, speak ‘RP’, dress neatly and spend hardly any time sitting in a gutter in Romford with their mates holding their hair back as they vomit.

We must all join ‘snapping the stilleto’, (“snappin’ da stilleh-oh”), the organisation intent on protecting this vulnerable group of women, and make every endeavour to stamp out ‘Essexism’ as I shall now call it. It’s wrong. Like all ‘-isms’. Except perhaps modernism. Dadaism. Whatever.

Je suis Essix girl, innit!!!

A xxxx

I used that title in a pure act of word association. Eton… mess? Eton… nothing. Only ‘mess’ and rifles. Brilliant song by the Jam in about nineteen seventy-something during Paul Weller’s ‘angry phase’. Which has so far lasted for over 40 years, and counting.

Anyway… so as I mentioned previously, Eton have sacked a teacher for offering an alternative ‘perspective’ about sexism in a class about ‘perspectives’. Thus begging the question: why would you have a class in such an illuminating and open, gloves-off kind of paradigm if you then censor it? But this is Eton. Who the fuck knows what they do and why.

The sacked teacher, very contrary (and controversial) to any kind of wokism (immediately elevating him in my eyes) proposed that the patriarchal nature of society and in fact societies, is rooted in pure biology. Holy shit!!!! You can’t say that!!! Your wife’ll beat the crap out’a you for less. Again; he didn’t believe or condone such a sentiment but its kind’a out there and thus should or could be discussed. It’s called attacking a straw man and was there to invite thought and disagreement.

Everyone knows that the ‘biological superiority’ of men begins and ends with throwing a ball and pissing out of car windows (for Dom). That’s it. In some biological traits women are greatly superior. Having babies springs to mind. Engaging in meaningful lesbianism is another. And ironing. I’m not prepared to talk about football at this juncture in case I get sacked from Eton for doing so.

Having a proper debate is always and only a good thing. Unless discussing something I can’t stand, then I’ll listen to no arguments whatsoever. But otherwise, it is enlightening, it is engaging and it is definitely educational.

But Eton is (apparently? allegedly??) so woke and open minded that its mind is totally closed to anything else. PARTICULARLY, it would appear, where blatant sexism is concerned. Possibly other forms of equality too, but that noble institution has a zero tolerance for such outdated and outmoded and unzeitgeisty thoughts, even just to make a point.

And all this from a college that has never and probably will never admit girls. Which makes the entire episode set my teeth on edge. But in a good way.

Happy Friday

I know, its late, I’ve become very sporadic, but sometimes even I get busy.

A xxxx

Any American people reading this: close the page now. You simply won’t get what follows. (I’d normally include those northern Americans, what they called?… errr… oh yeah, Canada-people, in that generalisation because they share their sports, but the only Canuck likely to read this, actually and controversially, will get it).

Yesterday’s nil-nil draw at Chelsea was brilliant.

There. I’ve said it. A Spurs fan drooling over a goalless draw. I’ve been Morinho-ized. Taken away from my lifelong values of ‘beautiful football at any cost’, of ‘I’d rather lose 4-0 playing with superlative style than draw 1 all as pragmatists’, even ‘but the game needs luxury players, though never more than 6’.

Yet its one thing to have a manager who not only likes to park his bus but more importantly knows precisely how and where it must be parked. It’s quite another to appreciate the genius that is Jose Morinho when you were weened on Jimmy Greaves and Glen Hoddle and Paul Gascoine and David Ginola and a host of ‘mavericks’ who liked to leave the pitch at the end with clean boots.

Frank Lampard grew up, as a player if not totally as a person, under Morinho’s guidance. They know each other. And Lampard’s team are good and score lots of goals, like we normally do. Yet the stalemate endured. Because it was more important to not lose than to win. Not by agreement, not by design, but just out of necessity.

So to the ‘neutrals’ watching the match, it was probably a disappointment that two of the most impressive attacking teams in the country couldn’t find the net between them. But what went on during those 95 minutes was probably much more impressive. The concentration and work required was immense. The desire to push up constantly into walls of defenders. The sheer resilience shown was fantastic. And I say that realising I sound like an Arsenal fan when George Graham was in charge there.

Without getting smug about this, any draw which keeps us top of the table can only be a good thing. For Spurs. For the Premier League. For the world. And beyond.

Bizarrely and unusually for a match between Spurs and Chelsea, it was played in really good spirits. No violence. No brawls. No red cards. Yeah, I missed all that but must look at the big picture here. I’m not saying we could win the league but I’m not saying we can’t. I’m just…

Actually, as I think every day of my life, I’m just happy not to be an Arsenal fan.

Deliriously happy Monday

A xxxx

I love a Prime Minister.

Just, not necessarily this one. But Boris was, in the real world, a journalist and more, a right wing, overly verbose, reactionary, quite eloquent journalist with a penchant for metaphorical references drawn from his degree in classics and his love of history. In other words; he was just made for writing in The Mail. Where you can’t be too right wing or too pretentiously snobby for that rag. So they let him have his own page today. And this, unless some eager sub-editor with a love of Attenborough documentaries penned it, was the ‘heading’. He could have entitled it ‘shit-storm, part 943’, I know I would have. Or even ‘stay calm’ or ‘protect Christmas’ or even ‘Christmas is the new NHS’, but instead he chose to stretch a metaphor invoking beautiful images of animals running free across the African tundra. Because such imagery really resonates with unemployed steel workers from Sunderland. And shielding octogenarians in Croydon.

Boris continues his piece with a reference to the vaccine. ‘Coming to our aid with the morale-boosting, bugle-blasting excitement of Wellington’s Prussian allies on the afternoon of Waterloo’.

Tosser.

I think, in his defence, Boris is stuck in Churchill-land. Someone made that reference and its stuck. So rather than just, kind’a, ‘talking’ to people, he has become Mr Motivator! Mr Uplift!! Mr ‘we’ll fight them on the beaches…’

For future reference, Boris, you can only use metaphors which allude to football or episodes of Britain’s Got Talent. Coronation Street at a push. Otherwise you just sound like some kind of upper class, over-educated, ex-Etonian fat-boy showing off his excessive erudition.

No judgments, just sayin’ is all.

And his old school is not doing so well at the moment either. Eton school sacked a teacher. For being too… well, that’s interesting. Eton has a ‘diversity’ commitment, obviously, they even allow black kids there (only 1) and poor kids (1). But they basically have to pretend to be massively ‘woke’ in all respects. Even though it is very probably the least woke place on the entire planet.

So a teacher put a (covid-era, obvs) video out for those studying ‘perspectives’, a brilliant concept in which they look at established values from (doh) other ‘perspectives’. And this teacher questioned the radical feminist concept of ‘toxic manhood’. Not as a ‘lesson’, not because it’s what he believed, but true to the spirit of ‘perspectives’ he was playing devil’s advocate by questioning the accepted doctrine.

And they sacked him. For being… well, I’m not sure. Not right-on enough. At fucking Eton??? I despair. But then again, desperation seems to be my new norm.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Tomorrow is a day beyond massiveness. Nothing to do with vaccines. Nothing to do with death, cars, stellar events, black holes or the price of milk. Spurs are playing Chelsea. On the 1000th match of Roman Abramavich’s ownership of that sad and sorry football club. And as a protest against most of the appalling, money-encrusted evils currently being perpetrated against what was a beautiful game, we have to win. For decency. For good. For light. And for GOD!!! Who, like me, would hate Chelsea to win.

Abramovich arrived at Chelsea in 2003, buying them for about a quid because they had so much debt it was almost catastrophic and they’d have gone into administration hell (where many think they rightly belong). Thus the club acquired a cash cow and in return, he acquired a profile sufficiently high that the Russian death squads might deploy their plutonium and their Novichok elsewhere. Which in fact they promptly did, and still are.

You can’t buy success. Except in football. Then its easy, given coffers of sufficient largitude. And few come larger than Abramovich’s. Enriching Chelsea, a team famous for failure, for horribleness and for having the most obnoxious fans in the world. They do respect equality though. Hating all possible skin colours and races and religions with equal loudly shouted aggression and xenophobic nastiness.

The only success all those hundreds of millions have bought have been: 5 league titles, one Champions League, 2 Europa Cups, 5 FA Cups and 3 League Cups. In 17 years. The only amazing thing was that Roman was prepared to wait 2 years for his first silverware. These people rarely show such patience in their investments.

During which period, Spurs, a proper, decent, Godly, tax-efficient, profitable organisation adhering to Fair Play Rules and all things good, have a different ‘haul’ of trophies. Or, trophy, really. The League Cup. 2008. Beating, ironically, Chelsea in the final. Since then Spurs have been ‘resting’ between trophies.

But Abramovich earns a special place in the hierarchy of the hated. Because he set the precedent. After which every Sheikh with a spare couple of billion (doesn’t matter which currency really) had to have a trophy team. Manchester City, Paris St Germain, now even Aston Villa, under ‘new ownership’ they bought a level of success that not only was not earned, but would never have happened without inflating levels of financial input beyond anything decent, moral or, within the pathetically loosely defined ‘rules’ of our game. And worst of all, leaving other teams behind and unable ever to catch up. Without their own ‘benefactor’.

So are we jealous of their trophy cabinet?? Well… no. Fuck ‘em. And their fucking trophies. We need to beat them. And beat them bad. Or good. Depends on…

Happy pre-match build-up

A xxxx

In the winter of 1986, possibly 1987, I dragged Mel skiing. She was never the biggest fan, but a (wo-)man’s gotta do… We skied in Cervinia, fab resort that links over to Zermat from the top of one alp or another. They have a signpost with an Italian flag one way and a Swiss the other. And if you (in those heady, pre-Schengen days) accidentally fell down the Swiss side without your passport and several Swiss Francs you were royally fucked. Because they wouldn’t let you in, nor use the lift to get back without payment, Swiss francs only. If ever there was a reason to distance yourself from Europe, even though the Swiss were never members of ‘that club’, that was it.

However, we flew back from Milan (I think, possibly Turin). And were in ‘international departures’ waiting for our flight home. There was a big glass wall separating us from ‘domestic departures’ so we didn’t have to join all those smelly Italians. And suddenly there was what looked like a riot. As virtually all of our flight went rushing to the ‘wall’ and started shouting and screaming and, I first thought, raising their fists. But on the inevitable closer inspection it turned out that the single occupant, plus standard ‘entourage’, of the domestic lounge was Diego Maradona. He flew in from Rio and was connecting to Napoli, for whom he plied his trade. And the ‘raised fists’ were in reality, obviously, indicators of the handball for his (in)famous ‘hand of God’ goal against England at the World Cup.

And Diego sat there laughing and clapping. He thought it was brilliant. Even though only a glass wall separated him from possible death. Hell hath no fury like 200 cheated footy fans.

In that fateful match, Diego scored 2 goals. Both of which are still talked about. The first because it was a handball and second because it is reputedly ‘the best ever World Cup goal’. Probably making the first ‘the worst ever World Cup goal’.

Am I alone in thinking that first goal, the fateful ‘hand of God’ effort, in fact stands alone as unquestionably the finest goal ever scored? That it showed chutzpah. It showed guile. It showed an intelligence and understanding of the position of the ref, the linesmen, and amazing ability to just simply get away with it. Which, airports of disgruntled fans aside, he bloody did. Whereas the second goal was just about unbelievable skill, incredible ball control, body movement, sensational running and a superb finish when he was almost on his back.

The world has lost a God. Possibly a devil. Is there much of a difference?

Pele was and still is a lovely guy. Lionel Messi seems quiet and content. As you should be for about 20 million a year. And how you rank Diego Maradona in that unquestionable ‘top 3 of all time’ players, he was certainly the most wild, the most unpredictable, the most smiling, shouting, ranting, screaming, drug-crazed, underweight, overweight and definitely interesting of the three. All that often quite horrendous baggage simply added to the legend.

He was a genius. But only with the ball at his feet. Or in his hand.

Farewell Diego.

A xxxx