Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, scored a spectacular own goal at the Olympics. He called for a British soccer team to be assembled for the 2012 games in London, citing Britain as the home of soccer, and “unthinkable” that the host nation would be deprived of a team. The UK is made up of four football associations, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. To merge them into one for the Olympics would bring pressure on FIFA to insist the UK have one national team in international soccer.
Some are now wondering if Brown is a secret Scottish nationalist agent, intent on destroying the United Kingdom. As if Scotland would risk losing its status as an independent soccer nation to have one or two Scots play at the Olympics for two weeks. No faster route to Scottish independence could be imagined than us losing our team. Thank you agent Broon. Keep up the good work.
SEASON’S OFF
August 19, 2008
The European football boot is afoot. Another season of rising suns and setting moons, Icarus metaphors and Humpty Dumpty crashes. Hope injections fuel the weak, soon it’s an addiction. Nervous disorders afflict the mighty, bravado the arrogant. The plain talk and the cliche are stripped, and on from the start. Thank God, football is back.
Here’s a true footballing story.
Many lagers ago, I worked in a posh hotel in Glasgow, as a bellman, room service chump. The mighty Glasgow Rangers Football Club stayed at the hotel regularly. After a mid-week game, several of the players drank heavily, in the hotel bar. Eleven o’clock came. The bar closed. And the Rangers entourage went on the attack. I was summoned.
“Get that fucking bar open,” said a man with orange hair.
I explained the impossibility of such a request. He stuck a lit cigar to my face, close enough to smell the hatred from this man’o'football.
“Do you see that fucking Rolls Royce in the car park?” he said. “It’s mine! I’m on the Rangers Board of Directors. Get that fucking bar open!”
His gaze ready with low intelligence, and high success.
A hand intervened, a player, indeed, a Rangers legend, Ally McCoist.
“That’s enough,” he said, slipping me a twenty pound note, leading away the Board member. He ordered the party over. Several of the players disappeared upstairs with the hired women.
Leaving at sunrise, the night shift mine, I keyed the Rolls Royce. It was Orange colored, like lager soaked piss.
Becks Hair Situation
August 3, 2008
I’m watching the San Jose Earthquakes versus the Hollywood Galaxy from the Oakland Coliseum. The camera shots are steep, like the stadium seats. Oakland is a mean place with a mean sun. And it is illuminating this possible fact - Becks is balding at the crown. And to make matters worse, his scalp is burned. You can’t come from suburban London to California without the 50Factor screen. Becks’ advisers should take care of his head, or the dermatologist will be calling with the bad news. And a call to the Hair Club For Men is also in order. Maybe an endorsement deal is in the offing.
MARKING BECKHAM
August 1, 2008
Becks is adding his golden signature to the black marker. Not that he is in a hurry these days to get around anyone on the field but apparently he is up for more autographs. Sharpie has signed Becks to its global campaign to become the pen of choice for the famed. The permanent marker scores - maybe it will rub off on Becks goal tally. But like all pens, it runs dry. When a Sharpie dies, and these days leaving the cap off for more than ten minutes can be fatal for its future, a cry of “Damn and Blast,” is likely followed up by a throw of the Sharpie at the trash can, that usually misses, like much of Becks’ free-kicks these days. More stains on the landfill.
Heroes
July 28, 2008
People seem impressed by astronauts, someone like Buzz Aldrin. But anyone can go to the moon. I was living on it in seventies Glasgow.
Letter to Senator Obama
July 21, 2008
Obama's pal Kerry on the ball
Senator Obama,
The Afghans don’t want Americans marching around their mountains, throwing pigskin shaped missiles at their huts. It’s all wrong, and it has to do with the shape of your American balls. Have the B52 drop millions of soccer balls on the Northwest Frontier and soon the enemy will be organizing teams, a league, be in FIFA and playing in the next World Cup. The Taleban will be shaking hands and dancing in the Fan Mile in Johannesburg. The Beatles nearly had it right. It’s not “all you need is love,” it’s “all you need is soccer.”
Granted, the Pakistanis are a harder nut to crack on their side of the border, but the bombers could drop millions of cricket balls, and while a few cracked heads would annoy some, locals would have the stumps up and running within hours of the bombardment.
This is the problem with US foreign policy. You can’t dump gridiron and stolen bases on the world. No one wants that. So Senator Obama, the message is clear. If you want the USA to save billions of dollars over the next decade, and spare the lives of American troops, back soccer ball bombing as your game! Soccer heals.
Yours
Kick the Balls
HALF TIME SNACK
July 17, 2008
Head out to the green suburbs this weekend for kids soccer, and you’ll see some nice fruit and tastes of the Alps. Smooth, purifying Evian water sits beside the organic oranges sliced to perfection. Sterile hands serve kids the pleasures of a healthy half-time snack. Now take a trip through time and space (thanks Mighty Boosh) and look at this.
1978: Half Time Snack Record of Opponents Playing Against My High School Soccer Team, Under 15 level
St. Marks High - (on) Glue
St. Columba High - (on) Marlboros
Trinity High - (on) Crucifixes
Queens Park High - (on) Lager
Naturally, these teams beat us.
THE BATTLE OF SANTIAGO - 1962
July 17, 2008
At the World Cup Finals in Chile in 1962, Italy played the host in the most violent game ever to be played at a World Cup Finals. Here are the highlights of the grievous bodily harm, described by legendary commentator David Coleman. Quite remarkable!
TRACKING BECKHAM ii
June 19, 2008
At the corner of Union Square in San Francsico, I dropped to my knees and sniffed the sidewalk. After I had filtered out the piss stains from the homeless legions that call the city their home, I detected the whiff of expensive perfume, the cologne of the God Beckham. Across the street, in the square, thousands of acolytes were waiting in the temple for the unveiling of the God’s image, a massive building sized poster that stretched across the facade of Macys Department store. But for now, it was covered in blackness.
With my stolen backstage passes in hand, I attempted to enter the inner sanctum. Security was as tight as Beckham’s voice. Immediately I was spotted as an intruder - “Where did you get that?” said the guards. “It’s a real pass,” I said. “I have to get into see David.” No deal. The security personnel resplendent in their secret service look escorted me away, and pointed me out, watch him.
Then, the great Beckham appeared on stage. High voices screeched, the deity’s’s followers surged forwards, and the black drop fell from the poster, revealing the God Beckham in his underwear, his cock and balls curved in a parabola of tender weight, bright and shiny, virile, and as we all stood awestruck at his package, we were fertilized by our God, infected with superstar mania. Some ladies used fans to cool down.
Beneath the Corinthian pillar in the center of Union Square, this Greco-Roman triumph at the Gates of Underwear needed a challenge. I dropped my pants to the crowd, and showed my seedy, two dollar boxers from Ross Dress for Less. No one was amused. The Gods would punish me for my insolence.
I waited at the backstage for the God’s departure. With hundreds jostling, I screamed, “David. I have a book for you. Kick the Balls. Your name is on the cover. I signed it for you” For a split second he turned, and in that magical moment when I felt the God was looking at me, and me alone, I believed he was about to reach out and take the copy I had especially signed for him.
But no.
Zeus sent him on his way, punishment for me, who had dared to insult the wisdom of expensive underwear in the temple.
TRACKING BECKHAM
June 15, 2008
I went to a MLS game on Saturday, a clash between the San Jose Earthquakes and the LA Galaxy, with the brightest star in the universe, the supernova David Beckham in shorts. Most in the huge crowd were there to see him, and he was quite effective in leaving the impression that he will retire and join a Ramblers Society, a weird cult in England composed of people who like to take leisurely walks around wide open spaces. MLS means Major League Stroll. Becks, to give him his alcoholic moniker, made no tackles during the game, and I wondered if he had a no-tackle clause in his contract. And then I flashed back to an image I had seen of Becks two days ago, a shocking, homo-erotic photograph of Becks in underwear, showing his tackle. His body had been painted by the photoshop folks who designed the bodies of the actors in the movie 300. Legs wide open, it was cock-a-doodle do.
This coming Thursday, Becks will be in San Francisco, and I am planning a blag, fueled by Heineken. With my new book Kick the Balls in hand, I plan to worm my way through security and get a photo with Becks holding my book. Stand by for the result and photograph on Friday, if I’m not tackled by security and thrown in jail.
