Wednesday 26 May 2010

World Cup With Auntie

I’m definitely watching the world cup on the BBC. To be honest, aside from the early rounds of Britain’s Got Talent when there’s a reasonable chance of seeing someone with a serious personality disorder singing Lady Ga Ga’s Paparazzi, I rarely watch ITV but that’s because I’m a snob. For national sporting events, particularly England games, watching on ITV seems unpatriotic. I don’t want independent television. I want British television.

Partly, it’s the theme tune. Bittersweet Symphony? We know! How clichéd can you get? They might as well play “The Only Way is Up” by Yazz at the start of the game and “It’s a Heartache” by Bonnie Tyler at the end.

But mainly it’s the ads. There are so many of them. At least two breaks in the build up including one of them after the teams have come out. A break as soon as the half-time whistle goes, another one just before the start of the second half, one straight after the final whistle and at least one more during the post match analysis. While I’m watching football, I don’t want to be assaulted by loud exhortations to buy Hyundai cars (or any cars. I’m just using them as an example). I don’t want to buy a newspaper just because someone who used to manage England is selling it to me. And I don’t need new trainers.

In other countries it’s worse. The yanks can’t really get their heads round a sport where there is forty-five minutes of continuous, uninterruptible action. Their favourite sports seem almost as if they’ve been designed with advertisers in mind. They need a time out every ten minutes so they can try and sell us erectile dysfunction cream. I was in Malaysia for one world cup and they kept playing adverts for Dunhill cigarettes (those were the days) when the ball went out for a throw. This was before the multi-ball system where another ball is instantly given to the thrower but Malaysian football fans still missed a couple of goals. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen here (OK, once during an Everton v Liverpool cup replay when ITV thought they’d take a chance on a couple of ads during extra time and missed an Everton goal. What were they thinking?).

This problem with the adverts is not just confined to football. Cricket on Channel Four “solved” the problem by playing adverts when someone lost their wicket. But I found that deeply unsatisfying, particularly when I’d just watched a batsman score a century and instead of seeing them get a standing ovation, I'd get the Ronseal Woodstain bloke.

Probably the only way round this thorny issue is for there to be a dedicated BBC TV sports channel paid for by a rise in the licence fee. I understand this wouldn’t be particularly popular with the people who don’t watch live sport but seriously, who cares about them?

Anyway, I watched some of England v Mexico on ITV but that’s because there was no alternative. (Well I could have watched The Chelsea Flower Show on BBC2 instead of football but I fear that may have lost the world cup blog some credibility). I rarely watch the friendly games. My God they’re dull. You can go away for ten minutes and the only significant action you’re likely to miss are the five substitutions for either side. The only exciting moment was after the game. That was when ITV showed the NIKE world cup ad and we all wondered if this time, they were going to play all of it. They showed the ad after the Champions league final but they missed the last ten seconds. The ten seconds when the ad tells us what they’re advertising. Apparently, Nike are not going to pay the £1.5 million they owe to ITV because they screwed up. Deservedly so. It was like them showing a three-minute joke and then missing out the punchline.

So for all these reasons, if I have a choice it’s the BBC for me. But I’ll miss Adrian Chiles who I thought came across well on his ITV debut although I think that in the spirit of the friendly international, they should have substituted him at half time for another untried presenter.

Sunday 23 May 2010

The North Korea Conspiracy

The world cup is in the news. Last week it was Lord Triesman saying that the Russians would bribe referees in return for the Spanish stepping aside for the 2018 world cup bid. (Not that I believe in conspiracy theories but any country that’s capable of killing someone with radioactive material could certainly lean on a ref). This week it’s North Korea allegedly torpedoing a ship from the south and the south retaliating by not allowing the North access to their TV signal during the tournament.

The story was illustrated with stock footage of North Korea. We’ve all seen it before. Crazy high stepping soldiers, massive military march pasts, enormous synchronized gymnastic displays (they’re really good at those) and Kim Jong Il looking as bonkers as ever (is it even possible to look at him anymore without hearing the song “I’m so Ronery” from the character in Team America?). But there were also pictures of the North Korean football team leaving for the world cup (seemed a bit early to me but I guess they’ll allow them some shopping time) where they face Portugal, Brazil and The Ivory Coast in the so called “group of death”, although that phrase has a rather literal meaning when it comes to North Korea.

Like I said, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but I think that Kim had a plan. As soon as he saw the world cup draw, he must have realised what was going to happen. The other three are all going to stuff North Korea. He figured that seeing their brave boys getting pulverized by, in turn Didier Drogba, Kaka and Ronaldo would do irreparable harm to the North Korean people’s pride and self-esteem. Plus you can’t censor a football tournament and it would take more than a dodgy referee to enable North Korea to beat any of those teams.

So he used his imagination. Torpedo a South Korean ship and wind up his neighbours and lackey of the Imperial American aggressors (“what are they going to do? We’ve got nukes”). The South, outraged, blame the North and do pretty much the only thing they can do and cut the TV signal. No world cup coverage. And then after the tournament ends, Kim gets a copy of the world cup made, gives it to the players at the airport and orders them to celebrate like they’ve won it. Who would know?

Implausible? Yes. But if someone told me on July 12th that the entire North Korean population was wildly celebrating their first world cup victory, I’d be OK with that. Everyone needs a little fantasy in their lives. That’s what the world cup is for.

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Sweet FA

I don’t like the Mail on Sunday. It’s worse than the Daily Mail and I don’t like that either. You’d have thought the Sunday edition would give the right wing politics and their holier than thou attitude a rest for one day a week. Have a liberal, laid back Sunday. But no. If it’s not enough for them to go on and on about asylum seekers, dole scroungers and hoodies, now they’ve gone and buggered up any chance England had of hosting the world cup in 2018.

It was all going so well. The bid seemed to be moving in the right direction. On May 10th, England’s eight and a half kilogram, seventeen hundred and fifty two page (what the hell is in it? Is it really large print? Are there lots of large photos? Is it like a bumper edition of The Sun?) 2018 world cup bid document and supporting materials (1752 pages were apparently not enough) left Wembley Stadium in a highly specialized vehicle (What? How specialized? Specifically designed to carry world cup bid documents? Is that financially viable?). The documents were secured in forty-two specially designed flight cases (is this some sort of joke?). Four days later, David Beckham (I don’t think he was driving the truck but who knows) personally delivered them to Sepp Blatter in Geneva.

(I’d like to say at this point that much as I’d like the World Cup to come to this country, I can’t help thinking that our priorities are a bit skewed. Government documents giving the names and addresses of every person receiving child benefit have been left on the top deck of a London bus and yet documents relating to a football tournament are “secured in forty-two specially designed flight cases” in a “highly specialized vehicle”.)

Anyway, having gone to all that trouble of making sure the bid arrived in Sepp Blatter’s (no doubt manicured) hands in pristine condition, five days later, on FA Cup final day, we learnt from The Mail on Sunday that the chairman of the bid team Lord Triesman had been secretly taped by a woman, making scurrilous remarks about the corruption of the Spanish and the Russians (Russian corruption. I’m shocked to my very core). All hell broke loose and he promptly resigned.

Don’t get me wrong. I find the FA intensely annoying. These are the people who paid almost one billion pounds for a football stadium with an arch that, if you’re driving on the North Circular at night looks very nice, but has a pitch that you can’t play football on. These are the people who’ve put the England team in a hotel in South Africa costing one thousand pounds per room per night while the five-times world champions Brazil are staying in a hotel costing just over one hundred. It’s not like the England boys will be entertaining (well perhaps John Terry when the players wives turn up but not the others). All they’re doing in there is sleeping and playing the playstation and you can do that in someone’s spare room.

And Lord Triesman definitely should have chosen his friends more carefully. Yes he got royally shat on by the young woman who taped their lunchtime conversation. I have nothing but contempt for her. People say things in private that they’d never say if they knew a microphone was switched on. As Gordon Brown found out to his cost not two weeks ago. But did anyone who loves football look at Lord Triesman and think ‘he’s the man who we want to represent our national sport’?

So like I say, I’m no fan of the FA. But if I had to spend eternity in an FA board meeting or one day in an editorial meeting with The Mail on Sunday, it’ll be the football for me. By breaking this story, The Mail on Sunday may have handed the 2018 world cup to Spain, a country with a great football team but the most racist fans in Europe. Who probably all read the Spanish equivalent of The Mail on Sunday.

Friday 14 May 2010

Food Glorious Food

In a world cup, they say that it’s the small details that really make the difference. Those little things that turn a tight game your way. Well, there’ll be plenty of time to pore over team formations and the composition of the squad. At this point, I thought I’d write about food. Tescos have published a list of the food that the England team are going to transport halfway round the world so that they’re fit and healthy for the tournament. Apparently, they’re going to buy fresh meat, fish and vegetables over there but some of the items they’re taking include:

: Forty bottles of traditional table sauces and one hundred bottles of hot sauces. That appears to me to be a lot of sauce. Even allowing for forty-five people in the traveling party, that’s still almost three bottles of sauce per person. Perhaps a bit more imagination shown by the chef might result in the need for fewer condiments. It’s just a suggestion.

: Cardini Caesar salad dressing. I must confess to never having heard of this but if we’re flying it all the way to the southern tip of Africa it must be bloody good. Does Fabio have a stake in the company?

: Two hundred bars of organic dark chocolate. Really? Chocolate is great and everything but we’re flying out two hundred bars of chocolate? It apparently provides anti-oxidants, which are good for the heart. Because let’s face it, no-one wants a heart with too much oxidant. Incidentally, I’d love to see the chocolate rider for the England ladies football team.

: Fifty bottles of extra virgin olive oil. If anything on this list tells us how much football has changed in the last twenty years, it’s fifty bottles of extra virgin olive oil. Not that I don’t approve but it still seems like a lot of oil to me. But if there’s anything a modern footballer likes, it’s as many extra virgins as possible

: Two hundred and sixty six grams of organic vegetable stock. This figure is so specific. Why not three hundred grams? Or what the hell, why don’t they just push the boat out and take five hundred grams. Live a little. It’s only half a kilo. Or slightly over a pound. Are they right on their weight limit? Is it a cost thing? Are they having to spend so much money on new pitches for Wembley that they can’t take another gram of vegetable stock? Are they flying Ryanair to South Africa?

: Ninety packs of teabags. Assuming fifty bags per pack, that’s four thousand, five hundred tea bags. That’s one hundred cups of tea per person for the entire tournament. Works out at two to three cups per day (assuming that they’re still in the tournament in July). I think they might need some more but tea is widely available in South Africa so they shouldn’t worry. They do have a choice of teas which include Peppermint, Jasmine tea or Earl Grey (Oh yeah? Earl Grey Rio?). And of course regular PG Tips. But they’re not allowed Jaffa Cakes and what’s the point of tea without a Jaffa Cake. How will they manage?

: Strawberry jam, marmalade and custard powder (bless their little cotton England socks). We’re told that the custard provides calcium for strong bones (and teeth though we’re not so concerned about that), and that, along with the jams and marmalades constitute the comfort grub that all the players will need to help them adjust to the unfamiliar environment of a large luxury hotel. “Look Wayne. There’s a weird thing in the bathroom that looks like a toilet but isn’t. It’s making me uncomfortable. Quick, get me a jam sandwich”.

Two things about all this. Firstly, what do we do with the leftovers? Are we going to leave it for the Africans? Do they need pine nuts or jasmine tea? Secondly, I hope it all works. I hope the two hundred and sixty-six grams of vegetable stock make a difference. I hope that all that pasta and those complex carbohydrates and pine nuts with balsamic vinegar imbue our boys with the energy needed to take them all the way to the World Cup Final where we spank the unfit foreigners and bring home the bacon. Which we can then have mixed with some greens and drizzled with Cardini Caesar salad dressing.

Monday 10 May 2010

England Expects

OK. The World Cup starts here. The football season is essentially over. (Yes I’ll watch the Europa cup final because it’s Fulham. And yes there’s the FA Cup final and I might check the result after fifty-five minutes and if it’s still 0-0, I’ll take a look. But if Chelsea are four up, I’ll go and sit in the garden. And yes there’s the Champions league final but Jose’s in charge of one of the teams and the other team is German so I can’t say that I’m bothered either way). No, the way is clear to concentrate on the world cup. The initial thirty-man squad will be picked on Tuesday and the players know what they have to do. And more importantly, the WAGS have been banished to a safe distance (two hundred metres according to Wikipedia), which is a relief to everyone although now that they’ve lost Victoria, the de facto WAG queen, it’s hard to drum up the necessary interest.

So now we can think about the football. I’ve been projecting forwards which is what you do when the world cup fixtures are published and you have a lot of time on your hands. What you do is that based on your own personal prejudices and a wildly optimistic outlook, you imagine a scenario where your team nonchalantly dismisses your group opponents (surely!), breezes through the first knockout game (Assuming that Germany win the group, it’s a choice of Serbia, Australia or Ghana. Should be OK) and arrives fit and healthy (Ha!) in the quarter-finals where in England’s case the French (probably) await.

I may be wrong about this. There are eight teams we could meet in this scenario but I think the French are the most talented. Yes, their coach is almost certifiable (He believes in astrology. “We lost because Mercury was rising”) and yes, the players are an ageing, difficult and slightly arrogant group (the French! Who’d have thought?). But any team with Anelka, Ribery and Henry is not to be taken lightly. Having said all that, we have our great players too so assuming it’s the French, I think we can beat them because we have a similar level of talent and a better coach.

At this point, we’re through to the semi-finals (that wasn’t too difficult was it) and the country is getting more than a little excited. The media is in full world cup hysteria mode. Pundits are turning up everywhere (Newsnight?). So are ex-England managers. The newspapers are printing prayer mats for white van drivers to kneel on. There are hourly reports on the state of Wayne Rooney’s knee/ankle/back/mental state although he should be fit for the game (I told you. Wildly optimistic). And at 7-30pm on Tuesday July 6th, our boys step out against the green and gold of Brazil (it could be Holland, I have a sneaking suspicion they’ll do well this year, but Brazil are the favourites so we’ll go with them).

Well let’s just say we beat Brazil. I can’t really see how it will happen but let’s just imagine that by some miracle we keep it tight at the back, our goalkeeper plays a blinder and we go in 0-0 at half-time, Fabio makes an inspiring speech invoking Churchill and Henry the Fifth, Rooney nicks a goal and the boys scrape a 1-0 win. And after an enormous street party, the nation wakes up late in the morning on July 7th to the glorious reality that come Sunday, England will play in a world cup final for the first time in forty-four years.

Where we’ll meet a rampant Spain and, worn out by the exertions of the semi-final get beaten 4-0 by a team who only let us touch the ball four times in the entire game (Sorry about the result. I’m wildly optimistic but I’m not completely mad).

On the other hand, if we balls it up in the group stages and only get second place, we’ll probably come up against the Germans in the first knockout game and we could be home in time for the second week of Wimbledon. Of course if we do lose early on, it’ll cheer up Andy Murray to such an extent that he might win the tournament. Swings and roundabouts and all that.

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Who's the w****r in the black?

Thirty-two countries and their management and players have been making meticulous preparations for the World Cup. Franco Baldini has flown to South Africa to measure the length of the grass on the training pitch for goodness sake. Nothing has been left to chance. It would be a shame to have it all spoiled by some attention-seeking idiot with a whistle. Who’s the w****r in the black?

For all the talent and ability on display every four years, World Cups are often influenced and sometimes decided by refereeing decisions. Who can forget Clive Thomas blowing the whistle for the end of the game as the ball was in the air from a corner just before Brazil scored what they thought was the winning goal? Or what about a certain Tunisian gentleman who was the only person on earth who didn’t see Maradona handle the ball for Argentina. Our very own Graham Poll didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when he booked the same Croatian player three times in one game. It can’t be easy what with these teams all wearing the same shirts but then that’s what numbers are for.

I’ve got a history with referees. Once, at Hendon during a game in The Isthmian League, my father was so incensed by a poor decision that he ran onto the pitch and offered the referee his glasses. Almost everyone in the ground laughed. Both sets of players, the managers, the two linesmen, the tea ladies and the stewards. The only people who didn’t laugh were me and the referee.

Now that I’m older, I’m the one out of my mates who’s most prepared to give the referee the benefit of the doubt. While the people around me have been screaming for a penalty for our boys, I’ve been admiring the beauty of the defenders tackle (ooh er missus!). That’s not to say that I don’t get irate at refereeing decisions. It happens every ten minutes or so. Sometimes when I’m not even watching a match. But with all the diving and cheating that goes on, I think refs should be commended for getting it right most of the time.

They get no help from FIFA. They might have come up with the idea of a fourth official but they appear, like The Queen, to only have ceremonial powers, their sole function seeming to be as a target for the manager’s anger. Video evidence, specifically goal line technology has been rejected on the grounds that it’s not always correct although nor are linesmen. Sorry, assistant referees. And anyway, why isn’t it always correct? How is it that we can send men into space but it’s beyond our finest minds to come up with a foolproof way of telling if a ball has crossed a line? Surely that’s a more useful invention than the non-stick pan.

Sepp Blatter who seems to have been in charge of football about the same length of time that Castro has been in charge of Cuba, has also suggested that the enforced stoppages while video evidence is examined slows the game down. But let’s face it, nowadays it takes at least two minutes to get a wall formed and take a free kick so I’m not sure that argument holds water. The other objection is that this technology can only be adopted if it’s available for use at all levels of the game. Which is palpably nonsense. When a professional gets a slight muscle strain, at least six men run on with a stretcher, oxygen and a defibrillator. Whereas, in my Sunday games, it’s not unknown for someone with a broken leg to drive themselves to hospital.

They won’t even sanction electronic timing for games, which we all know would instantly render any time wasting tactics null and void. ‘Take as long as you like over that kick goalie. The watch only starts when the ball is in the air’.

Having said all of that, it’s certain that there will be some terrible referees at the World Cup. Even our own representative, Howard Webb, who a few years ago seemed like the natural successor to Pier Luigi Collina, has gone a bit weird this season. Initially, I thought that like Collina, the shaved head was the key but it seems that it’s what’s in the head that’s important and not the lack of what’s on it.

And it’s also certain that some poor team will suffer from an outrageous decision and they’ll have to swallow it and wait four years for another crack. But if it’s us, I might send my Dad onto the pitch to have a word.