Full Moon over Nou Camp: an FA Cup Imagining
Paris Gourtsoyannis
When, in 1973, the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union was put to a referendum, the debate was framed in terms of a ‘New Britain’.
With European membership, this damp and dour island was to become a suave exponent of continental café culture. Margaret Thatcher herself hit the streets to tell Britons that if they voted in favour, they would soon be eating croissants underneath in the shade along leafy boulevards, sunning themselves on secluded nudist beaches, and conversing deep into the night fueled only by fine wine and Gauloises.
Europe was going to turn Britain into a nation of sophist gourmands; it was supposed to civilise us.
Thirty years on, and in football at least, Europe seems to have made good on its promise. It was about the time that the Iron Lady waged war on the common man that the common man’s game started to die away. As a result we have the Premiership, the most expensive ad-hoarding in the world; legend has it that Blackburn Rovers were once crowned champions, but regular service was soon restored. Now fleets of Portuguese and Icelandic wingers glide up and down the turf for Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea, winning everything. Where once a lone man and his dog on the sidelines would watch in the rain with a soggy pork pie, gleaming homes of glass and steel have risen out of the mud, in which prawn-sandwich-eating suits can see, over the heads of banks of suburban fans glued to their seats, a petulant Frenchman kicking one of a hundred photographers in the face.
The age of Busby’s Babes and the wisdom of Brian Clough have given way; the leagues are now a chaotic Babel of foreign players and foreign managers waiting for the next tin-pot dictatorship to crumble and shake lose a new wave of former despots and rapist millionaire arms dealers fleeing westwards seeking asylum, carpet-bags full of loot. Gone are the hackers, the fatties, the lobbers, the drinkers; gone are the hairdos. In this day of Special Ones and the ‘Abramovich Effect’, football is a slick short-back-and-sides game – all the better to show your earrings with; and your step-overs; and your cash-cow summer tour of Asia.
How does one get by? Well, I follow rugby.
For those with no such way out: hosanna! Thank God for the FA Cup. The events of the past week are, to be fair, as rare as a rain of snakes, but no one can detract from the significance of a final four made up of Barnsley, Cardiff, West Brom and the Premiership’s only representative, Portsmouth.
There seems to have been building, for the past several seasons, a quiet value-for-money revolution in British football against the former-Soviet insanity. It may have begun with Hearts’ Scottish Cup victory at the end of my first season in this country; the workaday quality of the squad that George Burley built – Pressley, Hartley, Fyssas, Skacel, Gordon - failed to hold against the malign will of Vlad the Impaler, and Hearts never made it to the Champions’ League. The promise offered by John Collins’ CIS Cup-winning reign at Hibs, Brooks Mileson’s bankrolling of Gretna into the top flight, and Dunfermline Athletic’s Cup Final appearance and qualification for Europe – it, too, has dissipated.
In England, the phenomenon has been more understated, yet more enduring. In spite of the odd hiccup, clubs such as Everton and Tottenham have created traditions of sound leadership and quality, on and off the field. More often than not – though not as a rule – this renaissance has been home-grown. True fans of football should be heartened by the rise and rise of Gabriel Agbonlahor of Aston Villa, brought up through their academy and now central to their top-of-the-table dreams as well as the ambitions of the new England manager.
And what of the future, if the development of the British game comes full circle and teams like Villa, Everton and Manchester City, Dundee United and Motherwell break into Europe? When the common folk of British football – the Agbonlahors, the Leon Osmans, Robbie Keanes, Micah Richardses – grace the great stages of European football?
If Joey Barton shows his arse at the Nou Camp, will Lady Thatcher please burst into flames?
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Seeing Dwain Chambers win silver in the 60 meters at this weekend’s World Indoor Athletics Championships felt a little like watching another man in bed with your girlfriend.
You knew it was wrong, but had to admire how much more he got out of the experience than anyone else could.
Equally uncomfortable was the crunch that could be heard as Chambers crossed the finish line, louder even than the starting gun – the sound of Britain’s athletics commentators performing a collective about-face so sudden they all did their backs a grisly mischief.
Steve Cram, in particular, must feel somewhat foolish calling upon the sporting community to “draw a line under the whole saga” in his online BBC Sport column after naming him ‘One to Watch’ before the competition. The media has consistently fuelled this story to the detriment of genuine sporting commentary; the scrum of photographers surrounding Chambers after his joint-second place finish, ignoring winner Olusoji Fasuba of Nigeria, is testament to that.
Cram’s hypocrisy is all the worse given that he was never wrong until now – confirmed drugs cheats should never compete again. Chambers should reflect on how undeservingly lucky he has been in his rehabilitation: Linford Christie recently found out that memories are long enough in sport to deny a genuine legend the chance to hold the Olympic flame. More potent still is the image of Marion Jones, once the all-conquering heroine of women’s athletics, beginning her six-month jail term this Saturday on charges of perjury stemming from her use of performance enhancing drugs.
It could have been Chambers. Thankfully, his victory in Valencia likely marks the end of his career. He will not be invited to the European Indoor Championships because of restrictions on convicted dopers, and last week Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, was brave enough to step up and support the Olympic ban imposed on the athlete by British authorities.
It is nonetheless a shame that Chambers gets to go out on a high. For him, at least, the dark cloud he cast over sport has a silver lining.
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