Colours

Look here chaps, I’ve had a headache for two days, not all of which can be attributed to a hangover or the effects of the flu that kept me indoors over the weekend. I still think most of my splitting headache is what comes of watching the Liverpool - Barcelona match on a big screen. Luminous yellow is not a team strip. I say it’s an advantage.

I’ve thought this last year, watching them beat Chelsea. Chelsea’s blue strip must give them no advantage, assuming that it blends in well with the background colours. In contrast, no other team has such a high visibility strip as last year’s European champions. Has nobody asked if it’s totally within the rules of the game? Does nobody but one old football pundit think it’s much of an advantage?

Yet consider the facts. Teams are often forced to change strips to prevent too close a clash with their opponents. In the modern game with advertising forming so much of the background, some kits are certain to stand out better or worse. And surely the colour of a teammate’s shirt can give an advantage. Barcelona have a strip that ensures that any player can easily pinpoint his teammates. Even seen in the corner of their eye, they’d spot that bright yellow strip.

I’m not saying that they aren’t a team of great players but surely there has to be a limit to how bright a team’s strip is. Okay. Enough said. I’ve come out of my hangover long enough to type this and I can type no more. Now won’t somebody pass me the paracetamol?

Guns At Knifefights

There’s a well known warning against bringing a knife to a gunfight. I was reminded of this sagely advice twice over the weekend.

On the first occasion, Liverpool’s impotent strike force were made to look even more inadequate by a John O’Shea late goal that have a woeful Man Utd an underserved win at Anfield. The second time I thought about knives was yesterday when West Ham managed to defy all reason and lose a game in which they had gone in at half time with a 2-0 lead gifted to them by Carlos Tevez.

Everybody praises United for their play this year but what Alex Ferguson seems to have instilled into them is a mentality that breeds goals. Other teams pitch up with players who look sharp from front to back only to find their opposition getting down to understated business with the simplicity of the gun, or at least a hard right foot.

Menzies Campbell’s knife lost its blade about six months ago and he’s been searching for it under the bed, behind the sofa, and in his greenhouse where he was using it to prepare some trellis for this year’s runner beans. Or so it would seem. It is one of politic’s saddest sights to see the once able deputy struggling to even bring a knife to a knife fight. It again reminds me how much politics (like football) is a game won by strikers. The party has not shifted or changed that radically since Kennedy was in charge. No party can ever change its core beliefs that much, no matter how much David Cameron wants to suggest otherwise. Yet if the party has not changed, then it shows how much the public’s wish to vote for the Lib Dems was have been heavily invested in something as fickle as the leader.

Blair has a supreme right foot, and Cameron is showing that he can occasionally get one in the corner of the net. Like the Premiership season for Liverpool and West Ham, the future political landscape will be decided long before the Lib Dems see their way clear to buying themselves a proper centre forward.

Hubris

As any professional footballer knows, when you reach your peak, you happen to be at your most vulnerable. When your body works at its optimum, you tend not to notice the small signs that should warn you to take care. You ignore the muscle tweaks that hint at something more serious in the future. And then, when your crowd roars you on, you make a turn just a little too quickly, you go over on your knee and your anterior ligament gives way. We call this hubris or excessive confidence in one’s own powers. You fly too close to the sun and your wings melt.

Teams can also suffer the same condition. They weaken once they begin to take their superiority for granted. History teaches us that it happens to all the great civilisations and that decadence is born in strength. We saw it last night after Manchester United put three past Reading within the first six minutes. It looked like it would be a drubbing in the classical sense. Only, the truism about our finding weakness in strength again came true. Reading dominated the rest of the match, making the Premiership’s top team look poorly organised and lacking discipline. The late introduction of Wayne Rooney and Cristian Ronaldo introduced a little structure into United’s formation and eventually won them the match, although not until Reading came close to equalising in the final minute with the ball coming back off the bar.

After the match, I finally got around to watching the first part of ‘Blair: The Inside Story’, Michael Cockerell's documentary about the Blair years. It too reminded me that we often fail because we succeed. It also reminded me that unlike Margaret Thatcher, whose fall from office came about through her own slow passage towards hubris, so much of what Blair has done (and failed to do) came about because he appeared and acted invulnerable from the very moment he entered Downing Street. With Blair, the messianic swagger that we all now notice and mock was once less comic and far more interesting than it has become. It left him prone to the most enormous gaffs, such as the Millennium Dome project.

In John Major’s plan, the Dome was originally meant to be little more than a trade show; a new version of the Great Exhibition, showing the world the strength and variety of British Industry. Blair, the popularist politician, had to change it into an event ‘for the people’. He had the common touch and knew what people wanted. Or so he thought. The eventual failure of the Dome was rooted in the success of a Prime Minister confident in his own powers. Blair flew too close to the sun and even if his wings didn’t melt completely, they sagged considerably.

What Cockerell's documentary reminded me was that Blair is the Manchester United of politicians, displaying glimpses of greatness and ordinariness in equal measure. This is nowhere more apparent in the moments when Cockerell presents Blair as the male version of the late Princess of Wales. He captured the mood of the moment, conveying the despair of the nation, and yet this moment of perceived sincerity only led him to other acts seen as crass, manipulated, and glib. The shy looks to camera, his belief in his contact with ordinary people, the claim that ‘I’m a stand up guy’: Blair craved justification almost as much as Diana craved the acknowledgement that she was the wronged woman. He relied too heavily on the performance of personality over the performance of policy. Diana too became the victim of her own success, whether it was her increasing alienated within thHubrise royal family because of her popular appeal, or making high speed chases through Paris because of the demands of the media that obsessed over her.

Cockerell presented those early years of Blair’s government in terms that I can only put into footballing terms. Even moreso than Man Utd, Tony Blair’s governments resemble the pantomime of Real Madrid. So often it has had the chance to do something very great, only to end in the mundane bickering of enormous egos. It also convinced me that football may be a wonderful guide to the theory of hubris but for its practical application you have to look to the politicians among whom Tony Blair is its master practitioner.

A Quizzical Eyebrow

Look here, chaps. I’ve had an unproductive day so don’t expect too much expert analysis tonight. I've never been one of those pundits who have the stamina of a Gary Lineker. I'm much more likely to measure myself against the true greats of the game: Mr. Tony Gubba and Mr. Stuart Hall.

No doubt Lineker has watched the lot but I’ve only managed to see four matches today and those were the games between Man Utd and Fulham, Charlon and West Ham, Everton and Watford, and, just now, the replay of Liverpool and Sheffield United. I could have watched more. Thanks to Sky replaying them all through the night, I might even watch more. But I can’t help but feel that it’s been a day that has only reminded me of the things about the modern game that disappoint me continually.

Am I the only one to grow tired of Neil Warnock’s perpetual complaint that ‘referees just haven’t played the game, they just don’t understand it’? I know I'm not the only one who tires of Man Utd maintaining their lead in the league table, which does nothing to add drama to the end of the season. Yet, sadly, I seem to be one of the very who who lament when I see our beautiful game becoming the medium for the advertiser’s messages.

It shocked me to see that video advertising hoardings have made it to Craven Cottage. A club that still has no player's tunnel and instead has the teams line up in the car park have spent a fortune to buy themselves the most pernicious evil in the modern game. Give me a team of diving Portuguese rather than these video ads. I find then off putting and I imagine the players do too. Today in size 400 fonts a bookmaker was quoting odds of 9/2 for Rooney to score first. How could this have made the poor lad feel? Does it add to the pressure or does it give him a false sense of optimism. Surely when he sees it, it affects him in some way, doesn’t it? [Update: I take one reader's point that I'm assuming that the players can read...]

Speaking of diving Portuguese, today I finally realised who Cristiano Ronaldo looks like. It’s David Dickinson, he of antiques fame. The boy’s the spitting image of the young Duke. Give it a few years and I think the two will be indistinguishable, though worringly, I feel like he’s looking more like Danny La Rue each time I see him. I think it's the plucked eyebrows.

Mr. Forks is definately a fan of the unplucked eyebrow.

From Blair to Beckham

I dragged my hangover around London today. For some years now I’ve abandoned the strict regimen of the athlete and have adopted the no less strict habits of the journalist. Such is my dedication to that lifestyle, it barely gives me time to write. Today, I had to sneak into one of my favourite watering holes to temper my head with a dram or two. That’s where I met up with Des ‘Nobbler’ McGann who used to work with me back when I started to write my columns for Fleet Street. He’s a drunken old sod but knows the English game as well as anybody.

We both shared an afternoon drink, comfortably nurturing that unmistakable excitement which starts to build on a Friday afternoon before a Premiership weekend. I feel not unlike a bride before a wedding night, expectantly brushing down the beard on her chin and keeping her studs tightened in her boots. It’s the Friday before a Premiership weekend and I’m still not recovered from the midweek European action. Old Nobbler told me to put my money on Arsenal to win the Carling Cup on Sunday and I told him that it was no great prediction. Anybody can see that Chelsea are a team running on luck and they barely deserve their second place in the table. Arsenal are playing the best football of the season and are bound to win.

In the lull before the weekend’s excitement, I thought I shouldn't bore you with predictions but I should instead try to reply to the few queries I’ve had in my inbox asking me why I would want to write about football and politics.

Well, look here chaps. I see it like this. Few things in life put a flame beneath the human spirit in the way that sport and politics do. And there are no sports greater than football for bringing us to a boil. The fumes that rise from boiling pot of talented youth and fading superstars is a heady one. The bubbles break in glorious spectacle. There are few places where you see the tribe’s heroes live and die like you do on the football field. It is a season of politics written within nintety minutes. David Beckham and Tony Blair are no different. They are both reaching the end of their premierships yet still find the occasional surges of energy that deceive us into believing that their skills will never fail them. That’s why I hope that Beckham makes the England team. Like the Labour Party need Blair, England needs Beckham. While their powers are still evident, they deserve the chance to shine.

John Terry is no Beckham, but Brown is no Blair. Whatever happens, in politics as well as football, it will be a time before we see their kind again.

This Wimbledon Folly

Look here, chaps, you’ll have to write and tell me if you want listing in my blogroll. As you know, it’s a heavy responsibility being the custodian of the nation’s favourite game. I’ve been very busy lately and this is the first time I’ve had chance to update my list of contacts in far too long.

There are so many good blogs out there that I’ve only had chance to list a few of them. It reminds me of every World Cup when I’m asked to list my favourite players. There are just so many to choose from. And the best are not necessarily my favourites. Among the world’s many great goalkeepers, I’d always pick John Prescott (pictured). The man can do things in a goal mouth that I honestly didn’t think possible without half-a-pound of axle grease and a willing civil servant doped up on ether.

Looking out on the world of sport today, I’m left baffled to learn that the prize money between the men and women is to be the same at this year’s Wimbledon. I sit here, scratching my chin in utter bewilderment. I can’t for the life of me understand the reasoning behind this move. When the women play five sets, then they will deserve equal money but, call me an old Match of the Day pundit if you wish, it must surely be equal pay for equal work.

You know, this reminds me of when Sue Barker first joined the BBC. I said at the time that she couldn’t be paid as much as we male presenters. Why? Well, look here, chaps. Knocking a ball over a net is no way to prepare for life within the BBC sports department. If Sue Barker had ever scored five goals for Fulham away to Doncaster Rovers then she might know how to present a television programme or two. She might make a good presenter one of thee days but not until she’s had her legs raked by a defender's studs on a cold rain-swept afternoon in Newcastle.

By A Whisker

Mystical forces were at work tonight. They’ve been at work for the last ten years. Biblical forces, such as those that began to give the Labour Party victory when they started to get rid of their chinwhiskers.

Alastair Darling and Peter Mandelson first took razor to throat and others followed. There were a few that held out: Charles Clarke, David Blunkett, Margaret Beckett… But there is a truth of political life that maintains that the clean shaven face is more electable than those with a beard or moustache. We now have equity in the shaving stakes. That’s why the sensible money is going on a hung parliament at the next election.

Tonight, my lucky bottle of rum ran out at half-time of the Barcelona Liverpool match. I didn’t panic. I knew my bet was safe. I knew that one team would win and I was certain it couldn’t be the home side. You see, there are rules of football like there are rules of life. It’s that same rule as runs in politics. Men who don’t shave stand less of a chance.

Barcelona arrived at the ground looking like a team of Mexican banditos heading for the border to rustle themselves some meat before a night with the tavern whores. I’ve never seen a squad of professional footballers look so unshaven. What is it about today’s players that make them avoid the razor? I fancy it’s too much dogging and drinking tequila with IT girls but don’t you think it strange that footballers are always advertising shaving products that so few of them seem to know how to use them? Bobby Charlton never played a match unless he’d had a shave and the same was true for the great Stanley Matthews. I never saw a whisker on his chin.

Yet Barcelona seem to have taken their cue from coach Frank Rijkaard whose snake-tressed appearance makes him look like he’s fallen straight from the pages of Greek myth. And before you go saying anything about me, Forks may have a beard but it's well groomed. You could enter my chin into a dog show and it would come away with best of breed. That’s more than can be said about Deco’s chin.

Some of these footballers need less time with their WAGs and more time with some WAG – water and Gillette.

Got Up Late, No Fit State To Write

My mood is foul. I woke up half out of bed, lying sprawled across the remains of last night’s TV dinner, and with my legs tangled around Matthews, my five year old labrador. Everything about last night’s game had dried around my mouth. The anger, the disgust, the despair, the corruption made real. We need weeks like this to remind us who we support when it all comes down to the wire.

Tonight we have to make another stand. Are we for the red or are we for the blue? We’re all partisan to one side or the other. Some of us just don’t know it yet. Tonight’s matches in the European Championship marks an important moment in world affairs. Are we for Russia or the USA? Liverpool play the current champions Barcelona, while Chelsea take on FC Porto, the team once managed by their current manager José Mourinho.

Anti-American sentiments might make it hard for some of us to support Liverpool now they’re owned by two American billionaies, one a close supporter of George W. But are we really so naive to think that supporting Chelsea is to support good old fashioned football virtues? Roman Abramovich, friend to Putin, or Tom Hicks, friend to Bush? Or do we try to support the little island in the middle? Hard choices. Big outcomes. The world in balance. And that's before we've even put in our bets.

But isn’t it this that makes it such an exciting yet funny old game?