Sport

Follow that!

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There’s that thing where you mainly want to deny such-and-such the oxygen of publicity… and then…

#Swans(Ballboygate). #Edengate. #Endoftheworldasweknowitgate. #I’msodesperateforFOLLOWSI’mgunnalieonthisfuckingballmungate.

… maybe a few words might be said?

In last night’s Peeling Paint Trophy cultured minnows Swansea City triumphed over metrosexual giants Chelsea, thereby qualifying for a Wembley final against mighty Bradford. And most of football hussaaarred, before hoisting their cloth caps gaily into the greenly-dancing wintry bay. ‘Twas a delightful rebound to the days when boys with shin-pads twice the width of their shins got a Saturday Sixpence, and sherbert lemons rooled the world – acidly but kindof reassuringly sunnily.

So it did have that nostalgic timbre, except that Swansea – now led not by some local wide-boy with a taxi cab – oozed a kind of surreal un-brit crypto-Real classicism around the park, not so much dumping but dismissing the unwashed cockneys from their presence; Swansea City now being coiffured as opposed to gaffered by some bloke called Laudrup hailing from valleys lit more by aurora borealis than blanching leeks.

In Swansea’s case the journey from footie’s precipice to bona fide, stylish Premiership cruisers is a thing of some beauty; not so much a RAGE as a gathering strut – one which they have, on recent evidence, nigh on perfected. Long gone the days when survival in the pro’ game was under meaningful threat; now, as well as the comfort of general acknowledgement of their ‘classy’ brand of football, they have a valedictory date up the capital. Not their capital, admittedly, but trust me, the local populace have swiftly found it in their hearts to forgive just the one escape to land of the lily-livered enemy.

The Swans are indeed flying then. And I do feel conflicted over (even) writing on ought but their hugely laudable progression. But look, we know what we have to talk about, if briefly. Forgive me.

In the second half of a game now drifting away from the Lampards and the Coles and towards a Last One Out Turn Out The Lights exodus for The Smoke, something essentially laughable happened. After the ball had been knocked out of play for a Chelsea throw, a ball-boy engaged in some pretty dumb time-wasting; by lying on said sphere. In the full knowledge that this – oh THIS – was his moment to

  1. strike a blow for Wales
  2. get on the telly, like
  3. deny that English bastard Eden Hazard possession.

You could see him (Ballboyman) engaging twitter as he lay there. Yet before he could hashtag the word #glyndwr (or google the spelling) the aforementioned Hazard had hoofed him in the midriff, in either

  1. an attempt at cold, cowardly murder (this from the SAF book of H and S)
  2. an understandably frustrated effort to retrieve the ball and play on
  3. a moment of madness most of us approved of in the circumstances.

Whichever way it was extraordinary. Extraordinary and naughty, of course. But mainly extraordinary in its deliciously fine-tuned exposition of everything that’s wrong, now… and presumably forever… in the mad flush of sensuround phenomena that constitute those two things – Us… and The Prem.

Transported (though on the couch) back or forward somewhere weirdly both familiar and threateningly odd, I laugh my goolies off – literally – watching as the lard-arsed ballboy simulates an act of sedition so crass it might have been well… planned. (In so far as a low-life of this nature could indeed plan.) His #epic #fail at both lying down convincingly and feigning inter-costal agonies was entirely appropriate to the age of Get Me Outta Here (or Get Me Some Followers, in fact.) I loved him for his Homo Homer-Simpsonianisness, his wide-eyed WTF outrage as the savage Hazard gave him most of what the watching world thought he deserved. It was soft porn for pundits.

As the cameras panned in and Hazard the crazed, over-remunerated foreigner looted and shagged and sprayed his wanton seed over the fields of old Enger… I mean Wales, it was all – in terms of its relevance to the hour – magbloodynificent. Like something that might have been on at The Royal Court (end of Kings Rd, geddit?) in about 1964.

A breath-taking, sexually invigorating flood of issues arose. Where to throw our contempt first? How to pitch our revulsion without spilling the Doritos?  And what, in the name of god, can we do in the face of this EXHIBITION OF FILTH?!?

Given that I have been at the helm of a Campaign for Gentlemanly Conduct, I suppose I should be upholding some illuminative matter of conscience here; pointing to some haughty tribunal or other. No doubt eventually I will, once I stem the flow of OMG’s and furtive laughter. For now, there’s no escaping the feeling that (I’ve been there – haven’t you? Come on, off the record?) – it’s sort of okay… when some arsehole really gets one. So let’s move on?

Meanwhile, like the rest of the universe, I’ll be queuing for the slowmo scratchmix edit.

I recently published an ebook – it’s here, on Amazon, with an introduction from Paul Mason and support from Brian Moore and Paul Hayward, amongst others –   amzn.to/SSc9To

 

Remember this… before you get on yer bike. Nicole Cooke.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

Nicole Cooke is relatively unknown, which slightly troubles me. Or if I stop to think about it, it does. Because then I/we have to consider just why a recent World Road Race and Olympic Champion at a sport which is now megatastically at the heart of TeamGB’s New Model Army is so… unrespected; generally.

Cooke was not as likely as (say) Pendleton to attract the adjective ‘lush’, perhaps. Could that be it? Is this key to her escape from our role-call of stars? Or (bizarrely?) the fact she is Welsh born? Or perhaps she simply but foolishly got her dates mixed up; being a real, majestic and irresistible force in her sport just a year or two before that sport – cycling, if you really hadn’t sorted that – landed so explosively in our family-sized bowl of Dorito’s.

In 2008, in one of the most remarkable and, for me, full-on blood-from-heart-drainingly poignant moments in recent sporting memory, an exhausted Cooke hoiked and blasted to victory in the Beijing rain. Rarely has the deep been so dug. She then followed up her olympian Olympic Gold with a World Road Race victory just a few weeks later. Now that may all trip rather glibly off the tongue but it does, nevertheless, represent something really special. As does the fact that she won 3 different World Junior titles – mountain bike/time trial/road race in the same year (2001.) But the accumulation of those two most senior of the senior titles seven years later constitutes a unique achievement in the history of cycling – men or women’s. And given that the pressures around these racing monuments – never mind the sheer physical effort – are utterly World-Cuply/Masters-final-greenly massive, we have to respect this athlete. Properly.

Anyone who saw and felt the quality of these two victories, encompassing as they did that stunning and defining range of champion grit and sublime athletic prowess, would already be fully on-side with my own adulation here. She gave everything, she showed us everything – she won out. Cooke was then, in every sense, a genuine world-beater.

However, many amongst The Great Un-oiled really might legitimately have missed either these or other(s) of Cooke’s serial triumphs on account of their absence from the primest of prime-time television. Cycling – in particular road racing – being a bona fide minority sport right up until a certain mod cruised his Vespa-replacement Module down the Champs- Elysees last year. Prior to that we did have gods on wheels-without-engines but the likes of Hoy and Pendleton tended to flash in and out of our consciousness on a weird, non-populist and only semi-registering basis, largely coincident with that five ring extravaganza. And is it just me, or is it somehow easier to get all steamed up and passionate about something happening in a noisy, nerve-janglacious velodrome? Open roads are different.

Let’s deny the oxygen of publicity to dumbstuff notions of relative ‘attractiveness’, anyway. Cooke was strong; she had a relentlessly powerful cadence on the bike rather than electrifying sprint speed. She had authority, consistency, presence – she absolutely competed. Nicole Cooke won two Tour de France titles and a Giro d’Italia as well as gawd knows how many British titles (10, I think) and World Cup racing events. She could and did dominate. And you buggers really should have noticed. Oh… and she did it clean.

As a travelling pro’ rider, the temptations were there. As a young woman (18/19?) Cooke was dolloped amongst the elite of the Women’s racing posse, an exposed and significant talent, fresh out of school, making her way in a tough and it turns out diabolically cynical world. In her retirement statement, delivered this week (essential read), she details being confronted with the requirement, as a ‘good team member’ to indulge in drug use on more than one occasion. But Cooke is emphatic that she, at least, rode clean throughout her long career.

There is a reflection on a watershed moment when (post a long chat with Dad) dubious bottles were thrown from the team fridge; by her; in a me-or-them stand-off. (The kind of defiance which cost her in an era when using EPO or other stimulants was deemed essential by the team-makers.) Team ethics and team procedures being typically shambolic – up to and including conventions regarding the regular payment of riders – the standard mode amongst the peloton appears to have been one of acquiescence… to just sticking the needles in, to stay competitive. The consequences for those stubborn or bold enough to cut across the conventional wisdoms were brutal. You either got sacked from the team, or you didn’t get paid. There were periods in her illustrious career where this particular, strong-willed World Number One athlete either did not get paid, or had to sue to obtain her daily bread. Partly no doubt, because she was kindof trouble when it came to substance abuse. Or the not doing of it.

During the years of travel, training and competition – even at the most elevated level – money, by comparison with many other sports, was laughably poor. (A moments reflection will not I think bring to mind too many sports where the very best in the world fear that they will actually get paid at all, never mind be remunerated proportionate to their talents.) Nicole Cooke, to repeat, the finest woman rider in the world for part of the mid-to-late nineties, had to fight for her money… and the money was ordinary.

Now, after that cruel zoning out period where invincibility fades, she has signed off. And in what seems likely to be an authentic farewell to her sport, Cooke has spoken out against the cheats. Armstrong, obviously, but also those in the women’s side of the sport that denied her, personally – and it does sounds personal.

Her statement is at once proud and understandably laced with bitterness. Because she knows she pumped those pistons bravely and honestly. She knows that she – very much with her parents help – drove hard, cleared the path for a better, more professional, slightly more equitable women’s tour. In the early days the Cookes seem to have bundled the British Cycling Federation into inventing events where previously there were none; girls events, which Nicole promptly extravagantly won – won with such undeniable force that further events, higher grade events were an absolute necessity. And thus both Nicole Cooke and women’s cycling in Britain grew up.

We’re nearing hagiography here and I don’t want that. Cooke may not have been widely loved; not necessarily because of her stance against doping. Lizzie Armistead (also a truly elite Brit rider) once said something rather biting about her; that (effectively) she never rode for anyone else. (In a sport where the concept of real unity and indeed selflessness is wonderfully expressed, such an opinion might be damning.) However it is likely the comment was meant more as a minor(?) personal slight than – for example – some profound dig at her ‘purity’ re the drugs. Whatever its meaning, if we think of many a stand-out sportsman or woman it’s hardly a killer gripe. Is it too surreal to bring a certain G Boycott into the equation here? And do he and Nicole share a certain slightly spookily brilliant single-mindedness, I wonder? Certainly there were nowt wrong with ‘er applicay-shun, anyroad.

Of course Armstrong may have been similar in this respect. All-consuming, desirous, physically incredible. But he got greedy, or low, or paranoid and… he cheated. As (allegedly) did the Canadian Genevieve Jeanson – named and shamed in Cooke’s retirement statement. The mature 29 year-old from Swansea, formerly of Cardiff Ajax Cycling Club condemns both in her statement, and the culture they went along with. Because they robbed her, because they brought disgrace to her wonderful sport – the one she’d poured seventeen years of her life right into.

In a week where the media have fallen right in behind Armstrong’s choreographed ‘apology’ it seems especially offensive that the retirement of a genuinely world-class British athlete has been so little heard or appreciated. Absurd if you consider how high the profile of our cycling heroes has risen and how much (really) Nicole Cooke did to prepare the way for elite women’s cycling in particular. She was, by a distance, the best in the world. And now if she gets a column inch it will surely be over comments relating to Armstrong and his fellow dope(r)s. She deserves more, she deserved more.

Manchester United versus Liverpool.

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Wafting innocently past – as ya do – or engrossed within, or focussing determinedly in non-tribal civility upon The Media pre- the Utd-Liverpool mash-up, the full range of disappointments coalesce, do they not? Because even decent papers – of which, I assume many of us might argue, there are few – have felt the need to head pieces with a quote or some inference that adds to the bitterness. Something from Ferguson or Carragher, generally, which steps across that line from the fair to the fiery or inflammatory. So that for example one particular longish interview with Carragher, in which (actually) he reinforced the impression that he is a decent bloke and a proper club man, was inevitably titled ‘glad City won the title not United’ (or similar). In other words, the most corrosive, albeit apparently relatively innocently delivered comments led.

I am not so naive so as to be surprised by this, but as the thrust of that interview was surely contradicted by the flashing neon, I am, as I say, disappointed. On one of the few occasions where there appeared a real danger of helpfully level-headed conversations being aired, the Flogging Papers Reflex usurped.

Ferguson meanwhile, if quoted at all accurately – which I imagine he was – has peed his petrol on the fire again. Foolishly, but to a chorus of approval from many fans, whose bitterness rivals his own. Sir Alex is often respected for his ‘knowing exactly what he’s doing’ness, his skill at manipulating both the press and the psyche of his opposite number within the dug-out. It is thought that he is both brilliant and cynical; oh, and a skilled psychoanalyst too; aah, and a dockyard bruiser (too.) Sometimes there’s maybe no harm in admiring his cunning at this stuff, enjoying – however vicariously – the real dockerness of it all, or maybe just the conflicted feelings aroused in us un-dockers over the gritty Scot’s absurd genius-nutter confluence, as it patently strikes a blow at the sopping, public school-educated landlubbing heart of this privileged nation. We get that; or like we would if we didn’t have to rush Ffion to cello.

In fact (more broadly) these weirdly sporadic, often brutally revealing upwellings of insight into gaffers/other personalities in the game are an essential part of its appeal, surely? As one who spends a good deal of his waking hours juggling or clowning in the Banter Circus, I in no way mean to suggest that a colourless Footie would be a better Footie; no way Jose. The mad (or preferably just daft) abrasiveness and pingpong passionata of it all is life-givingly essential. And rivalry feeds the adrenalin. But the machismo, the poison, the dancing with violence thing is unhelpful. And so without liposucting away the necessary spikiness in favour of some All New All Smooth Beauty, I again ask for a certain intelligence and yes, a certain responsibility to hold up its head. Especially around games like this – Manchester United versus Liverool. Might we see that restraint, that awareness, on the pitch, I wonder?

A few hours later and… amazingly, pretty much, we did. Here’s how it seemed to me…

Fergie, typically and to his credit, has his positive head on – Wellbeck and van Persie both start up front. Liverpool, understandably, go with a Suarez solo. Post kick-off, the belligerent terraces are, unusually, not reflected on the park, in a period of relatively quiet earlydoorsness. But this is significantly undermined when following a sharp period of pass-and-move from United, centre back Agger offers that critical yard of space in the box. The result? A pinpoint cut-back from Evra and a simple though well-executed side-foot home from a noticeably pumped Dutchman. Rodgers – having lectured endlessly surely on the need to deny, deny, deny – will have hated that roominess SO MUCH.  United, meanwhile, have started.

They have that zesty fearlessness thing going. Welbeck, in particular, is all over the place (in a good way) but …doink the pause button, peeps. Some ten minutes after van Persie’s goal, whilst the effectively self-injured Young was being attended to… STOP.  Linger awhile and reach for the notepad.  For you will no doubt be fascinated to see (and record?) van Persie fully engaged in mentoring the junior strikemeister on their movements. (Young had followed through somewhat on Agger and finished up crocked. Welbeck got thirty seconds S Level Tactical Wotsits from the senior partner.  Probably at a fairly punitive hourly rate – but worth it nontheless.)

Within minutes United really might have scored four. Firstly Allen gifted Welbeck a decent chance, then Cleverley flashed a sweet left foot volley narrowly wide. In the 35th minute Welbeck again seems in but blazes over – again on his weaker side. Liverpool are open and looking vulnerable, with Suarez and Gerrard at this stage invisible. Ferdinand, as so often when United are cruising, is composure personified.

United’s defence mind, had barely been troubled. Though set up to dominate possession – or at least prevent domination of the ball by United – Liverpool made errors or allowed United to play through or round them. Lucas and Allen and Gerrard even, were rarely seen. Given that Fergie’s lot have been unconvincing to say the least, defensively, Rodgers must have been as frustrated as Suarez at the way the game was going.  But at least we had a game. A football match had broken out, with barely a moment of controversy, as half-time approached.

In the 44th minute a further goal seemed inevitable as firstly van Persie back-heeled, then the onrushing Kagawa approached the empty net. Johnson blocked the United man in the moment of his notchingment – acceptably, I think – with Reina desperately sprawling to recover and limbs generally a-flailing. Should the slightly indulgent flick from van Persie have counted, Sky would still be talking about it now, but as it didn’t, United fans will no doubt be addressing the way the Liverpool fullback ‘got across’ their midfielder to prevent the goal. Kagawa, in fact, spent much of his allotted time on the turf – not through chronic simulation but rather because he is perhaps a tad light-weight for this particular fixture(?) (Discuss?) The Japanese was rightly subbed for the more durable Jones later.

For the ‘pool, it was only really as halftime approached that Gerrard got a meaningful touch. Suarez flitted in and out – mainly out… of touch. At the whistle the suspicion was that Ferguson would be happy with the level of control, but slightly concerned that his side hadn’t – as they really might have done – put this game to bed.

Changes at the break; Sturridge on for Lucas; Valencia on for the injured Young.

Sturridge, looking focussed and mobile, swiftly earns space out front but baulks, wrongly, at taking on an ambitious shot. Credit to Rodgers though – he has made something of a positive move here – withdrawing the defensive-minded Lucas (and therefore taking something of a ‘risk’) but, in fact, loosening up, or even liberating his team’s attacking instincts. So this game does begin to emerge as a good one… a more dynamic one… and, critically, a contest. Suarez, visibly lifted by the brightness of Sturridge, plays Wisdom in but the young man is found utterly wanting in the composure dept. United respond through Evra, who delivers a stunning long ball centre-left, only to see Welbeck clumsily brought down. There’s the predictable baying for a Red, but ref Howard Webb correctly raises the yellow for Skrtel. Van Persie takes the free kick.

He coaxes it beautifully into the far post area, where Evra rises unchallenged to nod it home, via Vidic. If Rodgers was angry before, this one will have him ger-nashing; it’s far too easy. Is that game over already?

Asit’appens – no. In an increasingly watchable game Sturridge profits from a decent De Gea save, knocking in with Rafael caught on his heels. It feels like a fair reflection now, as the addition of Sturridge is proving central to the improvement in Liverpool and the match. The combination of this dual strike force for the away side and the psychology (dare I say it?) around that, plus the questions over Vidic’s pace/movement/agility mean that Liverpool go streaking past seeming like they may have a threat into that Properly Threatening state. Gerrard has settled into it. Suarez buzzes. United give the ball away more – or see it less. There is that frisson.

Because it’s no longer working for United. Welbeck by now has looked hugely willing and more; but the more we see the more the suspicion grows that he is not, in fact a natural goalscorer. (And I say this in full knowledge of the fact that Gary Neville, with some justification, named him Man of the Match!) Hence the game is still alive. Danny boy seems to have arrived at the stage where some debilitating self-awareness has kicked in… and has stopped thinking about shooting/scoring etc etc. And so have United. Their threat, remarkably, has dried. Again, we could credit Rodgers and Liverpool for this.

Necessarily the eye reverts to Vidic and the now less imperious Ferdinand. And Rafael’s top-notch chest-trap… followed by a miserably casual pass. And Kagawa, rightly, is replaced by Jones and similarly, Vidic by Smalling. The thing is taking a breather as we all take stock. There is space for the idlest of idle thoughts. Would it be career-killingly awful if Sir Alex withdrew the plainly confidence-deficient Valencia, so soon after putting him on? Where has Carrick/the rest of the midfield gone? How long is it now since United played any co-ordinated footie (answer; ’bout tenty minutes.) All that stuff you get into when things have changed so much you have no idea what might happen. Meanwhile Liverpool are coming back, right back into it.

On 84 minutes the chance you feel is coming Sturridge’s way arrives. But on his wrong side… and he fluffs it by clumsily hoisting it over. United splutter back to life and Johnson is fortunate to avoid a second yellow for clawing at Valencia. The home side though are unmistakably holding on, rather than strutting home. To the point where if we forget a couple of those early half-chances, we might feel a 2-2 is about right; whatever that means.

There is a lovely moment when an exhausted Welbeck, after an unrewarding slalom down the left in which William Hill no doubt laid odds on him finishing in a crumpled heap, finishes in a crumpled heap – but smiling. Smiling at Sturridge, his England mate, who had tracked back to monitor things and then offer marks out of ten for crumpled heapdom, presumably. Whilst I confess that this was the only smile I saw during the match – and therefore it can hardly be said to characterise the occasion – this was a game of football, a sporting contest, not a war. This matters. I really am pleased to report that there was virtually no malice or controversy in the game. Which United won, 2-1.

 

By the way, I wrote a book. UNWEIGHTED- the bowlingatvincent compendium. Out on amazon ebooks.

amzn.to/SSc9To should take you there from Twitter.

Robbing van Persie?

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Two and a bit words for the New Year. Words I am about to fling with irresistible force against the swell, the flood, the wild ooh unleashingment of depressingly ahh tsunamic stories arising from last weekend’s footie/rugger/cricketstuff. Words that o’er-surf the turgid tabloid controversy mega-fest, sloshed abart as it inevitably is like some cheap grog. A name, in fact, foreign but not exotic, containing – or maybe laced with? – just enough of the alien to satiate the average Brit’s inferior awe. Now a symbol for rare but persistent, almost undeniable and recognisably Dutch brilliance. Robin van Persie.

Let’s cherish van Persie now, today, in the near-virginal lather of flushed wotnots that surely accompany our resolute beginning towards the next anti-climax. Van Persie, not some hand-ball, or tip-tackle, or appalling tiff-plus between Warne and Samuels. Let’s have a thrash at that celebratory kind of turning, eh? Palm away Alan Hansen’s predictable, post-dishy, clunkingly black-and-white-but-Red-All-Over justification for that Liverpool centre-forward’s latest. Sling out those stories ’bout English Boy-but-‘Girl’ out-half Toby (Psycho) Flood and his rampant eruption of poodliferous violence. Steer immovably smugly past that embarrassment ‘tween Oz’s (ahem) finest and that hot-headed wanker from the Windies. Towards something altogether more fetching and – if you can leave the tribal stuff at the turnstile – inspiring. A striker absolutely at his predatory peak. Robin. Not Robinio.

Arguably only the now historically significant Messi* could rob van Persie of this moment of recognition. When in any other just universe RVP would surely be at the centre of an unrivalled, relentless idolatry/respect combo for his utter command of the Striking Arts. When even Alan Shearer might find a meaningful sentence or two (He does all this neat stuff around the box but he really knows how to look after himself too, perhaps?) to praise the now Manchester United striker’s genius. Or how about something from the (generally more enlightening acksherly) Mark Bright school of punditry… van Persie… he’s just got everything. He can shoot, he can head, he can bring people into the game – he’s just got everything. To which I would add a solid AMEN, thus de-lionising Messi before the Argentine God had broken from his er, cage.

Yes – Amen and more, to Robin. Because we should be beefing up this faintly nationalistic (Premtastic?) counter-attack with That’s So True-isms. Like the fact that his weighted left-wing chest-pass to create another breakaway goal for United – at City, AT CITY!! – recently was one of the passes of the season. Like the occasional but über-ominous appearances as substitute, that have re-appropriated and even rehabilitated the word awesome into near-enough acceptable sports-journo-speak… because they were, in every sense, shape and dimension awesome. Seminal; perfectly measured; lethal – and of course, game-changing.

The ultimate in what has felt like some gathering notcherama – some exhibition, even – occurred at West Ham this last weekend. A van Persie-Lite United cruised at a significantly higher level than The Irons for much of the first half but failed to capitalise sufficiently. Meaning an Emerging (Televised) Cup Romance-Frenzy seemed possible, particularly after two sound nods from the ‘Ammers honest plodder/Ginger Monster of a centre-back put the homesters 2-1 up. As time ticked yahboosuckingly away at a violently masticating Fergie, he inevitably moved to counter – by introducing an alarmingly focussed-looking Dutchman. Cue the cockney expletives.

However right then the locals were not alone in their (so) near-far eel-pie kebab-trauma. Many of us in the Olympic Radiators R Us-sponsored Lowest Common Denominator Stand (okay, seats) – i.e. on Twitter – immediately barked out our own 140 character-or-less (often much, much less) swearword-heavy dissent. Roused to fury by the sight of Hernandez – for whom the phrase ‘looks like e’s got a goal in ‘im’ was surely invented? – being ruthlessly hoiked to accommodate the master. (In our defence I should say that to a man we felt only that the South American hare might have stayed on alongside van Persie and some goal-shy other been removed.) But tellingly, in the great, swingeing, mad and lovely toggeracious but bubble-popping scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Because a rejuvenating Giggs and RVP himself conjured one of the truly great… and timely… and emphatic… and epically heart-stopping/romance-thwarting/spell-binding-but-also-crushing goals you are ever likely to see.

Giggs struck a ludicrously instinctive and inviting long pass beyond van Persie, offering up a practically todger-erecting opportunity to attackattackattack the East End rump. In a flash (oops!) the sub had gathered and contemptuously by-passed the last defender before rattling the ball beyond a gobsmacked and frankly irrelevant ‘keeper. I am willing to contend, with a fairly straight face, that what happened in these barely separable instants seemed the raw but perfect expression of some kind of lust; or at least a moment where something was satiated – something cruel maybe, but pure – but sensational. The home crowd were crushed and exhausted, the United players in triumphant, ecstatic disbelief almost – such was the degree of devastation inflicted. It was a signal moment in the season; a time when not only did Team United beat out yet another powerful message of defiance but van Persie himself said unequivocally that he/I am TOTALLY IT. And he is.

Van Persie ain’t Messi. He is different. He is more abrasive, actually; he doesn’t dribble. He darts in a different, less low-slung way – more often without the ball. (Because he doesn’t dribble.) He slides and ghosts past one or two perhaps, then unleashes or curls one. He affects things. He gets goals, in a particular way – in stunningly diverse ways. Maybe by adjusting his feet to get airborne before heading or volleying with relish. Maybe finding a yard before persuading one round a defender or two… and into that far corner. Often that far corner. Like van Persie. Not Messi. Like a Dutch bloke with an absolute nose for it. Shielding the ball in that classically cool, Total Footballer kindofaway; coaxing or waiting… then striking.

Cut agonisingly adrift from this now, Arsene Wenger, we can only imagine, has to lump a fair amount of energy into the Not Thinking About Robin area of his turbulent life. Because he will know better than anyone the cost of the utter Gooner collapse which meant van Persie could go… to United. Something which might surely drain away much of any good man’s belief, or faith.

Even though it is possible to imagine that the bitterness between Wenger and Ferguson has somewhat settled, Arsene must be in some kind of grief. The rest of us, minus the hang-ups, really should enjoy this stuff. Whatever our tribal lunacies bray at us. Van Persie, right now, is uniquely, completely brilliant. And he’s here.

*Earlier tonight, Messi was again voted in as the world’s greatest player at FIFA’s Ballon d’Or awards for an unprecedented (and possibly never to be repeated?) 4th consecutive year.

Very recently, I published an ebook of selected posts and new material, with an Introduction by Paul Mason and recommendations from the likes of Brian Moore and Paul Hayward.  It’s out on Amazon ebooks, under the title ‘Unweighted – the bowlingatvincent compendium’.  The link amzn.to/SSc9To should take you there from Twitter.  At £2.83, you ain’t being robbed.

From The Bridge, with love.

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It varies, clearly. The amount of responsibility – credit or otherwise – that a particular Manager deserves to receive. And in football, the measurement of such things is a) hilariously prejudiced by tribalism and … well, rage, often and b) by lack of knowledge – ours. In particular knowledge of what really happens in dressing rooms and on practice pitches. Few of us get a fair or informed picture of all that barking and larking or genuine professional graft. At Chelsea, over and above these prevailing inadequacies, there appear to be several extra dimensions, belted provocatively together like some Dadaist symbol for contemporary machismo. How much is satire? How much is real? What’s it made of? Who is responsible for this madness/this brilliance? Well now… blow me! It’s Rafa.

Rafa the ‘fat Spanish waiter’. Rafa the prolific trophy-hunter-gatherer. Rafa the portly ‘academic’. Rafa the puppet-with-thankless-task but substantial wedge, critically(?) we assume. Nominally – it’s him.

So let’s run with that for at least a paragraph. That assumption of him Casey Jones-ing the Blue engine; waving his hat and smiling through steamed glasses at the bouncing innocents along Kings Road Meadow, as they gosh and gallivant alongsides. (Because it’s that kindof beatifically innocent scenario we’re talking here, right?) Rafa as wholesome, er… English, spirit-lifting and no doubt balloon-piloting leader of men rather than porky attendant upon some Russian oiligarch. Because –even us unBlues – we have to dream, yes? Let’s dream.

Benitez starts off as Stinky Pants in the class; universally disliked and derided for his unequivocal unattractiveness and history of suspiciously dour, five-bellied Latin Scouseness. Or something. Slaughtered for not being either of those other two Mediterranean geezers; abused for his obvious and treacherous lack of FatLamps/Terryhood. But he manfully steps up (here comes that Casey Jones thing again) to the fireside plate and woo-woo – slings coals around with authentic Grit and Determination. He whistles convincingly, authentically, trans-halfwayliningly, with just the right fingers in just the right part of his gob and… before yas know it… proper locomotion! Players go beyond mere hand/arm wheeling gestures and puffing out cheeks into recognisably doing His Full-on Rafathing. Firstly, actually listening – as opposed to smirking in the depths of the changing room before jogging subversively out– then whooshing and clanking and braking and refuelling, pretty-much, in exactly the way he might really want, on the pitch. As if Rafa was really really in charge. (Cue major toot!)

It’s becoming (something that seemed cosmologically distantly unlikely) infectious, I think. Both the notion of Rafa winning out and the actuality of Chelsea getting manifestly better. Even those of us who have failed to warm to the man and who remain suspicious of the quality of his achievements elsewhere may – like the Sheddites themselves – have to nod approvingly as the Flying Spaniard streaks past… and on… and upwards. Because let’s face it, this seems increasingly likely.

Chelsea are looking good; more durable and organised; pacier as well as more directly threatening. Torres, whilst not being remotely the liberated, electrically humming soul of Anfield days, has looked like a footballer again. And has scored. Plus that suspicion of frailty brought on by the random inclusion of anyone with an exotic surname is dissipating, markedly. Chelsea’s midfield are more successfully stopping other people playing, whilst growing themselves – finding their rhythm, dominating. They are a stronger unit. Whether or not we acknowledge this through more or less grinding gnashers, it seems only reasonable to conclude that Benitez must take some credit for this.

But when will this turn into love? How long – if ever – before the chanting turns turtle? Already you suspect that the vitriolic banners are being folded away. After the deluge against Villa and now – perhaps more significantly – the hard-won and possibly fortunate win away at Goodison, when might we expect the first warblings of Rafa-appreciation to go public? Who, I wonder, might be bold enough or drunk enough to break ranks from the previously icy monolith? Anthropologists are no doubt secreting themselves amongst the faithful to trace the moment.

In this near-romantic fug it really is possible to shake away, for a lovely moment or two, the shadow of Roman. But not entirely. Because though he remains unimpeachably clear from the dangers of any form of accountability – whether by interview or other democratic means – Abramovic rules. His truly appalling metier – that of the alleged fan but in reality that of the bruiser, the dictator, the maniac, perhaps? – abides. So any personal triumphs or inspired choices or transformative drills or directives from Benitez shrink to nought; or will. Because they mean nothing compared to the real Gaffer’s whims.

I have found it fascinating and a little depressing that in the upheavals of recent weeks and months virtually no dissent – and no demonstrations to my knowledge (though I am happy to be corrected on this)- have been targeted at Abramovic, for what many identify as his bitterly stubborn mode of ‘leadership’. As though he has bought that particular success – ie inviolability – in addition to the on-field accomplishments. Instead, the focus has been entirely fixed on an unwanted Rafa and the unjustly departing Di Matteo. Meanwhile (and consequently) Chelsea the Club remains an idle plaything, less than inert but more than competitive, paradoxically fortunate to be in Abramovic’s financial orbit but corrupted, some would say, by his grasp. In short, (perhaps not uniquely) there is no innocence here; instead there is something which feels greedy and anti-sporting.

Rafa may succeed. He may even succeed undeniably, so that (because a particular gentleman may yet turn Roman down) he may be paraded triumphantly yet by a suddenly loquacious and emotional and converted Abramovic as the ‘Real and Legitimate Manager for this Club.’ But I doubt that. Sounds lovely… but I doubt that.

I have just published an ebook of selected posts and new material, with an introduction from Paul Mason. ‘ Unweighted – the bowlingatvincent compendium’, is available from Amazon ebooks.  The link amzn.to/SSc9To should take you there from Twitter.

That’s super, Mario… but…

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It’s probably unwise to view Mario as some sort of symbol. After all, this may only lead to what John Lacey so brilliantly termed a ‘new breed of cliche’. One with a Mohican. But so ripe is the rather magnificent (actually) Italian that if I fall headlong into anything on the saccharoidal or sloppy side of all-consuming here I can live with that. He’s great symbol material. He deals in (or seems to deal in) either comic or provocative gestures;  ‘Why always me?’; a firework up the arse (or somewhere); as Robin Hood for Moss Side; via that hair-cut. He’s – on one level, surely? – bloody good value.

It seems the latest peak – or pique, or peek – in the Mario fable concerns his jolting to a halt at the precipice of outright rebellion earlier this week. When his people called off the Premiership quality, division-amplifying case lodged in some degree of fury against his employers, Manchester City. (For those in the dark about this stuff, basically they had fined him for being prodigiously haughty, naughty and individualist… and Mario objected – spicily and via his lawyers.)

So now, we’re into a kind of rumbling peace. A peace where we can only imagine swear words of the most vile Italian nature are being slid like poison letters under hotel bedroom doors. From the Mancini Family to the Balotelli. Meaning that although the lines of mutual contempt are openly drawn, positions are being re-negotiated, in a suitably febrile atmosphere, where the chamber maid gets frisked and the bellboy practically water-boarded. Because they’re both – they’re all! – working for somebody, right?  Arbitration of the most hopelessly hopeless kind has been going on.  And, for now, it’s worked.

After an opening ten minutes which augured well for the silvered bulk of City’s galacticos, Mario played like a total pussy against United. He may not have been alone in that, but this is the key and the catalyst. Worse – he looked like he wasn’t trying. His sulk condemned him – the feeling being that anyone so insensitive as to openly prioritise his own frustrations, for whatever reasons, over the need to beat The Enemy must surely be the worst and most arrogant kind of traitor. This was how his performance – or his withdrawal of labour? – was widely judged. Mancini, to no-one’s surprise, hoiked him early in the second half and Balotelli stomped defiantly but rather pathetically off down the tunnel. You would be hard pushed to find anyone sympathetic.

There are, of course, issues around this Mariocentric Polarisation Thingy. The Love/Hate boogaboog of his Go Home/Out There/Over My Dead Bodyness. Him drawing that attention or deserving it or not. Him bristling against our prejudices as well as our love of the one-off, the natural. Balotelli pushes all kinds of buttons, and like a miscreant child in a lift, he can’t stop. The result is some dizzying but not typically pleasant lurch from bargain basement through Lingerie to a glorious, metro-cosmopolitan summit, whilst his fellow passengers either indulge him or twitch pre-violently. But who, exactly, in this clumpingly predictable and reductive journey is making it ‘all about him?’ Not just us.

Mourinho famously described Mario as ungovernable and I have no doubt part of the texture of his current relationship (with Mancini) is because of the latter’s need to be seen to deal with him. Roberto is a proud and evidently stubborn man too. Crucially perhaps, he still lacks the seal of approval of the wider Brit Footie Public, who view him as a fortunate inheritor rather than a kosher elite-level manager. Thus whilst on the one hand it may be that Roberto wants shot of Mario immediately if not sooner, some genuine attempt to Be The One Who Tamed That Beast may be part of the equation here. That and some real or heavily prompted desire to facilitate the expression of the Balotelli talent. Which is real.

There is resentment in the air. From City fans as well as those who bawl from the sidelines of the affair. Many do not react well to anyone who struts – whether that be a non-hostile, almost non-contact Berbatovian version or the slightly spikier in-a-coiffured-kindofaway favoured by Ronaldo. It smacks quite simply of arrogance. Balotelli, even when so deliciously-brilliantly demonstrating the art of penalty-taking under extreme pressure, fails to avoid the negativity around this particular charge. His nerveless dinks or doinks or passes into the net and subsequent joyless posing tending to evoke roars of animosity outweighing even the Sky Blue cheer. (Speaking personally mind you, they’ve made me laugh.) More seriously, the generality of footiefolks read his loafing about when things ‘just aren’t happening’ as unforgivable. As stuff he can’t get away with in the Prem, anyway. And sadly, a racial angle on all this anti-Mario hoo-haa cannot be ruled out.

Plus money lurks. Because of the news story, we all know now that two weeks wages for this particular City employee constitutes around £340,000. Three hundred and forty thousand pounds! Which he will now pay in fines to City, following his poor disciplinary record. (Incidentally, a swift reckoning up suggests it would take me 28.3 years, on current earnings, to accumulate this amount. Go on, have some fun! Work out your figures!! And then go barf.) Frankly rather weird that Mario’s initial directive to fight the case was surely barely connected to the amount of money – more the amount of slight against his name, his nature, his talent. These things, understandably, he holds precious. But the manner in which he displays this… pride(?) this self-worth(?) undermines him, does it not?

Perceptions around this Balotelli fellah are so loaded up with tribal cares and personal envies and moralistic tosh that no wonder things blur into symbol. Mario as lone warrior; Mario as renegade, inevitably misunderstood genius. Is this, I wonder, how he sees himself?  Standing there alone, in front of that full-length mirror? In his figure hugging designer undies, his arms spread wide, aloft, his face quizzical?

Very recently I published an ebook of selected, exclusive and re-edited posts. It comes highly recommended by the likes of Brian Moore and Paul Hayward.  It’s (unfortunately) out on Amazon, under the title “Unweighted – the bowlingatvincent compendium” and it’s your for only £2.83.    The following link may take you straight there from Twitter – amzn.to/SSc9To – go buy!!

Ten

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In Wales, people really do carry the notion of flyhalfism around with them. Women have it tucked in the crook of their armpit as they hightail it down to Morrisons, blokes tucked behind their left ear, like a casually stashed but much-anticipated ciggie. It’s all true yaknow – Welsh kids are born knowing who Phil Bennett was – many have been known to jink bewilderingly past the approaching midwife. It’s maybe not the same everywhere, but the Ten is important here.

Just a few minutes ago I read a report effectively linking a certain Jonny of the half-back persuasion to next year’s Lions Tour. Which focussed – well, everything’s relative – the loose pondering I’ve been engaged in for the last hour or two around that subject of flyhalfism, generally. Focussed it and broadened it out, in fact, because… because The Lions can do that, right? But back to Jonny, momentarily.

Until the wise and oft-crocked-but-indestructible one (now of France) intruded, I had been gainfully employed in ruminations of a hypothetical but distinctly Celtic nature. Like who will play Ten for Wales… and then whether Sexton might finish up as Lions playmaker. (Here, sloppily, I nearly wrote ‘god forbid’.) So hang on – let’s leave the (other) Jonny Factor out of this for now – and return to Wales-in-my-arms again.

Rhys Priestland – he of quite possibly relatively seriously damaged self-confidence and now genuinely compromised lower body-part – is out for months. Crocked. Leading to the likely inclusion of Osprey’s Dan Biggar in the Wales set-up for the Six Nations. Whilst Biggar is widely perceived (in Wales) to be currently best equipped to challenge James Hook for the national half-back role, he is unlikely to threaten the Lions squad. Nor is Rhys Patchell, the emerging Blues star, who may have real quality, but remains a non-starter at this level for his lack of years and experience.

Like Priestland, Biggar is capable; looking to direct with a quiet authority rather than too much explosive brilliance. For them both – and perhaps I do mean this as a slight criticism? – Game Management is all. They are not the Magic Men many would like. Hook, on the other hand, has been known to be.

Like Wilkinson, Hook now plies his trade in France. And the sense is that regular starts in the Ten slot for Perpignan are doing him a power of good – why wouldn’t they? Like many of The Gifted before or since, Hook may not always have made an inviolable case for his own inclusion. He’s thrown intercepts; he’s drifted in and out; we can use that word ‘languid’ against him; we’ve wondered often if he has enough of that controlling thing going on. But Hook has danced past folks… he has genuinely created, when before… there was nothing.

Young James could play the kind of off-the-cuff rugby that most international coaches now perennially enthuse about – and then seem to de-bar amongst their backline employees come match day. In few cases does it seem that the liberated approach survives the transition from interview room to pitch. Meaning even in an expansive-game-friendly Wales, Hook became droppable rather than essential.  Moreover he bulked up, he conformed, becoming more like everyone else and less mercurially James.

One view is that he just wasn’t sufficiently favoured or trusted, entirely, to orchestrate. Or that and the fact that he may simply be short of durability in defence, or for the longish haul of a Six Nations or World Cup campaign. Personally, I think the management of James Hook may be amongst the most serious errors committed by the Wales backroom staff over the last six-eight years. If he felt secure enough, wanted enough, I think Hook may have been the man. Now it feels as though he may not even inherit from the stricken Priestland. Gatland will take a close look at Patchell for Wales but Hook may remain in that destabilising limbo whilst Biggar steps in.

So a Wales Ten for the Lions seems unlikely. Over to Ireland.

In the last year Johnny Sexton has usurped the previously untouchable Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s leading fly-half. He has also been prominent in the three or four year storm that is Leinster Rugby, hoofing them capably towards a state of European dominance. This bone-crunching process has naturally boosted his profile – he seems a quietish sort? – whilst relentlessly exposing him (generally in a good way) to healthy, high-level competition. Thus a relatively slick and uncontested accession of the O’Gara berth in the national side has been achieved – plus an undeniably significant bucket-load of Big Match game-time. Sexton may have much of what Gatland is looking for, given the secure national role and this familiarity with hyper-intensity Heineken hoopla. However. I’m not convinced.

I had a great argument very recently with a passionate Irishman who (dammitt!) pretty much dismantled my objections to Johnny S. He was outraged, frankly, that I suggested the Leinster Ten as a possible liability if called upon for Lions action. When asked to describe exactly his alleged vulnerabilities compared to the other candidates, I could only offer the feeling that Sexton has the capacity to implode… or maybe his kicking does? Which then buggers up the rest. He hasn’t, for me, looked either supremely talented enough or doughty enough to lift either himself or a tight game, when the most searching issues arise. When the psychology of the thing (as well as the meat-and-drink physicality) begins to rumble and rail against his will, what might he manage then? Another hunch? Perhaps I am wrong to doubt him.

To Scotland. And away, swiftly, because they have no credible contender for the post in mind.

England I think have one – Farrell. The slightly more experienced but slightly less durable Flood is edged very narrowly out, I think. Farrell is cool, strong with a relatively mixed game. What he lacks is what Sexton, Priestland, Biggar and perhaps Flood too lack – real dash. Whether this rules him out or in remains to be seen. But he will fight… he has bottle… and a compelling will, I think. Farrell nips in ahead of Sexton for me.

What is maybe most striking in all this is the lack of an obvious candidate; maybe that’s actually a worry for us Lions fans? If all those named above apart from Hook are a shade one-dimensional, where might that leave our hopes in Oz? Head-thumpingly frustrated? When the one thing that the Australians seem to have consistently brought to the rugby party of late is invention in the backs, are we likely to get simply outscored? Will Howley really be able to generate a Wales early 2011-style Brotherhood of Liberation amongst the Lions backs? Or will a phone call go out – it couldn’t, could it – to that other Jonny? The English one.

I have just published an ebook of selected posts, plus substantial new material.  It features an introduction from Paul Mason and kind support from Brian Moore and Paul Hayward of the Daily Telegraph, amongst others. It’s really not bad – and it’s only £2.83!

You can find it on Amazon ebooks, under the title ‘Unweighted – the bowlingatvincent compendium’.  Check it out.

Manc.

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A relatively commercial break –

Back in April, I tried to write about the Manchester derby but got caught in a web of sentiment; something to do with family connections to United and regrets over footie’s slippage into capitalistic mania. I tripped up, maybe, on a foot dangled out for contact, meaning I barely spoke, in my distracted fury, about the game. Having said all that, I did feel there was something true there, so I bunged it – I mean carefully selected it – for inclusion in my ebook.

(If you’re reading on twitter try this link – amzn.to/SSc9To – otherwise, the book’s called Unweighted – the bowlingatvincent compendium. On Amazon ebooks.)

Today’s ‘Title Decider’ – volume 2 or 3? – came around pretty quick, and gives me the opportunity to talk about action on the pitch. Something I will get round to eventually – I promise. After my anthropological warm-up.

So what is it to be Manc, then? A handful of years ago a monsoon of helpful, though not necessarily definitive labels might have bucketed down, under a sky full of thunderous Stone Roses riffs. The bow-legged swagger; the distracting Northern Wit thing – distracting whilst a mate robs your car; the Authentic Footie Obsession. Whilst the Guardian-reading amongst us might pause to reflect on the unacceptable lack of sensitivity mooning out from these caricatures, the rest of us can slurp beer, belch… and carry on with the blog(ging.) Because the truth drinks Stella, right?

Everywhere and everything changes. The city of Manchester has changed… somewhat unremarkably perhaps. Structurally and architecturally. However things are SO-O massively different in the urban psyche here that it may be new species of Manc are emerging, to reflect the maddest and genuinely most transformative ‘development’ in the region – that City football-thing , that Sky Blue usurpation.

Nought to everywhere; nought to somewhere mightier than Manfookin United, canya believe? City – a New City FC suddenly transplanted in. Now suspiciously performance-enhanced as viewed from the Red Side. Absurdly mighty, its largesse looming irresistibly over Fergie’s previously unchallenged dominion. Suddenly, something credible with which to counter-bulldoze, something with greater mass, critically, than Sir Alex’s attacking principles; something bigger, fuller, more extravagant even, than the Scot dictator’s red wine cellar.

Welcome in that zillion quid’s worth of psycho-plaything, melted down into the bustling warrior that is… Yaya Fookin Touré. (Take that ya Red Bass-ted!) Now just the one amongst a platoon of parachuted-in Manc galacticos patrolling the Etihad.

So… pinch yourself and you tell me – how could this all be possible? When we thought the existing scale of the rivalry was about right? When the world had kindof settled for the MCFC Perennial Overshadowment project? Is it just me that finds it head-hurtingly beyond surreal, this latest edit – Madderthaneverchester? Replete as I hope and trust it is with scarred Argie Judas and gorgeously Italian dugout dreamboat puppet. Sky Blues, of course think the current scenario more of a Revengeoftheproperfanschester.

Whichever way we look at it, money – as though blasted at us through an early machine gun – has pinned all of us footiefolks down whilst City swarm relentlessly over. It’s just the Reds are taking the onslaught most front-on. And those faceless überMancs feeding the weapon from er… somewhere well out of Lancashire, actually, really have changed everything. Maybe in an evolutionary way (because we knew that the next instalment of Depressingly Unjust Transformation was coming, right, after Blackburn, after Chelsea?) There has been no surprise, as such – just a series of game-changing purchases.

Now, another Derby.

United – the away team – pick Young, Rooney, Valencia, Van Persie. No doubt believing that City, featuring a strangely out-of-sorts Kompany, can be got at. City – unbeaten at home for the proverbial and now proudly restored Blue Moons – feature Balotelli from the outset, believing (arguably naively) that the Mohicanned One will probably be prepared to stir for the cameras, if not for his manager, in this one.

Fortunately (I think), lack of competent defending – Ferdinand possibly being the honourable exception here – made for a compelling and ultimately nerve-jangling game. Whilst some distance short of a quality spectacle, this was full-blooded and eventful in the full-on derby mode. Alan Hansen – if he dare to take on United’s defensive work – might find plenty to playfully dissect. City’s back four, perhaps with Hansen’s difficulties in mind? – were equally as culpable, however.

A general point or two: whilst it may be true that Evra and Rafael remain United’s first choice fullbacks, they defend poorly – if at all. Rafael charges in impetuously far too often for a top level player and Evra simply doesn’t bother; or that’s how it seems, such is his inability to focus on even the fundamentals of the game once the ball enters the left back zone. Personally, if I was Fergie, I’d look to spend big on three defenders fit for a Champions League challenge in the January window; two fullbacks and a centre-half. Evra and Rafael and possibly the injury-prone Evans are not worthy. But back to the game.

City bossed the opening spell without dazzling; United threw the ball carelessly back at them. Then out of nothing they countered. Rooney – who had been largely absent – scored two breakaway goals, one of them featuring a sublime chest-pass from Van Persie to Young which released the winger down the left. In both cases defending from City was poor. They were accomplices, in fact, to the robbery.

Without gaining any measure of control, United had what should have been an unassailable lead. In both cases Rooney had unthreatened space in which to operate… and in he cashed, with a slightly scuffed shot and an easy side-footer. Mancini fumed.

Late in the first half, the body-language of Silva and Touré did not augur well, and Balotelli still jogged around the periphery. Yet with Aguero looking up for it and the game alarmingly open already, this had the look of a goal-fest. Fifty further minutes without goals seemed unlikely.

Immediately after the break, Evans retired hurt and was replaced by Smalling. Tempting to suggest that this unsettled the United back four but all season long that mob have jostled and harried unconvincingly and critically they have failed to mark; City came back. Tevez came on, to generally inflame things and Zabaleta, very much to his credit, having taken the armband from the retiring Kompany, seemed intent on hauling his club back into contention. (Would that most of his team-mates – half of whom seem to lack any urgent understanding of what communal effort is all about – might follow.)

The Argentine deservedly scored an equaliser when exploiting acres of space on the edge of the penalty box following a corner but again the goal was noteworthy more for amateurish defending rather than some glorious strike. Not that he cared. As the contest went into overtime an unnecessarily sloppy challenge from Tevez gave Van Persie the chance to have the final say. Via a slight deflection, he did.

Sadly the match – which had neither been brutal nor sporting and which was refereed rather leniently by Mr Atkinson – finished amongst controversy. Ferdinand was struck by a coin thrown by irate City fans whilst he celebrated. Tevez should have been red-carded for a crass kick out by the touchline. It was a great win for United, celebrated ingloriously. We, the watching world, left amongst bitterness.

In work, in the city tomorrow, Reds will be smiling smugly. Mancini still lacks a team, Fergie a defence.

Could it really be gone?

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Welsh rugby. How could it be such a pale shadow so alarmingly quickly? After that wonderful World Cup; after that seemingly world-wide groundswell of lurv was drawn to it, by the nature of what they did, in New Zealand. (If you didn’t see, or can’t remember, they lifted the whole tournament, breathing a genuinely friendly fire into its pallid rounds.) They charged and offloaded our expectations, our understandings of what ‘winning rugby’ might be. They – in their fanatically/fascistically brutal/beautiful condition – recaptured something preciously liberated… and hearty… and filled with Gareth Edward’s dive-passes. And in offering it to us, they denied cynicism; they attacked; they welcomed something back. And my god how quickly it’s gone.

The nation is in quiet mourning these dewy mornings. Since Argentina; since Samoa. Since those doubts ate up that freedom. In a land where rugby IS king, there is bound to be ‘discussion’.

I am mildly fascinated in the as yet relatively unaired suspicion that the awesome Polish beastings may yet be packaged up within some argument for the Great Welsh Distraction. As though all that hardcore physical inevitably contributed to a retreat into Gym Bunny Blinkerhood – and failure. Certainly the unfeasible intensity of all that preparation grates with some, who fear some link between cryotherapy (for extending the level of punishment a man might take?) and the inability to naturally play what’s in front of you. Expressivity or power? Is it insightful or just plain daft to imagine the men from the Land of My Fathers make better poets than cyborgs?

Conversations tend not to be as sci-fi marginal as that, but conversations aboundeth. Everywhere I go they talk of team selection (the copper, in the playground)… and Gatland’s absence… and half-backs gone missing. It’s a much talked about unspoken clammed up dagger-to-the-heart secret everyone knows. The team’s gone backwards or sideways, the team’s not the same – the world’s Just Not The Same. It’s dead, or at least the hwyl is – our most precious bit is. And we who feel it, in this screeching valley of quiet, we are suddenly hopeless. We can’t run straight; any of us! We can’t get momentum or we can’t manage the game. All cruelly felt, in the post office or the pub. We who could jink and dance and juggle coal or sheep or yards of Felinfoel, or sing the starlings out the dingletrees cannot, apparently run. Our poetry is lost. This is the blackest, blackest thing.

Injuries. Wales lose two or three (Joneses? Byrne? Lydiate? Davies?) and the pool is exposed. Priestland dips and the relative ordinariness of Priestlandhood, the non-PhilBennetflyhalfness of Priestland becomes vulnerable. And with it, the whole of Wales. Phillips struts too much and darts too little and the principality shrinks before us. Or worse – before everyone. That whole punching-above-our-weight-thing deflates itself. It’s a fine line. Ryan Jones in and out. Warburton leader or no? Fine.

After the sound beating by the Pumas, the National Mood booked in for a once-over at the trusty local surgery. After Samoa it flung itself wheezing onto the slab. Can Dr Gatland restore? With a full complement of Edwards/Howley vaccine drawn down again from the shelf? Hard to say. Certainly when the patient is this crippled by unbelief the prognosis really may not be good. It really may not be good. And the particular pressure means that experiments – the necessary blooding of A or B – become a real danger to the integrity of the project. Or so it is felt.

If there is a consensus it may be around this notion that a Full Team Out – or something very close – means everything to Wales. Despite hopes a year ago for a splendidly inviolable SQUAD SCENARIO it now seems clear that numbers matter – unless you happen to be (back) in New Zealand. Wales don’t have the strength in depth to maintain some idealised period of domination. Not anymore, when the game is so ruthlessly dynamic and physical and unforgiving of weakness. So if some curly haired geezer disappears from the front row – or perhaps two Lions do? – then trouble. If the half-backs do splutter, or reveal some unWelsh one-dimensionality – then trouble. Because there is a train coming. Pretty much every match. And if there is a flicker in that inviolable, Brothers-in-Redness conviction that Gatland undeniably instilled… ouch. Look out.

The end of something.

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As I write the Lance Armstrong saga is still twirling away; revelation and statement, bombshell and rumour. Today’s news again included collateral – the departure of Bobby Julich from Team Sky, following his confessions over doping in the Armstrong posse of the 70’s. Fascinatingly, despite the sport’s genuinely low profile, this Lancething has become a fully-fledged sporting monster, substantially outgrowing the cycling hinterland. In its black and whiteness, its moral and dope-linked certainties, this is one Recognisably Juicy Story – something for everyone to hang a prejudice or molten opinion upon – even though only six of us in Britain watched Armstrong win all this stuff. In France; whenever he won it. On Channel 4.

Yup, suddenly, we all want to spout polemically on the Tour – you do call it just like ‘the Tour’, right? – something we knew nothing about until wooh, last Wednesday? Because it’s a pearler, this; a truly striking and intoxicating fable where the appalling quality of the breach of honesty at its devilish heart cries out for reaction from honest folks like us. Downing again our Doritos, we rise magnificently to bawl in outrage ’til the thing splatters exponentially across the screens of lives normally blissfully immune from interest in U.S freakin’ Postal. And the guy himself goes from being a cancer-defying god to a hollow cheat and liar. Who goes on lying, woodyabelieveit?!?

Who goes on lying… about drugs. Because it’s presumably just too big a deal to row back from this very biggest of porkies; the one that was SO big he felt (in his kingly arrogance) unimpeachable, unassailable, unapproachably clear of exposure as the blood-doped fraud he was. He who bullied and led; he who made blood transfusion an essential part of his winning process. (Yes, that’s er… blood transfusion – lying in the back of a bus – I picture him in some zonked-out cruciform, arms splayed – with ‘fresh’ blood coursing in like some scarlet, performance-enhancing elixir.) See? It’s beyond mere sporting crime and well, we-ell into symbol. And that’s properly big, right?

The fact that Armstrong is an American Icon does surely add some spice to all this. Witness the outbreak of world class wallowing amongst lefty Europeans as another absurd empire falls. Rarely, surely, has there been a clearer or better confirmation in the eyes of the liberal Old World of the essential unchristian hypocrisy of that same Great Nation – Lance’s – the one that gave us U.S. Postal. It’s right up there with Evangelical Frauds and Preacher Paedophiles; it has the quintessential grossness, the lies, the money, the betrayal. We’re loving it, aren’t we?

Armstrong won the Tour 7 times and yes he did fight off cancer. (I’m hoping nobody discovers some link between EPO and surviving cancer, by the way; that could just get too weird.) But given the serial extravagances here, surely, for this All-American Sinner, there must be an appropriately massive revenge of the masses. Some distant Asphixiatingly Brutal Punishment Planet we could send him to? Where they wear bright orange overalls, maybe? Imagine please the amount of labo(u)r – the amount of galactic rock – Lance Armstrong might un-zip, at peak physical condition in a 12 hour sesh. He could supply the Alpe D’huez Freeway Project with enough stone to cobble a way back to Paris, (ma’an).

That may or may not be funny. Certainly most of this story isn’t. Not in terms of what it says about the sport of cycling (we hope to god just) at that time and about fairness and honesty generally in the competitive situation. People, it seems, cheat in order to win? (Who knew?) The implications for cycling in terms of the likes of Rabo-bank pulling out as major sponsors and likely further and broader allegations arising, are seriously serious. As a slightly more than part-time supporter of the sport, I have gone fulsomely on record to argue for greater and wider acknowledgement of the magnificent levels of courage and athleticism and generosity found in the peloton. And – in defence of cycling, perhaps – I want to re-state some of this. Sadly, with certain qualifications.

If cyclists are clean then they are amongst the finest of athletes because;

  • It takes rare courage and belief to race in a pro road race. Injury through crashes or wear and tear of weary limbs are likely. You descend mountains at around 60 miles an hour, in a racing group – which is phenomenally scary. Every fibre must be brilliantly, twitchily engaged for every moment.
  • Stages in the Tour de France (for example) last typically for about 6 or 7 hours, or 120-odd kilometres. Even when these are not mountain stages, there are climbs; it hurts. Levels of fitness are astonishing. They ride 20 stages – 2,500 miles.
  • Despite the intensity of the physical effort, top riders must be race-aware/tactically cute/ready to cover ‘attacks’. So there is little or no rest. In one of the truly great, possibly unique facets of the sport, ‘domestiques’ dedicate themselves day after day to enable success for a team leader they know has the best chance for an overall win. They ‘chase down’ opponents whilst their leader preserves energy; they ‘carry him’ through agonising climbs or periods of tiredness. And the ‘domestiques’ rarely win – not themselves. It’s about sacrifice; how wonderful is that?

The Olympics – and specifically the sensational and ongoing dominance of GB Cycling in the velodrome – gave us a further, more widely-appreciated reminder of the appeal of haring around on wheels. In fact one of the most anticipated events at London 2012, for die-hard fans and more recent converts was the Olympic Road Race, where a certain Manxman (Cavendish – one of the greatest currently-active champions in any sport, in my view) was challenging for gold. That didn’t work out. But cycling went big anyway, for that short period. Offering the hope that perhaps the most significant Olympic legacy may yet be the health/environmental benefit accruing from people getting off their arses… and onto their bikes. How wonderful is that?

‘Midst the genuinely shocking revelations from former team members/masseuse/(any-time-now?) Lance Groupie, the story of the (actual) action itself is subsumed. Racing action that included the most monumental effort from both Armstrong and his team. Sprinting and climbing; thousands of miles. Effort we now dismiss, if we can, from our memories. As we try to dismiss the inevitable daft questions; could he/they have won without doping? How good was he, really, without that stuff? And what about Indurain?

If we wanted to trawl back through (and beyond?) the major records we might be able to gather some picture of how good Armstrong was before; how good
he honestly might have been.
But that’s irrelevant now.

Today Bobby Julich- who coughed – became a former coach to the mighty Sky Professional Road Racing Team. Because as a team they have sworn to have no truck with cheating. And aeons ago, alongside and quite possibly for his team-mate Lance Armstrong, Julich cheated by doping. Whether this is the end of his career in the sport, who knows? But it is the end of something.