tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15335032427772232932024-03-13T09:00:05.184-07:00A Place in the StandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-82994503881777792112014-01-16T11:54:00.000-08:002014-01-16T11:54:01.285-08:00From Racing with Love <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Xh7C1WYFFQ/Utg4oVCwo2I/AAAAAAAAAIQ/GL1ZmE-Y5EM/s1600/racing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Xh7C1WYFFQ/Utg4oVCwo2I/AAAAAAAAAIQ/GL1ZmE-Y5EM/s1600/racing.png" /></a></div>
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The muffled beep has gained my attention at hourly intervals since we first staggered in. A pool of water, or perhaps beer, lies at the bottom of the makeshift bed. I reach out and knock over a wooden tumbler of water, watching as it spills into an already overflowing ashtray. <u></u><u></u></div>
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I lie back and light a cigarette before kicking my companion awake. What’s left of the night turns slowly to dawn and we contemplate the silence while sipping lukewarm water. He checks his phone. We have the tickets. <u></u><u></u></div>
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A breakfast of bread and dulce de leche and a cup of strong black coffee will sustain us for the journey. Soon we’re both snaking through the lines of shoppers, tourists and street hawkers on our way to the Subte. A shop where I had earlier tried to buy a cheap mobile catches my eye, centred between rows of colourful football shirts and prints of Diego Maradona. <u></u><u></u></div>
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The walk pushes the hangover to the back of our minds and the pace quickens as a warming sun beats down on the streets of San Nicolás. A quick beer and a dry, flaking sandwich, smothered in unintentionally warm mayonnaise takes another fifteen minutes from what is now late morning. <u></u><u></u></div>
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My companion asks what will happen if he doesn’t get the job? I reassure him and he crosses himself, brushing the remnants of his sandwich onto the pavement. A taxi is flagged down and the radio is turned up as our conversation continues. We drive on over an expanse of motorway as the erratic driver zips in and out of traffic. An impromptu stop up a side street sees his hand outstretched searching for his fare. A small wad of crumpled notes are exchanged in return for a waft of body odour as he pulls his arm back. <u></u><u></u></div>
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The looming bowl of Estadio Presidente Juan Domingo Perón, Racing Club de Avellaneda’s stadium looms up in front of us. Kick-off is a few hours away and there is always time for a beer, so we find a small café and take a seat .Two large bottle of Palermo are produced, alongside dusty glasses and a bowl of rejected peanuts. It takes a while for one of us to speak. <u></u><u></u></div>
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“I still love her, you know”, my companion opens with, before once again staring plaintively at his now empty glass. His wife left him a number of months ago and is now living with her parents in Rosario. “It’s a love like no other,” he tells me. She has no intention to speak to him to discuss the situation and the subject of divorce has been broached. Since then, he has filled his days with alcohol, gambling and sub-rate films which he watches on an ailing laptop.<u></u><u></u></div>
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However, these stop-gaps can’t make him forget the bigger picture or take away the fact that his marriage of two years is on its knees, purely existing now in name only before waiting for the final death knell. <u></u><u></u></div>
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His real respite comes from football. The days where he can escape his thoughts, albeit fleetingly: football. The days where he doesn’t walk into his empty house and cry on his bed, or walk the streets for hours on end with an old mini-disc player for company.<u></u><u></u></div>
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In his younger days his love for football was all-consuming. He would travel the country watching Racing play, skipping work and taking long bus journeys all over Argentina. At 33, those days could be coming back. <u></u><u></u></div>
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I order two more bottles and we drink them before making the journey to the ground. <u></u><u></u></div>
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I look at my friend as we approach the stadium and a smile breaks out over his face before he bursts into solitary song. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-8788993496332025972013-03-07T09:12:00.001-08:002014-01-03T07:13:34.102-08:00The Italian Social Movement and Inter's Right <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A4pcrKuSUuw/UTjJF6bqpII/AAAAAAAAAGM/kRZsxQwI6H0/s1600/Inter%2520-%2520Boys%2520San_spi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A4pcrKuSUuw/UTjJF6bqpII/AAAAAAAAAGM/kRZsxQwI6H0/s1600/Inter%2520-%2520Boys%2520San_spi.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The
since dissolved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Movimento Sociale
Italiano </i>(Italian Social Movement), with it clerical-conservative vision of
a centralised Italian state, may not be the first thing people associate with
the Italian Ultra movement. However, its role in the fledgling Ultra groups of
teams now synonymous with right-wing politics in the late sixties and early
seventies should not be dismissed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Even
before its formation, football and politics were intertwined in Italy.
Mussolini himself had little doubt over football’s usefulness as a tool which
mirrored the fascist ideals of strength, virility and power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Founded
as a post-fascist political group in 1946, the organisation drew the bulk of
its support from Rome, Bari and Naples, playing on calls for social unity and
southern resentment of the affluent north. It looked to stand out in
terms of its loyalty to the previous regime, and was able to hold its hegemony
over specific regions within the multi-faceted culture of fascism in the
country. 1972 saw the party reach the peak of influence holding 56 seats in the
Italian Chamber of Deputies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Backed
considerably by support from the Lazio region of Italy – home to many of the
middle classes, police, military and former vehemently pro-Mussolini supporters
– it gained 14.8 per cent of the popular vote, with a further 17.4 per cent in
Rome. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The
‘success’ would have been unthinkable years earlier. In the late 1960s
the old guard support of the Italian right was dwindling across the party’s
heartland, allied with the rise in left-wing youth groups at the time.
Giorgio Almirante, who took up the leadership of the party in 1969 realised
that its future survival relied on youth engagement and support. In 1967
his party had lost almost a fifth of the activists that it had counted on in
1960 while the 1968 election results brought in the party’s lowest ever return
of 4.5 per cent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">His first role saw
the suggested creation of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Destra
Nazionale. </i>This constituent group was created to draw support from
anti-left leaning groups, broadening support in conservative and radical Italy,
which led to an eventual merger with the Monarchist National Party. His
attempts to redefine the political right of Italy was closely aligned to
increased engagement and mobilisation of centre and extreme-right youth groups.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ultras
groups across Italy sympathetic to its vague policies of traditional social
values and law and order included those of Ascoli, Hellas Verona, Padova,
Triestina, Inter and Lazio, with the latter two the most fruitful. While
teams in the Veneto like Hellas Verona and Padova sided with the centre-right
regionalist Liga Veneta Party – the predecessor of the Lega Nord – significant
ground was made with Lazio’s ‘VIKING Lazio’ and Inter’s ‘Boys SAN’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In
the late sixties, A.C. Milan was viewed very much left of the political
spectrum, with close ties to the city’s railway workers. Nothing is ever black
and white, nor could any footballing city be spilt accurately within a
political context, but Inter was considered the team of the middle classes of
Milan and its suburbs, with fans sharing similar social conservative
views. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The Lazio region
already had a staunch following of the party, so the focus was magnified on
Inter. Although support for the Italian Social Movement was weak in the
Lombardy region, they had a significant support within the main Ultra group of
Inter. The bulk of Inter’s Boys SAN comprised members of the Fronte della
Gioventu, the youth element of the Italian Social Movement. Its neo-fascist
influence remains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<div style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">While Almirante’s
plan worked initially, his impact on Italian football culture was much more
significant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-64566822447986236802013-01-08T11:00:00.000-08:002013-01-08T11:00:45.130-08:00El Viaje <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">She only half-jokingly
nodded in the direction of a two-thirds full pint of lager, perched on the bar
and long abandoned by its previous owner. ‘You wonna’ fresh one?’ she says,
through a sarcastic smile. I was hoping they’d have something sports orientated
on the TV, but no, even with over two hours to go until most of the UK’s
football matches kick-off, Teletext graces the screen, waiting for the pinks,
blues and greens to burst into action as the scores come in from around the
country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
middle-aged man in an ill-fitting </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Argentina</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"> shirt sits adjacent
at the bar and I reminisce. . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
laughter grows as his head is forced further into the dusty seat, a sheet of
paper waved over his head with barely legible words scrawled on. His incorrect
pronunciation of these Porteño shibboleths means his journey has ended before
it has begun. He exits the bus to a round of applause and goes back once to the
poorly lit bar where our journey had started much earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
smattering of Club Atlético Huracán supporters are visible over the throng of
the patrons in this poorly-lit yet snug bar, and a beer and a choripán are
thrust into my hands as I greet them. Tonight we will make the journey to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Rosario</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Bottles
of beer, wine and whisky are passed up and down the aisle as the songs break
out, while two men towards the front of the bus (one of whom is the driver)
share a bag of cocaine between themselves. A flare is set off on the bus and
thrown out the window to cheers and as we hurtle north in the darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
man with a deep scar running from his right eye to his chin leans over the seat
I’m facing and stares at me. He asks why I’m here and grunts at what he
perceives to be a less than adequate answer. He bangs the seat and gestures for
me to accompany him as he sings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s
</span><st1:time hour="4" minute="0"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">4am</span></st1:time><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"> and I can smell the red wine and cigarettes
on her breath as we kiss. ‘</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Lanús</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">’,she shouts over the
noise. Her boyfriend plays for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Lanús.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I leave the club alone.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">***</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
left work early and arrived in a western suburb of Buenos Aries in the early
evening. The street is secluded and lined with trees, as well dressed women in
faux fur walk their dogs, their cigarette smoke and rose-based perfume fighting
against the ubiquitous smell of Buenos Aries: dog piss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Soon
I’m hit with the comforting smell of an impromptu </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">barbecue</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> set-up over some
coals in what passes for the garden – a dust filled expanse where stray dogs
bask in the end of the sun’s rays – and I know I have arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘Yeah,
just an Abbot Ale, please’</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">She smiles and gives
me the change.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Teletext remains on
the TV. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-73527788295827118212012-08-24T04:42:00.000-07:002012-08-24T13:13:55.291-07:00Confessions of a closet fan<br />
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It’s a warm bottle but I’m leaving soon so I don’t complain, stuffing the rest
of the change into my pocket as she looks away aimlessly. The
conversation exhausted, she shuffles her feet and gazes aimlessly towards
whatever is on the TV, sipping her wine and pulling a stray thread hanging from
the sleeve of her blue jumper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">We’ve covered a lot: reality TV, holiday destinations,
mortgages, dual-nationality and food, but we’re toiling and we both know it. I
take another sip from the bottle as she excuses herself to go outside for a
cigarette. I want to join her but I welcome the break from forced conversation.
I’ve never met this girl in my life and it’s evident we both want to be anywhere
else than here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">We’ve kept up the pretence long enough and I’m relieved when
a mutual friend comes to collect her. The arrangement was for me to
wait with this girl in an airport bar until her friend arrived and I had upheld
my part of the arrangement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘Did you show him your tattoo?’, our mutual friend says,
gesturing in my direction. A shake of the head and the smile
is cast in my direction as my drinking companion slowly lifts up her skirt to
reveal the club emblem of Racing Club de Lens on her lower calf.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The rest of the evening is a blur but I do have a cracking
picture of the girl in a nightclub bathroom, perched over a sink and scrawling
a questioning remark about the sanity and sexual preferences of LOSC Lille
Métropole supporters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Over coffee in the morning, she told me that she had almost
fallen into fanaticism and her love of football certainly didn’t run in the
family. She was 31, shy – sober, at least – and had never really found anyone
who had shared her love of football, making her wary when speaking to people
she hadn’t met in case they thought her to be fixated on something many to her
viewed as ‘boring’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">She grew up in </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Montélimar before moving to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Paris</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> to
take on a media job, travelling up to watch her beloved RC Lens when she
could. But for all of the time she spent planning trips to watch her
side across France, she viewed her support like one would perhaps view an
extra-marital affair: secretive with wary glances cast towards her friends and
family should they uncover her devotion, discover her great ‘secret’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It certainly worked for her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A place in the stand</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-19524632870569651662012-04-09T11:57:00.001-07:002012-08-24T04:45:31.569-07:00Mist, Malbec and Mendoza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ED0NsEgGNrQ/T4Mw1X25-eI/AAAAAAAAAFg/qWDutupiWS4/s1600/mendoza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ED0NsEgGNrQ/T4Mw1X25-eI/AAAAAAAAAFg/qWDutupiWS4/s1600/mendoza.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It’s already too late to stay on the bus for its return to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Mendoza</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> as the driver explains he needs to go home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Next bus leaves in 6 hours’, he grunts, motioning to the already opened door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plan was to go to a small, artisan beer producer, high in the </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Andes</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead we missed the stop and leave the bus alone, not a house in site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The driver starts the engine and it splutters into life as the vehicle moves away along a dirt track road while we take in our surroundings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A gentle rain has started and mist blows down from the low-lying hills, the snow-capped </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Andes</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> peering out from behind the range. There is nothing here so we walk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">And walk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">After an hour we come across a small shop selling netting, paint and a selection of alcohol and canned foods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We buy some </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Quilmes</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and blow the dust and grime from the bottles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shopkeeper eyes us with suspicion and shakes his head, hair drooping to one side, in answer to our question of a nearby bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sip the beer and trudge along a single track road as my two companions smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, kicking stones as the mood drops. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Over a brooding hill we see the faint glimpse of smoke – a sign of potential life - and leave the track heading in its general direction. The ground underfoot is slippery and we fall as goats run off, startled by our intrusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there it is – a pub.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Paint flakes from its gables and a window-shutter slaps violently against the cracked window it’s supposed to be protecting, taped together to hide a 12-inch gash in its corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We enter and an elderly barman jumps up from his seat beside a fire, wind blowing the smoke back into the room against a clearly blocked chimney.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We take a seat under an aging painting of the landscape we’ve just escaped and a menu is thrust into our palms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its existence is purely aesthetic and we’re quickly informed there is only one thing on the menu. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Three bowls of steaming bean stew with fatty pork are thrust on the table as the man kicks another log onto the fire and reaches above a crumbling shelf to place three glass tumblers alongside our lunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two bottles of Malbec follow soon after as he pulls a seat towards our table, eager to question us as to why we are here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Club Deportivo Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba team photo<b> </b>takes pride of place at the bar and the man gives me a wizened, toothless grin as it cathces my eye.<b> </b>‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">El Expreso’</i> [The Express], he coughs, dislodging phlegm onto the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s up from his seat in a flash and picks the picture up, keen to show off something which is of clear value to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">‘I’ve never been’, he tells us when we ask how often he watches them. ‘Too busy up here and Mendoza is too far away for a man like me’, he says. He blows a stream of smoke from a pipe he’s been casually smoking when I ask if he watches them play on TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a digital age he gets his football fix from local paper sport reports, articles he tells us which the local postman has deilvered for the last 15 years in return for homemade chorizo and a little wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps some homemade dulche de leche, if any is going spare. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">He beckons us towards a back room and roots around under a pile of heavy woolen coats and packets of biscuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A smile once agains spreads over his face as he finds what he’s looking for: five battered photo albums, full of newspaper match reports.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We sit for hours as more bottles of wine are consumed, and by a roaring fire, he regales us with stories of the matches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if he was at every single one, as he notes the scorers, controversial decisions and unused substitutes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I’m fascinated.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">He has followed a sport and a team – which he clearly loves – on the basis of newspaper match reports, things which I shy away from if Dundee United lose. Is it possible to build love for a Club which you will never see play, not even on TV? This man has, indeed, his love appears stronger for it. He hasn’t experienced the allure of a noisy ground as you wait impatiently outside, or the rush of the crowd at a goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It matters little to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> '</o:p></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">La comida, a reposar, y la cena a pasear’</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, he calls to us as we leave<b> </b>[After dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile]<b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>And walk we do, back down the hill and past the sheep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mist has lifted and the rain has stopped and I think about the old man in a red wine-induced haze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m fascinated by his fandom and for his dedication to his Club, in exceptionally non-orthodox circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I should send him some translated articles from </span><st1:country -region="-region"><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Scotland</span></st1:place></st1:country><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, I think, as the bus draws into sight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A place in the stand </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-66886703003044527852012-03-19T11:45:00.000-07:002012-03-19T11:45:15.811-07:00An apology to football<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P7CZ5JBNENs/T2d994W4t9I/AAAAAAAAAFY/OcJxBT10rBo/s1600/TV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P7CZ5JBNENs/T2d994W4t9I/AAAAAAAAAFY/OcJxBT10rBo/s320/TV.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I have a confession to make, one in which may impinge on my ability to write about and enjoy the sport I love: football. In fact, this sentence may not be entirely true. I’m falling out of love with televised football, a mainstay of the game, the root of all evils of contemporary football and what’s worse is that it’s been a long and drawn-out affair. I saw it coming a long time ago and should have acted then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I could blame money but money shouldn’t affect love, nor has it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football is too expensive, of that there’s no denying but its involvement has no power over my lackadaisical response to a televised match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, to make things worse, I now find myself betting-in-play during the game, muting the sub-par commentary or focusing on the crowd to raise interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football’s equivalent to those stuck in a dull, lifeless relationship trying in vain to get the spark back. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But I</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> can’t talk this one through with the TV; I can’t prioritise my time to sit-down with a televised game, spending quality time with the match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘How was your day, football?’ I’d say, keen and waiting on the response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When did become I become so blasé about the entire ordeal? There is no longer a notable rise in interest as the league table is shown or the small involuntary facial movements approving as the previous highlights are shown. Goal after goal, tackle after tackle. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But worse is to come, readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much worse. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I was on the sofa some weekends ago, sitting with a friend of mine who had come to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Glasgow</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> for a weekend of gigs and alcohol. A clash of two non-descript English teams on a Sunday, marketed and advertised to within an inch of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The glitzy logos, garish backgrounds and excitement of the ‘best league in the world’ failed to work on me, however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even as I write this I feel slightly cynical, as if I’ve given on televised football already. Perhaps I have. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘Can we change the channel, Blair?’ she said, spoken in a hopeful tone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was met with little reproach and we watched American X-Factor instead. I didn’t even feel ashamed after the illicit encounter with stateside pop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The cheating didn’t begin there, however. What started as the casual channel change during breaks in play soon become missing swathes of the action to watch even more mind-numbing action of terrestrial TV. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It wasn’t always like this. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Is it wrong for someone on the wrong side of their twenties to reminisce about the halcyon days of old? Of a Sunday morning where the very opening theme of Football Italia would set the pulse racing or of looking forward to staying up late to watch the Sportscene highlights? <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">What happened to Champions League nights watching teams like Leeds United with genuine interest from the first minute to the last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would shut myself off in my family sitting room, lights off; transfixed for the duration. When did Sky and ESPN’s coverage of football become such a chore to watch? Is it just me? I seek reassurance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand <o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-48079516093002899372012-03-05T10:41:00.003-08:002012-03-05T10:51:31.890-08:00Football and French fiscal policy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2u8WNCodiBA/T1T64CSAauI/AAAAAAAAAFA/2h6ln6brbKk/s1600/282085_francois-hollande-et-nicolas-sarkozy-le-28-avril-2011-sur-le-site-de-tra-le-bos-a-egletons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2u8WNCodiBA/T1T64CSAauI/AAAAAAAAAFA/2h6ln6brbKk/s320/282085_francois-hollande-et-nicolas-sarkozy-le-28-avril-2011-sur-le-site-de-tra-le-bos-a-egletons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">If recent opinion polls are to be believed* </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> will have a new President this summer. François Hollande wants a different country to the one of today and has strengthened his position with a planned programme of tax increases, a progressive common market and a new European treaty focused on growth and budgetary discipline.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He has also alienated French footballing bodies and directly cut his strong lead in the polls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football and politics are odd bedfellows, as he’s found out to his cost. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Hollande, 57, comes from </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Rouen</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, a city in the far north of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and one of the dullest in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man is anything but.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a graduate from the École Nationale d'Administration, a French version of the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">UK</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">’s fast stream where the top civil servants and officials are chosen and his political CV is the envy of many. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Those within his campaign team have worked exceptionally hard to get him in a position of strength and they have been keen to keep the probable soon-to-be President away from ideological alignments and petty tit-for-tat feuding played out in the media, so often a curse of the French political left. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Despite his stance as a pragmatic and stubborn leftist, he is overtly pro-European and supported the French ‘NO’ campaign during the 2005 constitutional treaty debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His rating in the polls has skyrocketed due to an oratory prowess long forgotten in French politics and his key campaign themes of law and order, social housing and the failures of deregulated financial services (with more than a sneer directed at the centre-left governments in Sweden, Spain and the UK) have resonated with the public from Marseille to Montbéliard. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But just last week a proposed tax increase was announced which drew heavy criticism from those within French football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The proposed rise would see those earning over €1 million – including a number of players within Ligue 1 -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>paying 75 percent tax, a move which<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frederic Thiriez, the head of the professional football league has warned would be ‘the certain death of football’ [in the country].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The announcement was met with more than a sharp intake of breath as the highest tax rate at the moment is 45 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Fears surrounding the top French club’s ability to attract the best in European talent may not have had Hollande or his advisers quivering with fear but the trickle-down effect from club to fan has hit him hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an oblique attack on Hollande’s proposed fiscal chance, the current French President, said: "The folly of tax policies that discourages work, that discourages initiative, isolates </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> from the rest of the world."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The comments hit home. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Sport Minister, David Douillet, a member Sarkozy's centre right-wing UMP party, spoke to the French parliament and claimed that the move would ‘kill French sport’ while Sarkozy’s communications team quick to blow the issue up with early estimations suggesting up to 200 players would be hurt by the tax hike. </span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">You don’t mess with football, something the UMP has been quick to point out, narrowing the gap on Hollande in the process with recent polls suggesting that Hollande now leads Sarkozy by only 16 points. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Never underestimate the power of football, François.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">*NB the system of running elections over two rounds can produce shocks, just ask Lionel Jospin.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-59313458985744179582012-02-29T12:40:00.000-08:002012-02-29T12:40:07.446-08:00In a flat overlooking Tynecastle. . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ntdwhQ_D_Ic/T06MCjuxrdI/AAAAAAAAAE4/XpjHrsm9IyQ/s1600/6764.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ntdwhQ_D_Ic/T06MCjuxrdI/AAAAAAAAAE4/XpjHrsm9IyQ/s320/6764.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Amanda was a strange character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She collected pressed flowers, old ‘Shoot’ magazines and had two defining characteristics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>she loved football; Scottish football, any football and she was alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her love of football had started as a child; her loneliness, much later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It was already quite late when she returned back to her one bedroom flat on </span><st1:address><st1:street><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Gorgie Road</span></st1:street><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Edinburgh</span></st1:city></st1:address><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She placed her keys down on the kitchen table and poured herself a glass of orange juice that she neither liked, nor wanted. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">She was however, obsessed with vitamins and she knew that orange juice was a good source, or so she was told. The articles and dog-eared paper cuttings she read all stated that vitamin C was good for the immune system and Amanda had neither the time, nor the desire, to have her sensitive bodily self defences challenged by germs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Amanda took out an old clipper lighter from her pocket, scarred and chipped from its dual usage as a makeshift bottle opener and clicked the flame on and off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On and off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On and off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The rain had started to fall heavily and the fluorescent street lights gave off an atmospheric glow, illuminating a poster of the Heart of Midlothian team as she shuffled in her seat, tipping over a precariously balanced mug of tea which until then had resided on her sofa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Amanda poured herself another glass of orange juice and grimaced as she downed it in one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She nibbled on an apple while reading one of the magazines that she had found lying about the place – there was an abundant choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an old publication and the pages were worn with age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Magazines could be found in every corner of her tiny flat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She loved the smell and the texture of the publications and had been fascinated with ‘Shoot’ ever since she was a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her disposable income however, would be spent on magazines varying in subject matter from rock climbing to electronic music making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She held subscriptions to travel, football and higher education publications and would spend £5 a day on different magazines in the little shop that her ex-boyfriend worked in on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">When Hearts played at home she was happy and her mood notably lifted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I visited her a few years ago before losing touch to find her hanging out the window, cigarette in one hand, a cartoon of Tesco value orange juice in the other, singing along to the faint sound of the Hearts’ supporters in the vicinity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">She pulled a maroon jumper that her mother had made for her tight to her face so that it covered her nose and mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wool tickled her face and she breathed in to feel the warm air on her lips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I said goodbye and as the door closed behind me, heard the faint song of: “H-E-A. . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-62378615191800320762012-02-21T12:52:00.000-08:002012-02-21T13:01:05.863-08:00Nerazzurri in the Park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_QIt29JhNjA/T0QDnqlySqI/AAAAAAAAAEw/YdX0aSd-DBI/s1600/Inter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_QIt29JhNjA/T0QDnqlySqI/AAAAAAAAAEw/YdX0aSd-DBI/s320/Inter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There’s more than a faint smell of burning as we sit on the damp grass, jackets placed under to us to soak up the moisture. Undercooked meat and burnt bread is thrust before us as one litre bottles of warm beer are passed around the group.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">To my left my friend has fallen asleep, his face buried into the ground.Some of the men with us stand up and with a right-arm outstretched, shout ‘Duce’. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The gathered pigeons scatter with the outburst.An American girl sits with us, theatrically translating the rapid Italian, her hands punctuating each sentence as she sprays crumbs and spittle from her mouth.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It’s a Sunday morning and we’ve been here since <st1:time hour="6" minute="0">6am</st1:time>.This impromptu breakfast barbecue is the result of a night’s drinking in the west end of </span><st1:city><st1:place><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Milan</span></st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We met the group in a bar, got talking and now find ourselves in a park, smoke blowing in our eyes.A small bottle of petrol is poured over the sparse clumps of charcoal. Nobody seems to care.One of group relieves himself where he lays and drops the bottle of beer when it reaches him.The American girl signals us to move closer and tells us we’re going to have a day to remember. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A man pulls a calendar from his shirt, another picks dirt from his fingernails while whistling a semi-melodic tune.As the sun rises we scatter, seeking refuge in the shade.More beer is bought and we make our way to the subway. Lotto is the final destination before the small walk to <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Stadio Giuseppe Meazza</span>.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We sway with the movement of the train and there’s a subdued silence as we huddle together in the packed carriage.A distress flare is pulled from one of the group’s pocket’s but a glance from the American tells him it’s not a good idea.I’m relieved. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The group exits the train and walk into the sunlight.The warmth and smell of hotdogs hits me as I stagger onto the pavement, falling on a friend for support. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We make our way into the Curva Nord and we sing.The noise is constant and the diatribe more so. “We are unified in the stadium, a single unified body, a solid group and nobody can take that from us,” says a man in a blue hooded top, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This group, a collection of 12 or so men and women stand together towards the back of the stand.I feel part of the crowd, something which transcends that of a spectator. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">My education is complete. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-9336810543755938512012-02-08T09:39:00.000-08:002012-02-08T09:45:38.679-08:00The Arab Winter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Rgwpj_Hei8/TzKyW9HpArI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/ByLgyEcPILE/s1600/Egypt-2_2129271b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Rgwpj_Hei8/TzKyW9HpArI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/ByLgyEcPILE/s320/Egypt-2_2129271b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The first protest </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">following <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Mohamed Bouazizi</span>'s <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">self-immolation</span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">on </span><st1:date day="17" month="12" year="2010"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">17 December, 2010</span></st1:date><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, i</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">n protest of police corruption in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Tunisia</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> was the catalyst for a wave of unrest across the </span><st1:place><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Middle East</span></st1:place><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> and surrounding areas. Protests swept across the region marking the emergence of a new generation of political rule, the dominant overarching political establishments weakened by public unrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tunisia, Libya and Egypt all saw regime changes, with Egyptians continuing to protest against the provisional military government following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But this Arab Spring has turned to an Arab Winter, one in which has seen a rise of Islamist parties, sparking fears for the likelihood of a democratisation of the area, and seen bloodshed, most notably at this month’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Al-Masry versus Al-Ahly fixture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The deaths of 79 supporters has led many to question the security of the region and fans and external agencies (with arguably justifiable reason) have raised fears that the rioting was orchestrated by SCAF – Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the current interim military rulers - to take revenge for the Cairo-based supporters’ role in the overthrow of Mubarak, as well as causing civil unrest across the country. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The violence has led to mass protest across the country with international NGOs getting further entrenched in the mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s no secret that NGOs are too in the spotlight for entirely different reasons, with</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> 19 Americans due to stand trial in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Egypt</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> after accusations that US-backed organisations helped fund the earlier protests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The tragedy has polarised difficulties in the region with an already weak Egyptian civil society stretched further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The youth of the country, eager for change and liberal in belief: tolerant and encroaching in both the secularist and liberal camps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This against the old-guard: Islamist-electorates and fearful of mass disorder and change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite ongoing protest, the majority of the population remains fearful, something which has played directly into the hands of the interim government. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Witnesses at the match told media that crowds of men had entered the ground at halftime, something which is not normally allowed in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gates leading to the pitch were left unlocked whereas the narrow exit with which the travelling Al-Alhy supporters would leave was padlocked shut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The on-duty riot police did little to prevent the situation. Men died in the stampede and resulting crush, many receiving stab wounds as they fell or before they were pushed off the stadium wall. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Mubarak regime had long utilised the force of thugs or ‘baltageya’ for financial and blind-eye incentives and it appears the travelling support from </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Cairo</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, many of whom were involved in overthrowing the ex-leader were to face these loyalists again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to see beyond collusion. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The military and the police were undoubtedly complicit in the violence at </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Port Said</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">. Subsequent statements from the powerful Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party alleged that the violence on the day was allowed to occur so that emergency regulations giving security forces wide-ranging powers could be maintained after they were recently abolished. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Mubarak, while still in his leadership tenure had claimed that there would be chaos if he stepped down: it occurred at the expense of 79 men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The violence at </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Port Said</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> highlights the current vacuum within the country, one in which the military regime continues to control through violence and intimidation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The buds of a smooth transition to power which many had hoped would flourish as the Arab Spring turned to summer have yet to bloom, with the deaths of the 79 Al-Ahly supporters highlighting that they are a long way off. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-1078733753264387222012-02-02T10:24:00.000-08:002012-02-02T10:28:47.891-08:00Time to change the channel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k2U6Jc9f0Es/TyrUdjjsEEI/AAAAAAAAAEI/_6IdnSoS5DA/s1600/Duvel-Beer-glass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k2U6Jc9f0Es/TyrUdjjsEEI/AAAAAAAAAEI/_6IdnSoS5DA/s320/Duvel-Beer-glass.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“Yes, but we don’t want him standing there so fuck off,” says the sweat-stained man through a sneer, a gold medallion protruding from an ill-fitting T-shirt. “Get him out of here, go on, fuck off,” he says, to the barman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His victim, keen to avoid confrontation exits without a word, a red and white scarf stuffed clumsily in his pocket and his pride dented. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“Fucking, Walloon,” he says, as his eyes trail the man until he’s half way down the street. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’m in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Belgium</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Brussels</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> to be exact and it’s early, too early to be in a pub, particularly one like this. Before us is a smattering of non-descript nuts and glasses of Duvel and I feel bad for dragging us here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m with a Greenock Morton supporting friend of mine who works in the European Parliament and we’re here to watch Dundee United against Rangers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I've pleaded with the bar manager to stick the game on and we take our seats at the end of a long cylindrical-type room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it an Irish bar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was certainly advertised as such but it’s the strangest one I’ve ever been in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sticky floor and faint smell of vomit and day-old kebab embody all the attributes of a ‘dive’, albeit one blasting out Starship, </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Kajagoogoo</span></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Berlin</span></st1:state></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and Roxette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A couple kiss passionately at the table opposite with both sets of hands placed inside the others' trousers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sip the warm Duvel and wait for the teams to come out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My companion flicks over an English language newspaper in an attempt to fight what is ultimately a losing battle against the hangover. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The volume on the TV remains muted as the Dundee United and Rangers’ players run out to continental Euro pop music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>United go down 0-1 and the heavens open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both sets of players struggle under the deluge and the already battered Tannadice pitch becomes a quagmire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jennison Myrie-Williams coninues to run at the Rangers defence, leaving the ball behind him with each attempt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The match is abandoned. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This game took place in 2010 and is the last match played at Tannadice which I watched on TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It felt strange, as it always does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>United’s Scottish Cup game this weekend will too be shown live, this time on BBC Scotland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many, for a variety of justifiable reasons, will choose to stay at home and watch it in the comfort of their beds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I find watching </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> United on television quite disconcerting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I miss the buzz, the people watching and the noise. When you’re losing at home to Motherwell or St Mirren on a bitterly cold night, worrying about tender documents, media uptake on press releases and constantly checking your watch to make the last train, you don’t have the comfort of a warm living room. ‘Please don’t go into extra time,’ becomes the mantra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">You can’t run from situations like this when you’re there and on turning your head you’ll only meet the same sad faces, the same anger and disappoint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I was at home I’d have changed the channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would have been on mute anyway, perhaps with some continental Euro pop to remind me of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Belgium</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, anything to drown out Ian McCall. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Commentators are another curse, at least for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their observations and attempts to bring the game to life will reach previously uncharted levels of nonsense, until the next game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some stand-out examples who break this rule but they’re few and far between. Does McCall still do it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">See you at Ibrox.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-78771203128917841142012-01-17T13:39:00.000-08:002012-01-17T13:39:52.691-08:00The Football Bigamist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oo8XRnuAAs/TxXpwdTy4VI/AAAAAAAAAD4/s-oa5qbz5GE/s1600/TheBigamist_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oo8XRnuAAs/TxXpwdTy4VI/AAAAAAAAAD4/s-oa5qbz5GE/s320/TheBigamist_Cover.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I aimlessly kick (and miss) a discarded can of Fanta as I exit the train at White Hart Lane Station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hurry down the steps and onto the street below, passing kebab shops, tattoo parlours and newsagents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rain falls gently as I walk away from the ground towards the direction of The Bricklayers Arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a gap at the bar and I rush in, muttering a brief apology as the man to my left spills his bottle of beer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter, we’re all Spurs, he says. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Above my head is a yellow scarf with ‘</span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">SUDBURY</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">’ emblazoned in dark blue, cornered by a supporters’ group flag from </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Finland</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, a Swedish one to its right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sip on the beer and my friend tells me who he’s seeing at the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left Charlton at </span><st1:time hour="5" minute="0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">5 o’clock</span></st1:time><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and we’ve not got long in the pub before we’ll take our places in the Park Lane End, </span><st1:street><st1:address><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">White Hart Lane</span></st1:address></st1:street><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We make the most of the surroundings and have a few more pints before taking the short walk to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a trip that’s been done a few times before. Loitering in the back of the stand we both buy a bottle of overpriced lager while discussing a friend’s recent promotion within the European Parliament, our mates who have recently had children and our respective job prospects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A group of us take our seats just as the game is about to kick-off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘You fuckin’ Northern bastards’, shouts the man behind us to the group of assorted </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Manchester</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">City</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> fans located to our left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wanker signs are exchanged and the slow rumble of, ‘thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, YIDS!’ ripples through the stand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spurs win the game 3-0 and I enjoy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoy the fast passing, the evident skill and the speed of the players, a welcome change from the SPL fayre which I’ve become accustomed to.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But it’s not the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’ve watched countless games at </span><st1:street><st1:address><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">White Hart Lane</span></st1:address></st1:street><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and I’ve watched Spurs play in </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Bolton</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Liverpool</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Blackburn</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Sunderland</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s not the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not Dundee United.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I support Spurs and watch them whenever I’m down in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> or I can get a ticket for one of the northern games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoy myself, I gave a good day but the feelings I get aren’t those I associate with Dundee United.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spurs are my bit on the side, in that respect, my mistress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t give the Club my daily thoughts, nor do I worry abut the injury list or about transfer rumours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t get nervous when the strip is launched (that’s not tangerine, it’s peach) or during Cup draws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t feel sick with excitement when they’re 1-0 up, nor do I feel like the world is against them when they’re 1-0 down. With United, I do. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’m fascinated by those who list the teams they ‘support’, teams some of whom have never seen play in the flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has their own particular reasons why they support a team or why they associate themselves with a particular Club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I support Spurs but I can’t understand how someone can split their loyalties, their passion, their nerves, focus and drive on two, or sometimes more that two teams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’ll continue to watch Spurs when I get the chance and my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">laissez-faire</i> relationship with the Club will remain but I’m happy with my current situation, that of a Dundee United monogamist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-26764757148386355862012-01-09T12:42:00.000-08:002012-01-09T12:42:38.882-08:00The Ambiguity of Athletic’s Quarry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DC1ANUbQrAg/TwtRKhch3uI/AAAAAAAAADw/rGxGepp5lDk/s1600/Mugi32_13_IKURRINA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DC1ANUbQrAg/TwtRKhch3uI/AAAAAAAAADw/rGxGepp5lDk/s320/Mugi32_13_IKURRINA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Athletic Bilbao is a club that embodies the notion of non-conformity, seeking to position itself on the periphery of the modern game. This is inextricably linked to the adoption of a Basque-only player rule, la cantera (the quarry). The club has been eulogised by fans and the media alike for this staunch and unwavering grass-roots policy, but the idea of a club and supporters able to identity with solely local players isn’t as clear cut as it seems, something Athletic’s fellow Basque clubs are clear to point out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The European Court of Justice Bosman ruling in 1995, which gave professional football players working in the European Union more freedom to move between clubs polarised Athletic’s unique policy. It would be naïve to suggest that nervous glances by the directors of the club towards the transfer activity of other European clubs, La Liga teams in particular, didn’t occur. Yet despite this, the club remained resolute in its philosophy. It would be unthinkable for those associated with Athletic to take any other stance and adopt the one thing they all fear: an Athletic Bilbao team comprising foreigners.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Although the official club documents were not signed until 1901; supporters of the club recognise 1898 as the founding date, the football club born from the efforts of British steel and shipyard workers, along with Basque students returning home after studying in Britain. It was not until 1912 before the club adopted its Basque only policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Athletic Club’s cantera is a successful one and with the exception of Real Madrid, the Bilbao side has produced more players for the Spanish national team than any other; Fernando Llorente, among others. This constant conveyor belt of talent has even led the club to adopt an unprecedented transfer policy whereby their youth players are offered semi-professional contracts with large release clauses, the aim of which is to stop larger European clubs swooping for the best of the young Basque talent.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But the cantera when viewed from an Athletic Club perspective is ambiguous and has adapted over time to meet the requirements of a modern day football club. On the surface, the club claims to only sign players from the greater Basque Country, numbering roughly 3 million inhabitants. These include those from the areas of Biscay; Gúipuzcoa, Álava, Navarre, Labourd, Soule and Lower Navarre.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The club is facing difficulties finding new talent in the region, a fact not helped by the area having one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. The net had been widened to accommodate applicable others and Athletic has worked hard to develop links with around 150 partner clubs in the region, building a system of feeder teams which guarantees Athletic the right of first refusal for the best young players in the region in return for financial backing. Athletic now also use a database to search for players with Basque roots of which there is a considerable number in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia so much so that the idea of developing football training schools in Latin America for the Diaspora has been considered. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The descendants of immigrants to the region can also play for the club, a fact evident when looking at the surnames of some of the players who have graced the side during the last century. With such a limited population at the club’s disposal it would be foolish to close the door to the sons of the thousands of migrants who came to the region. Issues of purity still remain within certain elements of the support and this embrace of the <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">maketos – </span></em>those descended from immigrants – hasn’t always pleased everybody, nor will it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Atheltic’s definition of what defines a Basque is certainly a complex one, leading many to ask questions of its cantera philosophy, which has relaxed on a perennial basis. It would appear that the definition of what constitutes a Basque is left open to debate by the club and its thousands of members.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">David López Moreno comes from Logroño, La Rioja, very much a part of flag-waving Spain - in 2007 the local government was chastised for providing secondary school pupils with literature criticising elements of the Basque culture and illustrating the merits of Franco - while Mario Bermejo, a player who graced the club for four seasons was born in Santander, Cantabria. Llorente, too, is debatable as he was born in Pamplona, with many arguing that because he grew up the municipality of Rincón de Soto; he is indeed from La Rioja, although this is clearly a tenuous claim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Even more questionable was the inclusion of the now retired Ismael Urzaiz Aranda from Tudela, Southern Navarre. While Navarre remains one of the outlined seven Basque provinces, it is included in what’s often referred to as the ‘Southern Basque Country’. The Basque country term is ambiguous as it may or may not include Navarre, whereas the Basque-derived term invariably includes the regions. This fact is often ignored when Athletic pick the best players from the area.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The draw of Athletic’s Lezama training facility, around </span><st1:metricconverter productid="10 kilometres"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">10 kilometres</span></st1:metricconverter><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> from Bilbao, is undoubtedly a major pull for young players. It contains four standard-size natural grass pitches, two artificial turf pitches, a gymnasium, medical centre and an accommodation block. The state-of-the-art training compound sits at the heart of Athletic’s cantera philosophy: it’s the foundations of the club and the major artery which keeps the club going, Athletic of course being much more reliant than others on the successes of its youth system. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When bringing Real Sociedad into the fray, the water becomes muddied further. The friction between Athletic and Real Sociedad wasn’t helped in 1995 when Athletic signed Joseba Etxberria, a product of Real Sociedad’s youth system who had progressed through the ranks. It is perhaps another example of Athletic poaching players from the canteras of other Basque clubs leading to an understandable ill feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Despite this however, in the early 2000s, Real Sociedad could still claim to have had more regional players from their cantera than their westerly neighbours in Bilbao, as opposed to Athletic’s (debatable) Basque country approach. This is even more of a feat when you consider that Sociedad dropped its Basque-only policy in the 1980s, the catalyst of which was the transfer of John Alridge from Liverpool. A failure to compete with money-rich Athletic was part of the reason, as was the most talented players of the region ending up in Bilbao from annual swoops.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">While things are more financially balanced in the region now, Athletic had long been the economic powerhouse prior to hitting financial difficulties, leading to the belief that the region’s best players should join their ranks. Like Real Sociedad, CA Osasuna can too have their gripes. The success of the Spanish national youth side led to Athletic making a successful approach for Pablo Orbaiz, a stand-out during tournament’s and Osasuna player at that time. It seems that Athletic’s quarry can stretch beyond that of the neighbouring clubs. This attitude has diminished the other canteras of the region, something not forgotten by the Basque clubs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Athletic Bilbao forms an integral part of Spanish football history and is one of Europe’s cult clubs – it is truly special - and to suggest otherwise would be disingenuous and unfair. Bilbao is a football city with a large number of members within the Bay of Biscay region and those on the season ticket waiting list will be waiting a long time. The San Mamés Stadium, built in 1913, is known locally as the ‘cathedral,’ a place to worship; where the football is pure and good, with a sepia-tinged ambience harking back to the game of old. However, the motto -<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘<em><span style="font-family: Arial;">Con Cantera y aficion, no hace falta importacion’</span></em> which translates, <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘With home grown talent and local support, you don’t need foreigners’</span></em> <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">- is certainly open to debate, particularly when you look at the distinct lack of Bilbao-based cantera graduates who have made the first team squad over the years, something which undoubtedly lessens the ‘strength in locality’ message.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The likes of Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez and the aforementioned Fernando Llorente may all see moves to the English Premier League or elsewhere in the summer transfer market. While purely speculative at the moment, any transfer activity out of the club would be extremely lucrative for Athletic. Of the three, Herrera is the only player born in Bilbao, rising from the youth system of Real Zaragoza. Martínez was signed from Osasuna’s youth system while the ambiguity of Llorente’s ‘Basqueness’ has already been outlined.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The ‘local support’ element as outlined in the motto, or the reliance on the various canteras of the region has in part given Athletic its strong backbone and influence in Spanish football, something those involved with Real Sociedad and Osasuna know all to their cost. Despite the rigours of contemporary football, Athletic's resolute stance looks set to continue, as will the wary looks of resentment from San Sebastian and Osasuna.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-30851587550108249482011-12-29T02:53:00.000-08:002011-12-29T02:57:36.242-08:00The Song<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<div align="justify"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7u6GuVnvSgk/TvxGIOpyHfI/AAAAAAAAADo/NRgS_RSPIpc/s1600/barras1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" rea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7u6GuVnvSgk/TvxGIOpyHfI/AAAAAAAAADo/NRgS_RSPIpc/s320/barras1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A light rain falls as we attempt to draw on sodden cigarettes, sipping on black coffee and quickening the pace as we hear the roar of an approaching train in the subway below.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Rubbish blows at our feet as the smell of musty urine and dank air hits us full force. The doors open and we’re squeezed together; businessmen and women in suits, the smell of body odour seeping out from under their ill fitting jackets and mothers with children between their knees. The sense of urgency palpable.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The train roars on and more people enter. Some empty bottles of </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Quilmes</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> roll on the floor while a man extricates himself from the mass of bodies with a mixture of guile and force, placing a colouring book in the hands of anyone who makes eye contact. He waits and watches and collects the unwanted books at each new stop: no sales this time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The train terminates at Congreso de Tucumán and we leave. We pass the train lined boulevards full of Parisian style cafes, artisan cheese and charcuterie shops and people selling fruit on the street before walking to a bar at the end near a junction where we are met by some friends. Beer and wine is ordered, as in a small selection of empanadas, which are decimated in seconds.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">After the briefest of security checks we spiral up the concrete steps into the vast bowl of the stadium and take our places to the left of Los Borrachos del Tablón, ‘The Drunks of the Terrace’, River’s infamous Barras Bravas.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">And it hits you: the noise, the smell of sulphur from distress flare and red smoke bombs. It’s all too easy to become lost in the power of the collective song.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We bounce and sway with the crowd and it’s constant, despite River losing 1-2, the singing is non-stop. A banner is unfurled at the stand to our left:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘WE SING FOR YOU’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">And they do. Around thirty men stand facing the front, staring at those not singing, urging the crowd to show more passion, to become more vocal, to jump more and more. I leave the stand and go into the toilets where I’m met with a group of twenty youths. One has smashed a mirror and is using a piece to cut small incisions into the necks of his friends before gently blowing cocaine or speed into the wound. I piss and leave.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I come up as River score and all hell breaks lose. Bodies topple over bodies, more red flares are lit and clothing is ripped as the crowd in the upper part of the stadium surge to the front. The drums beat louder and the singing increases on account of the participants now jumping that inch higher. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The game ends and the crowd wells about in the stand, the focus no longer on the pitch. Small groups drift away while others continue to sing or light cigarettes. Outside on the concrete steps with its view over the city, a plane drifts lower, ready to land at the nearby airport, its lights flashing as the sun sets over Northern Buenos Aires. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">On the subway home, an elderly woman opposite in a red and white jumper sips some yerba contemplatively and sings a River song to herself. She smiles and nods as our eyes meet and carries on with her song.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘WE SING FOR YOU’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand</span></div><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-26343546805641423312011-12-05T12:16:00.000-08:002011-12-05T12:22:05.871-08:00Conversion at Rugby Park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dpt5d7rIPs/Tt0mM5CDujI/AAAAAAAAADE/IbLmDzu6Tsk/s1600/rugby+park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" dda="true" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dpt5d7rIPs/Tt0mM5CDujI/AAAAAAAAADE/IbLmDzu6Tsk/s320/rugby+park.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There’s still another half hour to go and I’ve already exhausted my less than extensive knowledge of sticks, Doctor Who and Pirates of the </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Caribbean</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The train moves slowly through the Ayrshire countryside as those beside me rummage in overflowing shopping bags or sip from cans of lager.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m under strict instructions to take this young man to the home end, the family stand, the end where he’ll not be subjected to swearing and Dundee United fans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not happening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It was arranged the night before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would I mind taking your cousin to the </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Kilmarnock</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> – Dundee United game? Of course not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m greeted with kisses and cuddles and the offer of endless cups of tea as my then girlfriend phones her auntie to tell her the good news.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’m amazed that this is viewed as me doing a good deed, going out of my way to accommodate others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In reality, I’m quite pleased that this ten year old boy will accompany me to a rainy away game. I’m a modern day Jesuit: give me your cousin and I’ll give you an Arab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he tells me all his class support Rangers, I realise that I’m doing him a favour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I have 15 minutes before the train arrives in </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Kilmarnock</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> train station and I preach with all the vigour of religious zealot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is my missionary work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m saving someone from the clutches of the Old Firm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He nods in excitement as I tell him about Tannadice, </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> pies, Brewster and the Hampden Hoodoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To make things easier, he runs off the information he knows about Scottish football, then makes a game in which he compares four Scottish football clubs to the various houses in Harry Potter. Dundee United is </span><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Gryffindor, </span></span><place><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Dundee</span></span></place><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, Slytherin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amazingly, this information was only coaxed out at the cost of a Mars Bar and Coke. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">We arrive at the train station and make our way to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s excited, I can tell. His steps quicken as we approach the Chadwick Stand and turns in awe looking at the tangerine and black clad suppporters’, smoking in groups, speaking about the previous game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He tells me he wants a Dundee United scarf. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give him mine.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">We find a seat in the stand – this makes it seem as if the ground is full, it’s not – and I ask if he wants something to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More Mars Bars are brought, along with a pie and some Coke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s in his element. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Some fans behind us start a, ‘We fuckin’ hate Dundee, we fuckin’ hate Dundee…’ chant and he turns round in amazement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks at me at this open display of swearing, open-jawed, thinking about how to enlarge the story for his school friends on Monday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="mw-headline"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The teams emerge and taking guidance from myself and those around us, he’s up on his feet, applauding the side on the park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I point out some of the squad as he mentally notes them down, pointing and repeating the names for good measure: </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Stillie, Kalvenes, Archibald, Mair, McCracken…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It’s a mantra he’ll come to repeat through the game. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">"Fuck sake, Miller!" screams the man behind us. "Fuck off back to Hearts, ya cunt!" </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Again he looks at me with wide eyed amazement, the sheer shock at the noise of the crowd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He shakes his head with delight, failing terribly to hide a smile.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Half time arrives and he’s first to tell me what he thinks of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He’s very fast” (Robson) or, “I like how he runs when they kick it” (Samuel). United have a man sent off but hang on for a 0-0 draw. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Walking back to the station I ask him who he supports.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He keeps his head down, a swagger in his step as he blurts out: “</span><place><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> United, of course.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">My work is done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another convert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another football fan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another Arab. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-12703227705597230982011-11-27T11:04:00.000-08:002011-11-27T11:11:02.997-08:00Welcome to Paradise: Celtic 5 – 1 Dundee United<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwqXG2h6bQg/TtKJmdKxOUI/AAAAAAAAAC8/pQY53AS6WL0/s1600/parkhead-celtic-park-56802137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="147" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwqXG2h6bQg/TtKJmdKxOUI/AAAAAAAAAC8/pQY53AS6WL0/s320/parkhead-celtic-park-56802137.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">So that was it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">At least he thought it was. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He couldn’t be sure and she hadn’t really made it definitive but it wasn’t looking too great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After two years together he’d expected more than a drunken text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked up and handed him a bottle of Fosters as he came to terms with the end of another relationship.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He kept on muttering to himself before taking the battery out of his mobile and placing it onto a crumpled pile of papers on his living room floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He didn’t understand what was happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All he’d wanted was to see her before we went off to the football. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘Sake, man’, he shouted, kicking the pile of papers across the newly fitted, cream carpet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had never liked the colour but she’d chosen it and he didn’t complain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her input however, was purely a stylistic one and she had offered no financial backing. <i></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He got up to go into the kitchen, kicking over the remnants of the cigarette he had precariously balanced on the edge of his Celtic FC mug.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fridge was strewn with old postcards, train tickets, dog-eared post-it notes and pictures, all held up by magnetic letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘HAIL HAIL’, supported the most recent holiday snap of his now-ex girlfriend and himself on last years’ holiday in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Cyprus</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">She chose the destination and the hotel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He’d never liked the picture and saw this as the perfect opportunity to get rid of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was wearing a light brown dress, her tattoo just visible. She always had lovely hair, he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting across from her at the table was my friend, sitting awkwardly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looked at the picture again and told me he hated how his smile looked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He tore the picture in two, placed in inside an old cereal packet that had been left on the floor, and threw the packet with the picture inside in the bin.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Celtic versus Dundee United kicks off in a few hours and already I’m regretting my pre-match drinking choice. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He opened the fridge door and took out 8 cans of lager, purchased that very morning for £5 from the shop opposite the Chinese takeaway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girl who worked there on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons was one of his first ever girlfriends and he always thought about her when he went in after work on Wednesdays, or so he was telling me now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He opened the first can which spilled over his jeans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rubbed the stain in and sucked the remnants of the beer off his tobacco stained fingers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TV was the usual rubbish but he finally settled for a documentary on domestic violence rates against women in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Chile</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He downed the cans and stared at the screen.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This wasn’t what I had in mind when I had arranged to meet the guy, someone I had worked with when I was younger, but who up until this moment, hadn’t seen in years. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He remembered he’d taken the battery out of his mobile and it took him what seemed like ten minutes of rooting around on the floor to find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stood there thinking of an excuse to leave.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He turned the phone back on and rubbed his nose on his sleeve as he waited for his background to load up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The picture of the Celtic crest loaded up and he walked to his window until the bars showed full signal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He placed the phone down and tapped on the blinds in impatience as he waited for ‘1 message received’ to flash up on the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He turned the phone around so that it was facing away from him and walked around his living room. After two or three laps of the room he walked up to the phone and turned it around excitedly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It was blank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He repeated this ritual four or five times and the outcome was always the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“Fucking slut”, he mouthed under his breath, and with that, he went to bed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Yes, bed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I left and went to the game. United got gubbed as is often the case in the east end of Glasgow and I vowed never to drink in the house of a Celtic supporting friend I hadn’t seen in years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A place in the stand</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-51191444763392581692011-11-16T12:54:00.001-08:002011-11-16T13:02:23.212-08:00Se Viene – it’s coming<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iWSLK0j8B-E/TsQk0m0tQrI/AAAAAAAAAC0/gcMYiBqKWws/s1600/1239995104629_f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="187" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iWSLK0j8B-E/TsQk0m0tQrI/AAAAAAAAAC0/gcMYiBqKWws/s320/1239995104629_f.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Acrid smoke bellows out the exhaust as the old bus pulls away from the traffic lights, struggling to gain momentum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hands beat against the window and yellow and blue balloons are handed out among those present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The armada grows and soon we’re surrounded by scooters, trucks and vans with flags fluttering out the window.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We leave the bus and are met with groups of youths huddling in the street wearing bucket hats, smoking joints and sipping from concealed bottles of </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Palermo</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> lager. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boca Juniors against River Plate: the biggest game in the world, or at least that’s the billing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is it? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The line stretches from the back of the stand down streets with broken paving slabs and the musty air is punctuated with the smell of shit and oil from the port and cannabis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re bustled into a line of police officers, searched, then searched again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More police, more searches, then to our left, the clearly visible sign of row upon row of red and white clad River supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Boca fans surge forward but are met with a solid police presence and after extricating ourselves from the crush, we’re in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Hands bang against the wall and fireworks go off as we make our way up to the decrepit terracing. ‘<i>Boca, mi buen amigo esta campaña volveremos a estar contigo,</i>’ Sing the fans as more balloons and shredded paper is thrust into my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Piss runs down the concrete walkway from the overflowing toilets and people run past to get a spot on the terrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look down to my right and below me I see the pitch, partially hidden behind a fence and I make my way down into the packed terrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m here – I’m at El Superclassico.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘They’re filth, fucking maggot infested filth,’ says a friend of mine and River socia as we sip merlot in a poorly lit bar in northern </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Buenos Aires</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He removes his top to show the tattoo of the River emblem and beats his chest as he shouts out the words, ‘Fucking filth, Blair!’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The La Boca region of </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Buenos Aires</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> is a tourist trap and with that comes the petty crime associated with such areas: theft, muggings etc. Look beyond the painted houses of </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Caminito and La Boca is a hard place: nestling on the water’s edge and spreading inland, the area is where most Argentinian immgrants first arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such immigrants founded Boca Juniors in 1905, chosing to play in the colours of the next ship’s flag to sail into port: Sweden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>River, too, were founded in La Boca barrio, a merger between Rosales and Santa Rosa, before leaving the area to take up residence in Núñez. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In my first morning in Argentina I watched Boca Juniors play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I reached the area with the shabby houses, industrial buildings and brightly coloured tourist bars and bought a ticket from a man in the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the ticket safe in my pocket I walked around the area and bought a beer from a local bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I sipped the beer, my eye caught the sight of a mural.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A faded, blue and yellow hue of the Boca team arm in arm, knees bent, looking out at the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the right of the mural, someone has written in barely legible red and white paint: ‘PUTA BOCA’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I finish my beer and make my way to the game.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But this was months ago and this game is different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is El<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Superclassico.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I find a gap in the terrace and make my way to the centre of the stand. The crowd surges forward as a punch<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is thrown, then another, then another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man is pulled up, bloodied and bruised and is dragged to the back of the stand by friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Above us, bricks, coins, condoms full of piss and paint rain down onto the Boca supporters. La Doce, the Boca Barra Brava unfurl three large banners in the stand opposite while the River supporters throw red and white plastic ribbons over the lip of the terrace, each one dripping in God knows what. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">More objects rain down on the Boca support and others are carried up towards the back of the stand as sporadic fighting for space breaks out. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There’s an hour and a half until kick-off. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The terrace is full with little if any room to move, there isn’t a police officer in sight and if the man behind me was to fall, I would too, then the person in front of them, then the person in front of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd bounce up and down in unison and the sway makes many lose their footing, with those unsteady on their feet quick to grab onto others who pull them up.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It’s noisy, it’s hot, it’s packed and it’s passionate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The derby is one of the biggest in the world, of course it is and to argue otherwise would be lunancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, take any country, any derby, remove the control element, in this case police and include a general disregard for suppporters safety and you could recreate this atmosphere anywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What makes a Boca supporter any more passionate or devoted to his side than that of a Hearts fan, or a River fan to that of Hibernian? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Passion exists in all supporters, no matter which team they support, something which a derby match will </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">aggrandise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been to football matches all over mainland </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Europe</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and all over </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Scotland</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and I expected </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">El Superclassico to take my breath away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It transcends the microcosm of the city with interest spreading throughout Argentina and the world but this can be applied to most derby matches. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I feel that it’s the climate the game is played in, not the game itself which makes the derby such a prominent one. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The circumstances of the situation increase the volatility of the fixture and as such, t</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">he difference between a crowd and an unorganised mass of people is easier to see. Most crowds and most supporters will have a common goal which makes them act as one, sing as one, chant as one. The volatility of this in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Argentina</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> can’t be overlooked and this, allied with the passion which exists in all derbies is what makes the fixture so prominent on the world football calendar, not the game itself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-63069284649938319192011-11-08T13:40:00.000-08:002011-11-08T13:44:55.300-08:00A Dundee Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4uaXE7vEHOk/TrmhPf6tghI/AAAAAAAAACs/zx0o0faYiU4/s1600/%2524%2528KGrHqR%252C%2521iQE1Noo%2529f0lBN%252CpPn1%252Bmw%257E%257E_35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4uaXE7vEHOk/TrmhPf6tghI/AAAAAAAAACs/zx0o0faYiU4/s1600/%2524%2528KGrHqR%252C%2521iQE1Noo%2529f0lBN%252CpPn1%252Bmw%257E%257E_35.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">During my time at university a few years ago, I volunteered as an Independent board member for an advocacy support provider. I would join directors of NHS Tayside, local authority members and social workers to discuss how best to support people in the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, I was lucky enough to attend a house call through the organisation I worked for and wrote about the experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with most conversation starters in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Scotland</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, football took prominence. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Myself and a carer arrived early at the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man’s daughter answered the door, a forty-something professional with a bright and infectious smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked up the stairs to see an old man with a small and dry face staring back at me, skin shrunken to his cheekbones. He said hello and silently shuffled to the bathroom where he told me to follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bathroom smelled like damp towels and shaving cream and as he splashed his face with cold water he asked what team I supported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Dundee United,” I answered, and he raised a wry smile. I helped him into his living room where a small dog in the corner of the room raised its head slowly in acknowledgement at our entrance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Good girl,” he said, while ruffling behind the dog's ears. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The room was awash with Dundee FC memorabilia: pictures, posters; programmes and old, yellow-tinged and frayed ticket stubs pinned directly to the wall.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He went into the kitchen while the carer spoke to his daughter and once again asked me to follow him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tin kettle whistled on the gas hob while he removed a mug from the draining board and rubbed it against his jumper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He poured the water over the teabag and pushed it hard against the side of the mug with a dirty spoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Sipping his lukewarm tea while sitting on his sofa, with its supporting springs long since abandoned, he told me about Dundee Football Club.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He was of a generation who would watch </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> one week, United the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told me about the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and of the </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> sides of the 60s, 70s and 80s and we spoke about football in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was lucid, insightful and as Dundee United fan I was transfixed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could talk about football all day and sometimes do and this man was telling me all about my rivals, a team I dislike immensely for a variety of reasons – I enjoyed every second of the conversation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Then he told me that It was a Thursday morning and on a Thursday morning he went to the grave of his wife, Hazel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted me to accompany him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His daughter had things to discuss with the support worker and I accepted the invite. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Every Thursday morning for the past three years, he would get the bus into town and walk the five or so minutes up the hill that overlooked the graveyard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had a bench that he liked to sit on and watch the birds in the trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He liked the birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hazel had liked them too, he said. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After watching them for an hour or so while we dissected Dundee’s current financial plight (this was during the first time the Club went into administration) he would walk down to the graveyard and push open the gate, rubbing his fingers along the bars as his did so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He watched as black flecks of paint fell onto the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had done this the first time he had visited Hazel in the graveyard and carried on his little tradition. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He placed the flowers he had bought at the headstone and meticulously picked up bits of old leaves and grass that had been blown onto her plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stood up and breathed deeply, resting on a stick and my arm for support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told her about the new neighbours who had moved into the flat above him and about the old alarm clock that no longer worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would have to get it fixed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He told her about his shopping and about the news that he had watched on television and read in the papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes in the summer, he would bring a newspaper with him and read her the stories – this included reading the entire Dundee FC match reports. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He told her about what he had had for dinner and about the new shops that had opened in town, or more likely had closed and he breathed deeply and touched the cold, grey headstone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tucking his shirt into a pair of old trousers that no longer fitted him, he took one last look at the grave and walked back along the path with myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He placed his hand on the black gate and rubbed his right hand over the flaking black paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He pulled his shirt collar tight against his face and we walked slowly and methodically back to the bus stop. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We spoke about football and both the </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> clubs and he thanked me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My hatred for Dundee Football Club has lessened since the club was relegated, but this man also helped considerably in changing my perspective on my city neighbours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are numerous reasons why I long for another </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> derby match; meeting this man is undoubtedly one. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-68059848954607948972011-11-03T13:58:00.000-07:002011-11-03T14:01:09.908-07:00FIFA: rolling in the Doha<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2_nXq2Mf7dA/TrMAS_FUmII/AAAAAAAAACc/FnT5xzFoqx8/s1600/Qatar-World-Cup-006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" ida="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2_nXq2Mf7dA/TrMAS_FUmII/AAAAAAAAACc/FnT5xzFoqx8/s320/Qatar-World-Cup-006.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">Khalifa al-Thani starts the bidding</span></strong></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"On behalf of millions of people in the Middle East, thank you for believing in us, thank you for having such bold vision. I can promise we will not let you down."</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Last month’s comments by FIFA executive committee member, Theo Zwanziger questioning the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> has reignited the issue after the German claimed his fellow members had been pressurised by their governments to vote for the bid.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The 66-year-old, said:”In my opinion the vote for </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> was decided by some members of the executive committee who are in a very close relationship with their governments, who pushed the political case for </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“I think the choice of </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> from a sporting perspective is still questionable because, due to the summer climate and the size of the country, a World Cup should not be </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">held there.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But is the decision to host International football’s showpiece event in a country where the national team has never qualified for the competition really that bad a decision?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">While Qatar is undoubtedly a minnow both in a football and sovereign state context, it has won the Gulf Cup twice - in 1992 and 2004 - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>both times as a successful host.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The country will also host the Asian Cup in 2012. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that an oil rich country such as Qatar is ludicrously wealthy and there are already plans afoot to incorporate state-of-the-art technology: solar thermal collectors and photovoltaic panels, the aim of which would be to keep the pitch temperatures at a manageable level. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This abundant finance will also make sure the infrastructure will be of the highest standard possible and building problems won’t even come into consideration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can Greek delegates say the same in the run-up to the Olympic Games, or those in charge of </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">India</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">’s role in the Commonwealth Games?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have previously written on the relationship football fans have with alcohol, at least in the main.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The commonly held belief is that alcohol is illegal in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar-</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> this is not the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, it is an offence to drink or be drunk in public. Foreigners living in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> can apply for special permits, allowing them to buy and consume alcohol, while many of the upmarket hotels will cater to the needs of supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps given the associated violence and unrest often associated with International football matches on the back of all-day drinking binges, then the difficulties in obtaining alcohol may not be such a bad thing after all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Politically, </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> has an autocratic regime and there is no denying that its political system and polity is far from anything in </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Western Europe</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Complaints about human rights are rife yet this did not stop </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">China</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> – a country where imprisonment of political opponents and journalists critical of the government is still common - from hosting the Olympic Games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Russia</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, too, was awarded the 2018 World Cup on the same day as </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> got 2022's. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the country with a non-existent civil society, no free media, a mockery of a political and judicial system and a President and Prime Minister who have flouted European Court of Human Rights resolutions on Chechnya; fuelling unchecked violence in the North Caucasus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a country responsible for extrajudicial executions, torture, and enforced disappearances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The human rights arguments it would seem, do not apply to </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Russia</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But the associated problems regarding the decision remain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of the cornerstone of the bid was the legacy it would leave for the people, but what is this legacy? The country intends to dismantle the newly built stadia after the event and give them to developing countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How will this benefit grass roots football in the country?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Lord Triesman hinted that during the bid stages, </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> was in collusion with the bidders from </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spain</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Portugal</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, horrifying many further at FIFA's decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Triesman also told a Parliamentary committee in May this year that the members of FIFA's executive committee were guilty of "improper and unethical behaviour" in the early stages of the bid. Perhaps – from a cynical viewpoint – the decision to have the respective tournaments in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Russia</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> falls on one crucial element: both countries are free of government regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FIFA’s tax ruling system alarmed many governments – but not </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FIFA will be the real the real winners from the decision, not Qataris. </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">England</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">'s £18m campaign received just two votes at the vote in </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Zurich</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and while the campaign arguably lacked a solid and strong argument, the overriding suspicion of corruption surrounding the bidding puts doubts in the mind that the country had any chance in the beginning. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The anger that has emanated from the decision doesn’t relate to </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Qatar</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, or for that matter perceived problems within the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s more that the decision to award the country the World Cup Finals illustrates the corruption of FIFA and highlights how the organisation works: corruption, brinksmanship and bribes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A place in the stand</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-57172771378831033092011-10-25T13:36:00.000-07:002011-10-25T13:38:47.222-07:00Laterme and Liege: football and separation in Belgium<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PIJ44u4jG18/TqcdO9xrX7I/AAAAAAAAACM/99caci6-FZQ/s1600/imagesCAZ2HZCG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PIJ44u4jG18/TqcdO9xrX7I/AAAAAAAAACM/99caci6-FZQ/s1600/imagesCAZ2HZCG.jpg" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt;"><br />
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</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">After sixteen months of infighting and constitutional bickering Belgium’s long-standing political impasse is drawing to a close. The country beats even Iraq and Cambodia in the length of time it has been without a solid government, yet the Socialist Elio di Rupo looks set to become the new Prime Minister once a deal is concluded; however like most things in Belgium, a final decision looks set to run and run. The pressure is most certainly on with the heart of Europe even facing the prospect of a downgrade to its already shaky credit rating.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">During more than 500 days of political dialogue and brinkmanship a deal is expected soon, one in which will most certainly see self-rule transferred to the francophone Wallonia regions and Dutch speaking Flanders. Di Rupo himself has said: “The Belgium of today will differ greatly from the Belgium of tomorrow”. </span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It is in football where these divisions are often polarised, particularly when dealing with the identities of the Flemish and Wallonaise. However, most Belgian football fans would argue that football in the country has drawn communities together rather than apart. The importance of this cannot be overlooked, particularly given the current political friction. </span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But to ignore politics in Belgian football would be naïve. While relations with teams from other regions might be amicable, it should not detract from the inherent problems, particularly in the context of teams where supporters of Flemish and Walloon origin are of the same number. </span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Belgian football story really comes into the forefront of Belgian society in the 1960’s. A series of constitutional reforms took place, which moved the country to a disjointed political system, drawn up along cultural and linguistic lines. Many Flemish clubs changed their names from French to Dutch during this period as a direct result of these reforms.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Belgium runs along lines of an emasculated central government attempting to run smoothly with a series of community-based political parties. The analogy also applies to certain Belgian football supporters.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The supremely grounded Flemish support of Racing Genk, a club from the heartland of industrial Flanders, recently abused fans of Standard Liege, a team from the largest metropolitan region in Wallonia, with taunts of, ‘Les Wallons, c’est du caca,’ [Wallons are shit]. The chanting made clear that ideas of separation and differences were still a commonly held viewpoint. The Belgian football federation subsequently fined the club. </span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Wallonia may have seen changes in its economic role, necessitated by the recognition that it is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe, a fact not lost on the Flemish. Belgian football however has seen no sea change to its powerhouses and with the exception of Standard, the Flemish clubs (notably RSC Anderlecht, a club that has engrained Flemish roots) have long dominated the league.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Club Brugge and Royal Antwerp both attract support from a number of Flemish extremists, particularly that of the Flemish Movements associated right-wing splinter groups: Vlaams Belang, Voorpost and Nationalistische Studentenvereniging. While these supporters are very much in the minority, it does not make their presence any less notable.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This aspect of Flemish nationalism, particularly of that which is part and parcel of the Flemish football clubs and supporters has even gone as far as the mooting of plans to change the Flemish flag, the aim of which would be to increase the feeling of unity within the country.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The flag, which is often on show at football matches - particularly that of Club Brugge - is often seen as a symbol of separation while the recent scenes of Flemish protesters, many of who were affiliated to the Flemish-based clubs of Lierse and Beerschot AC, demanding the break-up of Belgium and waving the yellow and black flags in protest at French-speaking mayors caused outrage across Wallonia.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Kris Peeters, head of the Flemish regional government, said: "Flanders stands for an open and warm society. Sadly, not everybody is convinced," in what was an impassioned plea. </span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yet Belgian society – in the main – remains tolerant and culturally flexible, albeit one in which the populace lacks a Belgian national pride and self-confidence. It does not however, lack a national identity. The Flemish and Walloons have more in common than they’d care to admit, as do their respective teams: the best talent being poached from the domestic league.</span></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Belgian football has come a long way in bypassing divisions of race, language and class, even if these identifiable markers remain important. For example, Yves Camille Désiré Leterme, a Flemish Belgian politician and leader of the Christian Democratic Party - itself aligned to right of the political spectrum - is a diehard and unwavering supporter of the predominantly Walloon supported team of Standard Liege.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">If this is anything to go by then it’s the state of Belgium, not the Belgian football supporters, with an identity crisis.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-70854966763954357862011-10-17T13:17:00.000-07:002011-10-20T08:09:50.821-07:00Football and identity: who ate all the pride?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m_ziSF1XZM0/TqA5gp8QZhI/AAAAAAAAAB8/W4qTThmao8k/s1600/identity-crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m_ziSF1XZM0/TqA5gp8QZhI/AAAAAAAAAB8/W4qTThmao8k/s320/identity-crisis.jpg" width="254" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign,” wrote the political scientist, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Benedict Anderson. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The identity debate in the United Kingdom is controversial and one in which is often shied away from, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">with an ambivalent relationship in society; yet sport, particularly football, undoubtedly offers an outlet for national pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The French World Cup win in 1998 was earmarked for special praise given the varied ethnic mix in the squad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The victory illustrated a sea change in how the French people gave a small endorsement of communal diversity; within a less than subtle monocultural environment, at least in sections of French society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lionel Jospin, then the Socialist Prime Minister, said: "What better example of our unity and our diversity than this magnificent team".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The paradox of Jospin’s comment – a socialist raising the flag of national identity up the proverbial flagpole – helps to further illustrate the power of sport in relation to national identity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Part of fandom requires a certain amount of immersion in history and tradition, with supporters proud of their respective club’s regional identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here is where things get complicated.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Certain football clubs have become entities in which ties of regional, political or ethnic identity have become part of the politics and cultural issues of a country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arguably </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spain</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> throws up the best examples in </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Western Europe</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, even without focussing on Real Madrid, </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Barcelona</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and the politics of the Basque country, at least for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allegiance to </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Valencia</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, for example, is not only a statement about football, but also says something about the relationship to the Spanish state and an allegiance to a specific regional Valencian identity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The game in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spain</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> has long served as a focal point and outlet for supporters to highlight their pride of belonging to a particular region, autonomous or otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football has acted as a vessel for political protest, the hope of which to attenuate the national polity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Comparisons during Franco’s regime and the appellation of ‘furia española’ stuck like burnt rice to a paellera – the archetypal stereotype of Spanish masculinity and hot-tempered rage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football, it would seem, offers many opportunities to draw comparisons with national identity, for better or worse </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Football has become much more than a metaphor for national or regional identity, however much of an inadequate conduit that may be for some of the lesser footballing nations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Clubs in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spain</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, particularly that of Catalonian Barcelona, became emblematic of a strong regional identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The decades of suppression had fans flocking back to the ground, eager to openly express a renewed sense of pride and passion: supporting regional teams, sporting regional colours.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Belgium</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, too, offers similar comparisons when recognising the different regional identities of the Flemish and Wallonaise. However, most Belgian football fans would argue that football in the country has drawn communities together rather than apart. The importance of this cannot be overlooked, particularly given the current political scission between the two communities. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But to ignore politics in Belgian football would be naïve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While relations with teams from other regions might be amicable, it should not detract from the inherent problems, particularly in the context of teams where supporters of Flemish and Walloon origin are of the same number.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That said, Belgian football has come a long way in bypassing divisions of race, language and class, even if these identifiable markers remain important. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">For example, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yves Camille Désiré Leterme, a Flemish Belgian politician and leader of the Christian Democratic Party is a diehard and unwavering supporter of the predominly Walloon supported team of Royal Standard de Liège.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Arguably proof, if proof were needed that football is after all, just a game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That said, if national identity relates to the feeling of belonging to a nation, then the feeling we get of belonging to a team is just as great, if not greater. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Just a game? </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Maybe not. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-88969223193390428852011-10-06T06:15:00.000-07:002011-10-06T06:15:29.290-07:00Schismogenesis and the South Stand fence<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uQze_nmaZOo/To2pl7EuSoI/AAAAAAAAABw/Cus6P_iLL0k/s1600/BrickWall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" kca="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uQze_nmaZOo/To2pl7EuSoI/AAAAAAAAABw/Cus6P_iLL0k/s320/BrickWall.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The creation of division<br />
<br />
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">You’re packed in tight at the turnstile as everyone it would seem had the same idea of one last pint before making their way to the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A cold wind from the </span><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">North Sea</span></place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> blasts your face as you walk up the small row of concrete steps into the South Stand, Pittodrie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You squeeze past the spiralling queue of those waiting for the toilet and those for food and walk down the stairs towards your seat, a multicoloured collage of yellow and reds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“You fucking pikey jute bastards,” shouts a man from the home end, all of two metres away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exercise doesn’t appear a priority for him as he pulls his massive figure up the stairs with the aid the fence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A WPC asks if I know the man – I don’t. Wanker gestures are exchanged while a group of boys at the back tell others they’re going to get their heads kicked in outside the ground.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Dundee United fans produce £20 notes and wave them in the direction of the home support, questioning the </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Aberdeen</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> fans’ ability to read or write, but consoling them with the fact that they must all surely be able to operate farmyard machinery. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">And so it continues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This barrage of abuse, some humorous, most not, for the duration of the first half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It ends, at least in the terms of cooperative participation when one team score, on this occasion (as with most) Dundee United. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Schismogenesis in action. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Schismogenesis is as term introduced by the social scientist, Gregory Bateson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He used the word to describe relationship processes among people, defining the term as: ‘a process of differentiation in the norms of individual behaviour resulting from cumulative interactions between individuals.’ </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Bateson observed the behaviour patterns of the Iatmal Indians of New Guinea to try and define the process by which an individual assumes a personal identity in a large social dynamic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His experiments found than when one person, most commonly a man, began to show off, then others would copy him and seek to outdo his actions. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">You shout at me, I shout back louder, you say something derogatory about my team, it’s returned with force – the constant escalation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as this behaviour continues along the same lines, things just get worse until the process is interrupted by some condition that interferes with it. A break in play, the half-time whistle sounds, a goal.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A gesture would provide either a competitive or complimentary reaction – one assuming one role, while one assumed the other. It’s all too easy to draw comparisons to what goes on within our stadiums. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The point, of course, is that unless there is an agreement<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>upon the limit to the development of provocation and response, the relationship just keeps going until it hits a natural stopping point, a collapse of the relationship because neither side can continue to meet and exceed the other’s call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bad tackle sees it escultate on both sides, a goal, reduces it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The losing fans can’t compete with the euphoria and exuberance. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But the theory works on a whole number of football related issues; paranoia, rivalry, hatred. A group of supporters which is highly suspicious and mistrusting of other fans, or of a particular media outlet due to percieved injustices will behave in such a way that these outlets or supporters may wish to keep their distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Observing people withdrawing from debate and criticising their club, the supporters feel less secure and more suspicious that others are against them. Their own behavior generates responses in people that reinforce their beliefs. </span></div><div align="justify" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Schismogenesis:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s part of our game, whether we know it or not. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A place in the stand </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-17360259745949867912011-10-03T12:20:00.000-07:002011-10-03T12:25:55.145-07:00Don't cry for me Banda Roja<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AfHdbOmt8oo/TooK_Qv37EI/AAAAAAAAABs/yX_Z9pMBtbE/s1600/IMGA0115.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" kca="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AfHdbOmt8oo/TooK_Qv37EI/AAAAAAAAABs/yX_Z9pMBtbE/s320/IMGA0115.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It’s </span><time hour="7" minute="0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">7am</span></time><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and still early as I sit in the Forrest Gump cafe, Nuñez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I flick over the previous days crumpled and coffee stained Ole sports supplement and sip my lukewarm coffee contemplatively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman staggers through the front door, her mascara in all the wrong places, the smell of her body odour creeps over the bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She argues with the waiter who removes her from the premises, swearing loudly in the process and blessing himself after each utterance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This is my local.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look up and nod to the barman who brings me my bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sit by the window each morning and watch the world come and go before getting the Subway to </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">El Centro</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, before returning at </span><time hour="19" minute="0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">7pm</span></time><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> for a few beers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smell of dog piss is ripe at this time of the morning, a pre-requisite of any of </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Buenos Aires</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">’ affluent areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I leave Nuñez, heartland of River Plate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m moving nearer to the city centre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bar lacks the football memorabilia of a football pub but the place smells of <i>Los Millonarios.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>River is in the blood around here. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I’m joined by a friend and River socio, Italo each Thursday evening and we drink red wine and </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Palermo</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> lager into the early hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italo is older than I, but at 33, knows a lot about the club he loves – River Plate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He regales me with stories of the famous ‘Champions of the Century’ tag which the club holds after a special edition of the Argentine sports magazine ‘El Gráfico’ named the club, ‘Campeón Del Siglo’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">He tells me of Diego Simeone’s appointment to manager of the club in 2008, leading the club to its first league title in four years by winning the Clausura championship and how his ex-wife is a ‘puta’ for raising their infant son to support Club Atlético Tigre, a team from Victoria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s out of spite, Blair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spite,” he tells me over mouthfuls of wine as he shakes his head. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Today is the last day I will see Italo and he brings me a River scarf as a parting gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I take him to </span><city><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Palermo</span></place></city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and buy him dinner and we say our goodbyes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Months later, I receive this email:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“It’s over, Blair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fucked us”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The unthinkable happened and River had been relegated. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This was the main body of the email, no more had to be said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had attached some coverage from the aftermath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The national daily, Clarin, wrote: "No-one, absolutely no-one, will be able to forget this day."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ole, a daily favourite of mine ran with: "Incredible but real". </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">José María Aguilar had left his role of president of the club with a debt of over 10 million dollars and his replacement, Daniel Pasarella, had his work cut out from the start. I watched River a lot throughout the 2011 Clausura tournament and a lowly position in the final table led to a dreaded promoción match, a two-legged play-off against Belgrano de Córdoba, a team which had finished fourth in the 2010–11 Primera B.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As an aside, the city is reported to have the most beautiful women in </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Argentina</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and after spending a weekend there, it’s hard to disagree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Belgrano won the first leg 2–0 at Córdoba, and held on for a 1–1 draw in the away leg. The defeat led to the unthinkable: River Plate was relegated to Nacional B for the first time in its history. </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">IItalo, who signs off his emails with, ‘<i>El tiempo lo cura todo’</i> (time heals all wounds) hasn’t been back to the watch his beloved River.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">‘<i>Heard melodies are sweet, those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on</i>,’ wrote John Keats in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eternal hope allied with eternal contradiction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Italo believes things will get better and despite not returning, remains a devotee to the River cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants things to get better but ultimately knows that they are unlikely to do so, at least for some time. This contradictory state of mind is the mark of the football fan – of all football fans. I know Dundee United isn’t going to win the league but I believe we could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football lets us believe and disbelieve things simultaneously – where else can we do that? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-51979587404088639302011-09-20T05:22:00.000-07:002011-09-20T09:13:50.219-07:00All Boys: a tale of two taxis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n8YYTLqbGxY/TniDP0fUUlI/AAAAAAAAABo/1ELp94YLESw/s1600/malvinas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246px" rba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n8YYTLqbGxY/TniDP0fUUlI/AAAAAAAAABo/1ELp94YLESw/s320/malvinas.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It’s 6.30am, April 30, 2011 and I fumble with the loose change in my pocket. “Faster, faster,” shouts the already aggrieved taxi driver before I thrust the required amount into his sweaty palm. He grunts his thanks and gives me the answer to the drunken question I had first posed to him on entering the cab. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“All Boys play Argentinos Juniors. Go see them”.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">It was some of the best advice I could have been given. I had been in <country-region w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Argentina</country-region></country-region> for a month before this weekend and had already seen quite a few matches, including: Boca Juniors, <city w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Atlanta</city></city>, Racing Club and River Plate and would attend many more before returning to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Scotland</place></country-region></place></country-region>, including the ‘</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Superclásico’ itself. In not one of these games did I feel as part of the crowd, or become engrossed in the communal delirium and chanting. I felt a connection with <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Club Atlético All Boys and I felt at home, even welcomed within the stadium, </span>Estadio Islas Malvinas. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Before leaving for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Argentina</place></country-region></place></country-region> I sought the advice of two of the country’s top football experts: Rupert Fryer and Sam Kelly. Rupert, himself a journalist and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">co-founder of <a href="http://southamericanfootball.co.uk/"><span style="color: purple;">Southamericanfootball.co.uk</span></a> and Sam, the man behind <a href="http://hastaelgolsiempre.com/"><span style="color: purple;">hastaelgolsiempre.com</span></a> were fantastic with their advice and I can’t thank them enough. Sam in particular would receive an email from myself most Friday nights asking for the weekend’s lower league fixtures within travelling distance of my flat. However, no email had been sent on this weekend, thus my drunken discussions with the taxi driver outside a nightclub in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Palermo</place></city></place></city>. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I had lost the keys to my apartment and had to wake up my Dutch flatmate which seemed to greatly inconvenience her. I staggered into bed and set my alarm for 10am. I awoke at 11am, sun trickling through the window, the remnants of what was now stale and lukewarm water which had collected in a puddle on the floor due to a leaky pipe in the bathroom, encroached under my bedroom door. I jumped in the shower and made my way into the city centre. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I got on Line B, the red line at <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state></place></state> and made my way out west, the furthest I had been in the city since arriving. I can’t remember which of the stops I left the train at but was met with the smell of chorizo cooking on street barbeques and early Saturday morning shoppers smelling fruit at the various markets. I had no idea where I was and with the lack of sleep, a mild hangover and a level of spoken Spanish which was still very much in its formative stages, I did consider turning back. I had previously ended up helplessly lost in my first week while trying to walk to El Monumental from the city centre - not a great idea in hindsight. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A taxi slowed as I stood at the side of the road, making the decision for me: I was going to the game. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The driver seemed shocked when I told him where I wanted to go and screamed with laughter when I told him I was Scottish football fan, living in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Argentina</place></country-region></place></country-region>, interested in watching All Boys. He began and finished each sentence with ‘Jesus Christ’, while taking his hands off the wheel, tapping his forefinger on his forehead and looking back at me, hoarsely screaming: “Jesus Christ! From <country-region w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Scotland</country-region></country-region>, too, from <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Scotland</place></country-region></place></country-region>, Jesus Christ!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">We stopped while he phoned his wife and daughter to tell them of his latest fare – I was invited to lunch with the family, however I politely refused. He dropped me off at the top of a side street and told me the direction to walk in, shaking my hand warmly and asking if we could pose together for a photo. On leaving, I heard him mutter: “Jesus Christ, from <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Scotland</place></country-region>. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Scotland</place></country-region>, Jesus Christ!” </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There are approaches to stadia all over the world which quite literally take your breath away. To say the Estadio Islas Malvinas is one such ground would be disingenuous. Groups of fans huddled around the street in bucket hats and replica tops while I walked around the full length of the ground, carefully trying to avoid the ubiquitous dog shit strewn streets of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Buenos Aires</place></city>. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The game ended 0-0 but that didn’t matter.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I became engrossed in the chants and the welcome I received and the passion of the support was inspiring. It rained and I was offered an umbrella, I dropped my glasses and an old man bent down to pick them up for me. Those around me sought my views on the game, some agreed, some didn’t. It didn’t matter. I became part of the community, part of the club, or at least it felt that way. The level of interaction was something I didn’t experience in Argentinian football again.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="separator" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><shape alt="" id="BLOGGER_object_0" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 258pt; width: 318.75pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:href="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MRGRAN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.png"></imagedata></shape></span><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/thcms2AmNnw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Football clubs become part of our community, part of who we are. They’re all-inclusive and independent of others and they’re ours. There is a social coherence in place amongst the devoted; the fans become part of the club. Our base, the stadium. Four stands facing inwards where we go to share our passion, excluding the outside world in the process, yet still providing one of the most inclusive experiences. All Boys did that for me and having watched games all over Europe and <place w:st="on">South America</place>, no other team has. The club, which has many facets, has become our private institution, one is which is shaped by the local community, shaped by us and All Boys is now part of my football make-up, part of me. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">A place in the stand</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533503242777223293.post-49174240320611382382011-09-12T12:14:00.000-07:002011-10-05T13:40:37.685-07:00Football: no spare change?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wKzKVQ1HfWc/Tm5S_QG2yeI/AAAAAAAAABk/JzA09o-xBNo/s1600/art-banksy-i-want-change2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" nba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wKzKVQ1HfWc/Tm5S_QG2yeI/AAAAAAAAABk/JzA09o-xBNo/s320/art-banksy-i-want-change2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The footballing stereotype is alive and kicking with crude caricatures of the ‘average’ fan prevalent and even the game itself drawing sweeping generalisations, some unfounded, some not. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Football: it’s a man’s game - see Richard Keys’s and Andy Gray’s career destroying remarks as the most notable example of such viewpoints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, and as if the sexism wasn’t enough there’s the racism, mass homophobia and general loutishness to contend with, too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Or so we’re told. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Then there’s the money, as prominent an issue as any, whatever the country. Samuel Eto’o and the grotesque amount of money he now receives as part of the deal with Russian club, Anzhi Makhachkala, not to mention the recent spending spree by Manchester City - </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">about 76-million pounds in the last transfer window, alone – will have many questioning the moral credentials of the ‘people’s game’. </span><br />
</div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Yes, professional football, like a whole manner of sports, will toss up examples of obscene salaries and overblown budgets, but these examples are never allied with others in the entertainment industry. Those involved in the music or film industry rarely receive the in-depth scrutiny. </span><br />
</div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">What do these players do to justify spending far more than the average salary to secure their services? In fact, even those who are only moderately decent are more than handsomely rewarded for the job they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t need to look far for accusations of greed to creep up, whether spurred on my players’ agents or otherwise. </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Finances are at the heart of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football clubs are businesses after all. </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><country-region><place><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Spain</span></place></country-region><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> and </span><country-region><place><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Italy</span></place></country-region><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> both saw their respective league schedules disrupted following the strike actions of players’ unions, with the Spanish case in particular an interesting one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It focussed on the players’ desire to have their contracts honoured if their clubs were liquidated. The strike was particularly important because six Primera Liga sides: Real Zaragoza, Racing Santander, Real Mallorca, Real Betis, Rayo Vallecano and Granada are at this time all experiencing some form of bankruptcy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A collectivist response to Barca and Real’s domination, perhaps? </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Italian strikes also had finances at its core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The strikers (midfielders, defenders and goalkeepers, too) contested proposals which would allow clubs to exert pressure or even force players to move on in their final year of a contract as well as banning them from making any non-football related earnings. </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Is football now morally bankrupt?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, of course not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like most things, the focus just falls on the negative aspects of the game. </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There isn’t enough done to champion the positives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women’s role in the game, for instance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take Karren Brady, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brady was another target of Keys’s comments after he called her a “footballer’s wife”. This despite her former role as managing director of Birmingham City Football Club. There are a number of high profile women involved in the sport throughout all levels, not to mention a female football league which sees season-on-season growth and a recent increase in public interest. </span><br />
</div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There are still underlying issues there, but these issues are problems with society as a whole, not just that of football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The game is used as a scapegoat at times, the sporting pariah, as are its many supporters but unjustifiably so.</span><br />
</div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The myopic analysis which the game receives is wrong on so many levels and the positive are all too often glossed over in favour over the sensationalist or negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another footballer implicated in an infidelity story, a drunken brawl or the actions of supporters overshadowing the match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Then there’s community, with football clubs as much of the fabric of the local area as any</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">thing else. The so-called ‘Blue Labour’ movement, an informal policy group established by Lord Maurice Glasman, himself an adviser to Ed Miliband, bemoaned the collapse of communitarian networks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While fairly embryonic, the movement has effectively been disbanded but its focus was the lack of emotional hubs within British communities. </span><br />
</div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Football clubs have a role to play in community, in creating a sense of unity and a sense of pride for an area. Many clubs now run ‘Football in the community’ programmes, quite successfully in most cases. Football does provide a focal point for the community and the success stories are there, you just have to look for them. </span></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="line-height: normal; margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="NormalWeb11" style="margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: #111111;">A place in the stand</span></span></div></div><div class="NormalWeb11" style="margin: 2.25pt 0cm 7.5pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com