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| I just want to say... |
At my club, we're currently getting rid of 'deadwood' and cleansing our squad of players we no longer need. Good riddance. Shut the door on your way out. Thanks for nothing. Etc.
The precise identities of these particular players doesn't matter. Lets not name names. Let's not be nasty for the sake of it. Life is short and whilst my particular nan didn't say 'if you've nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all' it's a maxim that people might want to reflect on sometimes in the world where being right or wrong matters less than fashioning a facsimile of a character from some shallow but strident opinions.
Anyway, this isn't about my club - It doesn't matter who you support - you'll know the sort of player I mean. They came, you probably didn't see them very often and they certainly didn't conquer. The misfits, the misfiring, the misfortunate. Sometimes frustrating due to a lack of commitment, occasionally both talented and tormented, but more often than not, simply not quite good enough.
There's a tendency in football, especially in what we very vaguely term 'modern football', to get really angry about anyone who doesn't live up to a particular standard. A pundit shaking their head and saying 'they've got to do better there Alan...' is just the polite tip of an iceberg made of tweets and forum posts echoing and amplifying blame. "Not good enough" "Dogshit" "Get out of our club" "worst player in history" and so on. If you could harness the energy of the streams of vitriol unleashed by a fractional misstep by a defender, a slip at the wrong time by a forward or a goalkeeper who gets his angles wrong by half a degree, then you'd probably reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels by a good amount.
Football is really hard. It's the most popular sport in the world. It's the best sport in the world. It's totally accessible to literally billions of people and many millions of those fancy themselves as potentially half decent footballers. Any player who even gets close to being pulled to bits on twitter is something a bit special really. Any player who manages to get through all the age group football and to the end of their youth deal and then walk away a footballer has done thousands of things right up to the point of their mauling.
I squandered my youth on trying to look windswept and interesting to girls that probably just found me weird whilst mostly drinking cheap white cider and occasionally livening it up by consuming shit drugs. I toyed with a few ideas of doing summat with my life and then just got swept into the great wave of mediocrity with everyone else because I wasn't brave or strong enough to actually let myself commit to being good at anything.Maybe because I wasn't actually any good at anything. Who gives a fuck, lets get smashed again etc.
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| The drink of also rans |
The players we wave goodbye and shout good riddance too, whether in January or June, whether after being hauled off with catcalls in their ears for the last time or just banished unceremoniously to the stiffs, leaving just a ghostly name and number on the squad list did not live their lives like this. They didn't drift into the mundane world of the everyday.
They faced up to what people must have told them, were impossible odds. They survived in environments that make the competition of the stock market look tame, prospered as hundreds and thousands of kids tried to convince coaches they had what it took at trials and u10s, u11s, u12s, u13s (and so on) games. They made the step up and the next step up and the step up after that. They kept going, kept climbing no matter that the path kept getting narrower and steeper.
And yet... these players are, in the modern parlance, 'losers' - worthy of scorn and derision. They scrambled up Everest but struggled for breath on the final ascent. They headed for Mars but only made the moon. In any respect, they're remarkable. It's 2022 though. The world is for winners and we only want people with the winning mentality to win, win and win some more. We are the champions, no time for losers and so on.
I never liked Queen much. Overblown shite in my view. Each to their own. I hate that line though. I'm not advocating for a group hug before every match and for all games to be a draw and at the end of the season everyone gathers in Wembley and lifts one big cup because 'we're all winners!' as palpably, we're not, but it's a simple statement of fact that every winner requires a loser.
It's also true that the more we respect the people we beat, the more we value our own achievements. Tyson Fury might call his opponents 'bum dossers' in the pantomime run up to a bout but after the fight, he's always a complete gentleman and respects the efforts and abilities of the person he's just floored. Fury knows that had he actually fought a bum dosser, then his victories wouldn't be the remarkable feats of pugilistic skill that they are but just the pointless assault of a violent bully on a weaker human.
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| One of the things I always liked about Peter Reid is despite the fact he was ridiculously fit, he had the vibe of a player with a couple of L+B tucked into his sock turnover. More of that sort of thing please. |
Players find their level all the time. Take one of the most famous moments of football. Maradona skipping through England's midfield and defence and sliding the ball home. Amongst the players left sprawling on the turf looking baffled were Peter Shilton and Peter Reid. Taken out of context, we could conclude that Diego is a winning name and Peter is a name reserved for only the most pathetic of losers. Watch the clip - everyone looks utter shite except for the little cheaty genius. Perhaps they are all just completely hopeless? Look at the context though. Peter Reid is probably one of Everton's all time first XI and Everton are probably one of football's top 50 all time clubs globally. Peter Shilton is almost certainly in the top ten or twenty keepers ever, anywhere. Brian Clough no less, declared him his best ever, ever, ever signing. These aren't hapless players with no place on the world stage.
The point is, these players found a level that they couldn't compete with. It was a particular moment at the very top level going and good as they were, excellent as they were, in that game, they were left wanting, even though they were, by any measure, really, really good at football. Reid won the league twice, plus FA Cups and European honours. Shilton has not one but two European Cup winners medals and played for England across three decades. Yet, Maradona made them look, essentially, shite.
The line is so thin. I'm assuming none of you reading this are professional footballers (if you are, hi and you might want to imagine you aren't to make the next bit work.) I want to do a little thought experiment. Let's imagine that you or I were to turn up at training one day. We're kicking a ball about and doing stretches and stuff, copying what we see on the pitch every week. We go into a little 5 a side and it's almost certainly true to say that we wouldn't even get close to our teams absolute worst player.
We'd be so bad at football, that essentially, even the kid who the manager misjudged and misguidedly gave a pro contract to, who has gone of the rails a bit, who everyone knows isn't going to get another contract when his deal runs out and who will likely spend the next 4 or 5 years scraping round for short term deals and having failed spells at ever more obscure clubs until he finally gives up the game and trains to be an estate agent or a plasterer or whatever would be effectively Maradona in comparison to us. And he's a only a right back.
The gap between us and them is so vast that we'd not really notice much difference between him and Diego. The gap between footballers is much, much thinner but it's writ so large in the pressure of a game, under the microscope of our attention that it looks massive.
The players who aren't quite good enough, make the players who are special. They're a permanent fixture. They're always there and always will be. Whatever the level is, there'll always be someone who doesn't quite make it. Goals come from chaos but somewhere along the line, someone has to put a foot wrong for the events to begin to unwind. If all players were perfect then we'd just see an endless stalemate played out. A terrible, never ending cold war of sterile tactical clinical perfection. Stalemate.
If he'd tracked that run, if he'd seen that pass, if he'd put his head there, if he'd kept his head, if he'd have stayed on his line, if he'd got his head up... Dogshit. Spineless. Headless. Brainless. Pathetic. Gutless. Stupid. Rash. Terrible first touch. No awareness. Naive. Not Fit. To Wear. The Shirt.
We rage at the flaws. We scream at FAN TV because we NEED OUR VOICES HEARD and WE NEED OUR HURT ASSUAGED! NOW! WE'RE ANGRY! WE'VE BEEN LET DOWN! FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK. YOU CUNT! FUCK OFF! I WANT MY TEAM TO WIN AND I WANT IT NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW AND THAT FUCKING RETARD CUNT RUINED MY FUCKING DAY. RUINED MY FUCKING WEEK. RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE...
Yet, without the human flaws, the game would just be detente. It would be nothing. No one is interested in Manchester City. I sometimes think Manchester City fans aren't even that interested in Manchester City because they're just kind of flawless. 22 perfect players in a perfect system that more or less eliminates mistakes. They're a silent boa constrictor of a team, gliding perfectly across the pitch and squeezing the life out of the game.
I'd honestly rather watch a park game full of howlers that swung back and forth than watch City dispatch another midrank side 5 or 6-0 or brush aside someone around them 2-0. Mistakes and errors don't ruin football, they make it. If there aren't any, then the logical extension of that is, the side that kicks off never loses the ball. Repeat at half time. That would be shit. It wouldn't be football. For Manchester City, so pure is the vision of perfection, that 'having a shot' if the XG is not in your favour is now a grievous error, punishable by Pep getting a right cob on and looking like a man who instead of only winning 2-1 against Norwich, is someone actually has some problems. If the City machine doesn't purr mercilessly, Pep gives off the vibes of a lad who's just been made redundant in the morning, in the afternoon discovered his car has failed the MOT, and in the evening that his house roof is leaking into his kids bedroom and that he's forgotten to renew the house insurance. That's not fun. It's not what football is. You win, you lose. Get over it Pep. Miserable twat.
Let's move on. Pep sulking is making me rage. Think instead of the magic of the player who is shit, and yet somehow, rises above it. It might be the one time they do that. That one goal off the bench, that one time they summoned every bit of will and played above themselves. It might be a treasured memory of a single high point or it might be that they make a career of it, of simply trying harder and using every single ounce of what they have. Where some players have a range of skills that come easily, these players get by on mastering one or two things and just doing them harder and more intensely than anyone else.
They're often the players who get the most love, who forge the strongest bond with fans. They're the player who we can see ourselves in. We, who were never big enough or quick enough but maybe could see a pass or make a tackle (but perhaps not both) can't ever really identify with Messi or Ronaldo or Man City. We can gawp in amazement, we can acknowledge their skill, but can we ever really feel what it must be like to just cruise through your career, never really hitting your level? Only age can ever bring the true greats down and for the rest of us, that's just alien.
The players who aren't quite good enough, make the players who are special. They're a permanent fixture. They're always there and always will be. Whatever the level is, there'll always be someone who doesn't quite make it. Goals come from chaos but somewhere along the line, someone has to put a foot wrong for the events to begin to unwind. If all players were perfect then we'd just see an endless stalemate played out. A terrible, never ending cold war of sterile tactical clinical perfection. Stalemate.
If he'd tracked that run, if he'd seen that pass, if he'd put his head there, if he'd kept his head, if he'd have stayed on his line, if he'd got his head up... Dogshit. Spineless. Headless. Brainless. Pathetic. Gutless. Stupid. Rash. Terrible first touch. No awareness. Naive. Not Fit. To Wear. The Shirt.
We rage at the flaws. We scream at FAN TV because we NEED OUR VOICES HEARD and WE NEED OUR HURT ASSUAGED! NOW! WE'RE ANGRY! WE'VE BEEN LET DOWN! FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK. YOU CUNT! FUCK OFF! I WANT MY TEAM TO WIN AND I WANT IT NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW AND THAT FUCKING RETARD CUNT RUINED MY FUCKING DAY. RUINED MY FUCKING WEEK. RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE...
Yet, without the human flaws, the game would just be detente. It would be nothing. No one is interested in Manchester City. I sometimes think Manchester City fans aren't even that interested in Manchester City because they're just kind of flawless. 22 perfect players in a perfect system that more or less eliminates mistakes. They're a silent boa constrictor of a team, gliding perfectly across the pitch and squeezing the life out of the game.
I'd honestly rather watch a park game full of howlers that swung back and forth than watch City dispatch another midrank side 5 or 6-0 or brush aside someone around them 2-0. Mistakes and errors don't ruin football, they make it. If there aren't any, then the logical extension of that is, the side that kicks off never loses the ball. Repeat at half time. That would be shit. It wouldn't be football. For Manchester City, so pure is the vision of perfection, that 'having a shot' if the XG is not in your favour is now a grievous error, punishable by Pep getting a right cob on and looking like a man who instead of only winning 2-1 against Norwich, is someone actually has some problems. If the City machine doesn't purr mercilessly, Pep gives off the vibes of a lad who's just been made redundant in the morning, in the afternoon discovered his car has failed the MOT, and in the evening that his house roof is leaking into his kids bedroom and that he's forgotten to renew the house insurance. That's not fun. It's not what football is. You win, you lose. Get over it Pep. Miserable twat.
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| Dear Pep. Not everyone has the assets of a questionable state behind them and the opportunity to live out their life long dream of stifling football to death through relentlessly not giving the ball away till the other team fall asleep and all the fans have gone home. Some people just want the game to be fun and that. Cheer up la. Love, MCLF x |
Let's move on. Pep sulking is making me rage. Think instead of the magic of the player who is shit, and yet somehow, rises above it. It might be the one time they do that. That one goal off the bench, that one time they summoned every bit of will and played above themselves. It might be a treasured memory of a single high point or it might be that they make a career of it, of simply trying harder and using every single ounce of what they have. Where some players have a range of skills that come easily, these players get by on mastering one or two things and just doing them harder and more intensely than anyone else.
They're often the players who get the most love, who forge the strongest bond with fans. They're the player who we can see ourselves in. We, who were never big enough or quick enough but maybe could see a pass or make a tackle (but perhaps not both) can't ever really identify with Messi or Ronaldo or Man City. We can gawp in amazement, we can acknowledge their skill, but can we ever really feel what it must be like to just cruise through your career, never really hitting your level? Only age can ever bring the true greats down and for the rest of us, that's just alien.
Seeing a player who has clearly hit their ceiling but decided to punch through it is always gratifying. They don't always play well. They sometimes get shown up. Yet, there they are. Doing it. Surviving. Achieving, despite of their baseline ability and not because of it. I don't understand people who only worship talent or only worship 'the best, the winners, the cream of the crop' because I can't identify with that at all. I go through life on a wing and a prayer, never quite convinced of my own worth or ability. I don't find stuff always comes easy to me and sometimes just to get through a day of work (or life) feels like walking through treacle. I have to try. Most of us do.
I love a player who dazzles of course, but I also love a gritty player who has to grit their teeth and roll their sleeves up and try that bit harder than everyone else as well. I love that sometimes the talented player gets brought to their knees by the less talented one. I love that sometimes, effort prevails over skill. I love that football is played in different ways and that not all of them rely on having the 11 most technically gifted players to be successful. I love the relentless nature of the game that makes mistakes inevitable and means that no player cruise and I love, how yet, you occasionally find a player who is so good, they can. Football is the best game because it isn't uniform. All tennis players seem basically the same to me. Variations on the same model. Footballers less so.
It's a beautifully perverse thing about football, that despite the sponsor festooned official media outlets telling us we love watching 'the best league in the world' and celebrating 'the outrageous skill' on offer and pundits adopting solemn tones about gaffes and poor showings as if speaking about a defensive mistake or missed chance is a kind of unfortunate and socially awkward diagnosis of illness, we as fans, actually recall the worst mistakes and the most out of depth players pretty fondly.
I would be willing to bet that in the case of my club, the names 'Scott Darton, Saer Sene, Neil Whitworth and Chris Malkin' are spoken far more regularly on the internet than the name 'Ian Hughes'
You might not know these players but it's suffice to say, the first four weren't very good, (and one of them possibly didn't actually even exist,) whilst the latter was a pretty long serving, eminently competent and quite successful leader for us. The first set of players won nothing, Ian Hughes won things. It's not that Hughes isn't remembered, it's just he's not mentioned as much as the other lot despite being better than all of them combined. I'm sure you can think of your own examples.
The names of the hapless and hopeless ring louder through time than those of some decent players. Why? I don't know, but perhaps it's because football isn't just about a relentless search for perfection and grinding the opposition down week after week after week. Perhaps it's because that's really, actually, a bit boring.
I can't remember all that much from the 1993-94 season but I can remember Neil Whitworth spinning round not knowing where the ball is whilst everyone shouted at him and he looked absolutely lost. It was funny. The ball was in the air for ages. Whitworth had no idea. Someone headed it up again, Whitworth still had no idea so just staggered around in a circle and jumped fully 5 or 10 yards from where the ball was. He went off at half time. Humour is cruel, it's just tragedy happening to someone else. It's absurdity and in that moment, Whitworth looked so bad, his experience looked so nightmarish that the only thing to do was laugh.
He went on to do fine, to have a career and find his level. I'm not laughing at Whitworth by the way. I'm laughing at the way, in many ways, we're all Neil Whitworth, searching frantically to find a football that we've lost track of. Jumping hopelessly to head a ball that isn't there. We're not Ronaldo, gliding away and scoring week after week and living a life of relentlessly managed glossy perfection. We're actually struggling in the mud sometimes, missing our challenges or fluffing an open goal. Standing hands on hips, waiting for the goal kick, in the calm at the centre of the storm thinking 'how the fuck did I get here and how do I cope with what comes next?'
That's ok. We take a deep breath, we go again. We get stuck in and jump for the ball. This time, it might land for us. This time it might break. We don't give up. We keep going. We find our level. Today we might get hauled off, head bowed, breathing hard but next week, we might score a hat trick. Next week, we might be Diego and someone else might be trailing in our wake.
Football is the ups and the downs, it's the winner and it's the loser. It's a beautiful game. It's perspective. It's joy and it's tragedy. We should appreciate it all because if we don't, it's only going to make us angry, frustrated and bored.
Plus Ronaldo is weird as fuck. To say the least. We'll leave that there. Give me Dodgy Darton (hapless ex Blackpool left back Scott Darton) any day.
I love a player who dazzles of course, but I also love a gritty player who has to grit their teeth and roll their sleeves up and try that bit harder than everyone else as well. I love that sometimes the talented player gets brought to their knees by the less talented one. I love that sometimes, effort prevails over skill. I love that football is played in different ways and that not all of them rely on having the 11 most technically gifted players to be successful. I love the relentless nature of the game that makes mistakes inevitable and means that no player cruise and I love, how yet, you occasionally find a player who is so good, they can. Football is the best game because it isn't uniform. All tennis players seem basically the same to me. Variations on the same model. Footballers less so.
It's a beautifully perverse thing about football, that despite the sponsor festooned official media outlets telling us we love watching 'the best league in the world' and celebrating 'the outrageous skill' on offer and pundits adopting solemn tones about gaffes and poor showings as if speaking about a defensive mistake or missed chance is a kind of unfortunate and socially awkward diagnosis of illness, we as fans, actually recall the worst mistakes and the most out of depth players pretty fondly.
I would be willing to bet that in the case of my club, the names 'Scott Darton, Saer Sene, Neil Whitworth and Chris Malkin' are spoken far more regularly on the internet than the name 'Ian Hughes'
You might not know these players but it's suffice to say, the first four weren't very good, (and one of them possibly didn't actually even exist,) whilst the latter was a pretty long serving, eminently competent and quite successful leader for us. The first set of players won nothing, Ian Hughes won things. It's not that Hughes isn't remembered, it's just he's not mentioned as much as the other lot despite being better than all of them combined. I'm sure you can think of your own examples.
The names of the hapless and hopeless ring louder through time than those of some decent players. Why? I don't know, but perhaps it's because football isn't just about a relentless search for perfection and grinding the opposition down week after week after week. Perhaps it's because that's really, actually, a bit boring.
I can't remember all that much from the 1993-94 season but I can remember Neil Whitworth spinning round not knowing where the ball is whilst everyone shouted at him and he looked absolutely lost. It was funny. The ball was in the air for ages. Whitworth had no idea. Someone headed it up again, Whitworth still had no idea so just staggered around in a circle and jumped fully 5 or 10 yards from where the ball was. He went off at half time. Humour is cruel, it's just tragedy happening to someone else. It's absurdity and in that moment, Whitworth looked so bad, his experience looked so nightmarish that the only thing to do was laugh.
He went on to do fine, to have a career and find his level. I'm not laughing at Whitworth by the way. I'm laughing at the way, in many ways, we're all Neil Whitworth, searching frantically to find a football that we've lost track of. Jumping hopelessly to head a ball that isn't there. We're not Ronaldo, gliding away and scoring week after week and living a life of relentlessly managed glossy perfection. We're actually struggling in the mud sometimes, missing our challenges or fluffing an open goal. Standing hands on hips, waiting for the goal kick, in the calm at the centre of the storm thinking 'how the fuck did I get here and how do I cope with what comes next?'
That's ok. We take a deep breath, we go again. We get stuck in and jump for the ball. This time, it might land for us. This time it might break. We don't give up. We keep going. We find our level. Today we might get hauled off, head bowed, breathing hard but next week, we might score a hat trick. Next week, we might be Diego and someone else might be trailing in our wake.
Football is the ups and the downs, it's the winner and it's the loser. It's a beautiful game. It's perspective. It's joy and it's tragedy. We should appreciate it all because if we don't, it's only going to make us angry, frustrated and bored.
Plus Ronaldo is weird as fuck. To say the least. We'll leave that there. Give me Dodgy Darton (hapless ex Blackpool left back Scott Darton) any day.
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| The line is thin... Ok, it's not that thin. But who would you rather have a pint with? |
Whilst we're at it, City are boring. They're conservative, cautious, they're scared to give the other team a go. Give me some fight and end to end football played by people who aren't robotically perfect. Give me a great goal by an otherwise awful player that serves as a moment that reminds us that life is never quite as predictable as we think. Give me that over yet another relentlessly predictable finish from the same player yet again.
We all want better players, we all want to win, but no matter what level we get to, no matter how much money is spent, no matter if every single club in every league spends billions and billions and billions guided by the perfect transfer policy and the most powerful data science and scouting someone has to not quite be good enough for it to all work. Someone has to lose. Someone has to, by, whatever measure we choose, be 'shit'
onward.
(back to match blogs next week. What a fucking performance and RIP to Paul the Fulham fan)
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