The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 3

The world of top-flight professional football, my world, often resembles the school yard. My mother used to say, "boys will be boys" and accepting this adage is vital, unless one enjoys reclining and blubbering, at £200 an hour, at the club brothel (the club also charges us for the use of the psychic and tarot facilities).  Over time one learns not to register surprise at the sordid depths the boys plunge to when trying to outdo one another in the my turd is bigger than your turd stakes. But of all the perversions of this life - the idiocy, the greed, the grotesque wealth - nothing dismays me more than the most abominable of school yard characters, that of the bully. 


It was only a matter of time before Arsene Wenger reached his breaking point, in a fashion akin to the Michael Douglas character, 'D-Fens' in Falling Down. Le Professeur snapped during The Gunners' draw at the Stadium of Light, where he lashed out, in a tirade of slender finger pointing (some reports suggest he went as far as poking), at the fourth official in the wake of Sunderland's late equaliser. Now it doesn't take an empathetic prostitute to notice the tell tale signs of a man on the brink. Psychologically that is.


This is the point in our drama where the audience hiss and boo, as stage-left, the villains of the piece enter. Sam Allardyce, a long-standing foe of Wenger's and Owen Coyle, relatively new to the big leagues and perhaps concerned for his celebrity, in a seemingly coordinated attack, put in a headlock, noogied and wedgied the Frenchman. (Sue, the club's solicitor, insists that I make clear I am speaking figuratively. Ms Yuras doesn't do metaphor).


Coyle, in the wake of a failed attempt to overturn the red card Gary Cahill received for a tackle on Marouane Chamakh, called Wenger a 'two-faced whinger.' Cahill's suspension, coupled with injuries to Vermaelan and Dawson have left me with only two fit defenders for the game this week. Coyle's defence at the hearing was that Cahill's two-footed lunge at Chamakh was as a result of him slipping on a banana skin placed in his path by Wenger. Coyle taking his role seriously even trotted out the timeless, if he's got something to say he can 'say it to my face.' 


Allardyce, who this week stated he 'enjoys jousting' with Wenger, hit-out with this observation:

"Arsene has most of the media in his pocket now and is almost - almost - affecting the officials so that you can't tackle an Arsenal player." 

Almost? So Big Sam is saying that Wenger is not affecting the officials. I'm sure the irony is not lost on most of you that this, by Allardyce, is his own attempt at manipulating referees. 


I am using this forum to jump to the aid of Arsene, not just because, I have three of his players on my books. Nor because he is capable of having a conversation without including the phrase, "pull my finger." And not because, like him, I am an educated man (I have a degree in Retail Floristry). Whatever you think about Wenger, he is an articulate, thoughtful guy and football all too often celebrates stupidity. 


As an Irishman working in England, I am cognisant of the insecurities of domestic managers, relating to their mistrust of their foreign counterparts. But we are not here to take the testosterone out of their not-so-beautiful-game. Craig Burley, on Radio 5 Live, complained that he has tired of Wenger "whinging" about tackles his players receive - because if we're not careful the good ol' leg break will disappear from our game forever, Craig?. 


Chestnuts such as, "he's not that kind of player" or "there was nothing malicious in it" dilute the agency of players and their duty of care to one another, to at the very least, not threaten the career of a fellow professional when trying to win the ball back. I for one (or two if you count Wenger) believe, in England, more emphasis should be placed on not giving the ball away in the first place, thus reducing the desperation that is prevalent in the majority of dangerous tackles. You know, my mother always said that I was a dreamer. I guess that makes this the stuff of fantasy.


P.S. For those of you interested in a career as a florist, the Retail Floristry program is offered through Mississippi State University (PDF).

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 2

International week is upon us. This is what it must feel like when your kids all head off to college and your home, in all its emptiness, suddenly feels like a stranger's house. I liken it to the aftermath of a tornado, one moment you are in the midst of chaos, the next, an eerie vacuum. No shouting, no slapping of arses, no pinning Lucas down and farting in his eye and no Pavlyuchenco leading the boys in a chorus of Iron Maiden's Mother Russia. 


As I write this, sitting alone in the vacated dressing room, among discarded bottles of Olay's all over body moisturiser, reflecting on our 42 point haul for this week, again I am left to ponder what could have been.


What if N'Zogbia had played? I knew what I was getting myself in for when I signed him. Only last week, with the aid of a colour wheel, I spent an hour convincing him that our kit was fuchsia, and not bufty-pink as The Sun, that morning had referred to it. But this week our kit manufacturer wanted to try something new and it was the final straw for Charlie.


To some, Ann Summers as kit manufacturer came out of left field, but after long and rigorous negotiations 'Pilot Girl' and 'Gangster Girl' convinced me that ours was a union that would revolutionise the way clubs and their sponsors did business long into the future. I don't know what his problem is, Doyler didn't seem to mind.

I explained to the boys that the benefits are two-fold. Firstly, the reduction in the amount of fabric used to make the shorts is a real money saver and secondly the ladies love it, in fact we are considering a female replica jersey based on a similar principal. 

N'Zogbia committed the cardinal sin in football. He refused to play for his team. I told him that his behaviour disgusted me and that he'd be better off playing for the other side. He stormed out, but I didn't have that luxury - I had a game to prepare for. We went out there and gave it our best. We remain first and second in The League of Gentlemen and Mayo Div3a (South) respectively. The shorts had their good points, for one, the opposition were reluctant to mark us tightly at set-pieces, but some of the boys suffered horrendous grass burns.

As a top-flight fantasy football manager, I don't have much time to socialise. We are a privileged few and among my contemporaries there are those I call friend. In times of need, I am a shoulder or an ear or any other anatomical part they need me to be (though with Rafa it was often one of the latter. Glad to see the back of him, when he left for Inter that is). 

For example, in my post match glass of Chablis with 'Arry, he was very upset. In an interview he had just done with Sky Sports News, the reporter had referred to him as a 'wheeler and dealer' to which 'Arry promptly told him to 'f@!k off'. But what the reporter didn't know, which 'Arry subsequently confided in me, is that his wife actually ran-off with a used-car sales man. He told me how on the day she left, his missus wished 'Arry "could've been more like Bob (the used-car salesman)." Ten minutes later the door bell rang and she was back at the front door. Their car had broken down on the way to Bob's house and 'Arry, so hurt, so vulnerable, so emasculated, vowed to be ever the wheeler-dealer, if she would give him a second chance. And as Harold was no more, 'Arry was born. 

We sat together for some time after that, silent but for the occasional sob, digesting his harrowing tale. I asked what he thought of our new kit, and 'Arry slapped me in the face.