Articles of Faith (6 page)

Desolate. The evisceration makes analysis appear futile. Vivid recollection torments the fastidious mind, unwilling to relinquish detail. The un-penalty – I frantically write optimistic headlines in my mind, Robinson Redeems Himself With Heroic Save – then the disappointment. The familiar cosy acceptance of yet another defeat.

Whilst we were one up for that unrealistic hour I felt the defeat gestating in my belly with every tick-tock of the inevitable clock, like when West Ham led Liverpool 2–0 in Cardiff last year; the score seemed absurd. I was relieved when Liverpool got one back because the single goal advantage was more manageable.

This sense of foreboding and tragic destiny is now our only comfort as we confront the likely absence of our national side from next year’s championship. I find it hard to condemn Steve McClaren. My facile rage rains impotently on his cadaver as furious blows rendered in a dream. It’s not his fault, I may as well rail against my cat for his inability to cook authentic Thai food.

‘When have we ever had a handsome England boss? Glenn Hoddle? Kevin Keegan?’

McClaren was never the man for the England job, yet I too joined the illusion after the three consecutive 3–0 victories. I conjured tableaux of trophies held above his head, glowing with triumph in addition to the glow it perpetually maintains. Even in this, a time of terrible defeat, the McClaren bonce glows on, a beacon of gleaming mediocrity.

It’s too soon for me to become giggly and receptive to the possibility of a romance with José Mourinho or Martin O’Neill; Mourinho won’t take it, he’s too dashed handsome – when have we ever had a handsome England boss? Glenn Hoddle? Kevin Keegan?

I don’t know if I can summon up the gusto to hope for Israel to produce a result, I’ve reached a familiar point where, through self-pity, I can see little point in progression: ‘We don’t deserve to qualify.’

I still cringe at the memory, decades old, of an infant chastisement – whilst out with a school friend and his mum I carried on in my typical picaresque fashion, flicking rubber bands and pocketing gobstoppers. I was told off by my mate’s mum. Naturally I was shocked and unnerved, as is always the case when a foreign authority exercises control, and I collapsed into tears. Later, when the dust had settled, consolation chocolate bars were offered. ‘I don’t deserve one,’ I sobbed, not entirely sincerely but with litres of sentimentality, sentimentality; the unearned emotion. Perhaps England need another wilderness period.

Like in 1994 when we didn’t travel to the States for the World Cup. I hate it though, it’s rubbish when England don’t qualify; watching the games through a transparent pain of regret and bitterness. I can’t focus, every kick and whistle a taunt, an indiscreet reminder of our absence. Who can we blame? The pitch?

Those bloody plastic pitches. When QPR and Luton used to have them it was a constant source of resentment, spoken of through clenched teeth. ‘That bloody AstroTurf,’ we all agreed, ‘it’s bad for the game.’ I don’t remember, in those days of the old First Division, the sides in question watering their plastic pitches though; that’s a bit baffling.

Surely one of the advantages, and may I stress unfair advantages, of having a plastic pitch is that you don’t have to water it or talk to it or fertilise it; the whole caper reeks of foul play. We could blame the referee for the penalty, which was palpably outside of the box, but then Wayne Rooney’s goal was offside anyway so we can’t even be righteously aggrieved by that unfair decision.

The FA, can we blame them? I suppose so but what’s the point, lovely old doddering sods they are, just trying to get through life. They’ll be penalised as much as anyone by the financial implications of not qualifying. Sponsorship and advertising money all nonsense now.

We shall spend next summer trapped in our impoverished nation, peeping through a crack in the curtain as the rest of Europe indulges in an orgy of sport with our national game; swarthy Italians, sophisticated Frenchmen or possibly even joyful Scots caressing and fondling our balls because we don’t know how to look after them. Never have I felt more irritated by my inherited indifference to rugby.

Tony Cottee requested that I be his guest in the lounge for West Ham’s last home game against Sunderland. In this context ‘being a guest in the lounge’ is not like it would be in
Lady Windermere’s Fan
where one would sit demurely exchanging epigrams with toffs. No, what it entails is appearing on a low-budget chat show, where you stand – that’s right, stand, I said it was low-budget – and are interviewed by Tony before an audience of West Ham fans tucking into their nosh.

One suspects that the sedentary diners have paid handsomely for this unique afternoon of entertainment and I was determined not to let them, or Tony, down. Cottee is a hero of mine, occupying a place in my affections so formative that it is almost impossible to view him objectively. He exists in a realm shared by childhood pets, Worzel Gummidge and Morrissey; a realm that precedes rational judgment, for the retina of my consciousness was scorched by his image before the facility to analyse had evolved.

‘I’m still a bit angry with the tennis player lady post-pubescently. Why didn’t she put knickers on?’

Like when I first saw that poster of the tennis player lady scratching her bottom it made me feel angry as at that early stage I didn’t know how to be aroused. Actually, I’m still a bit angry with her post-pubescently – why didn’t she put some knickers on if she knew she was going to be playing tennis? It’s flouting the sport’s conventions.

When I think of all the bother Andre Agassi endured at Wimbledon just for wearing those colourful cycling shorts it makes my blood boil. At least he didn’t turn up on Centre Court nude from the waist down dragging himself along the baseline like dogs do to scratch their arses. It’s one rule for the rich and one for the poor.

So with all that borne in mind you can imagine it was important I didn’t disappoint TC. He runs the executive lounges at Upton Park with the same febrile tenacity that he ran West Ham’s attack in the 80s, and he stoutly issued me with instructions: there are two lounges, we do them consecutively, Tony does the quiz and player of the month (my current heartthrob Mark Noble) then brings me out for a chat.

He asks me five questions – ‘No pressure, it’s just a laugh’ – then we repeat the process in the second lounge. Oh, and ‘No swearing’. Simple. Here are just some of the blunders I managed to jam into my five-minute interview in lounge one:

a) I said that I thought Dean Ashton would be influential even though Dean is currently out with a knee injury. Damn. I’ve been away for weeks in Tuscany with no internet or papers writing my autobiography. I was oblivious. I’m so sorry;

b) I implied that in the legendary partnership between Tony and my beloved Frank McAvennie, Tony was a goal scrounger while Frank did all the running, deftly comparing it to the onstage relationship between myself and the show’s esteemed host;

c) To illustrate the nature of man’s curiosity I evoked an analogy in which I queried whether the audience would open an envelope which contained a photograph of Her Majesty The Queen’s vagina.

And, finally, d) I said ‘fuck’. Before we embarked on the second lounge Tony’s main note was ‘watch the swearing’, he was quite firm about it, then during interview two, which was better, as I went to relay my royal analogy Tony expertly steered me into some chat about Billy Bonds.

And then to watch the match. I sat with Tony, his mate John and his lovely dad Clive to witness West Ham’s flattering 3–1 victory against the ‘Black Cats’ (I struggle with that nickname as it was only issued as the result of a poll in a local paper in Sunderland and I query whether or not actual Sunderland fans use it conversationally. Or if they’re too self-conscious thinking maybe they should’ve gone down a less obvious route of talismans for ill fortune in a blatant affront to their rivals Newcastle United’s nickname ‘the Magpies’) more shy about chanting than usual and profoundly touched that a man whom I used to study with awe as a child as he hustled defences and keepers and scored now sat beside me watching the team we both love.

EAST EAST East London. EAST EAST East London. It’s a simple enough chant, a peculiarly forceful and evocative ditty only relevant in the minute context of Upton Park for West Ham’s home games and for tiny allocated corners elsewhere when away. I mention it only in an attempt to popularise the lyric as the two ‘EASTS’ that precede ‘East London’ were immolated by a copy reader at the publisher of my forthcoming autobiography
My Booky Wook
– serialised in this paper a week Monday.

I was describing my early visits to the Boleyn ground with my Dad, and put’…on weekend trips to EAST EAST East London…’ as a coded message to the claret and blue army. This was taken by the copy reader as evidence that she was dealing with the absent-minded doodlings of a mental patient and she swiftly exorcised the sentence of its charm so it reads simply ‘…trips to East London…’

‘The only way to run a club is as a dictatorship. Witness the top flight’s Stalin and Mao, Ferguson and Wenger’

Now of course my autobiography, like the homework of a recalcitrant berk, was handed in about 20 seconds before the book was due to go to print meaning there was no time for this error to be corrected. I suppose this lady, having read a substantial portion of the booky wook by this stage, had due cause to suspect she was not editing the work of an infallible literary force and having weathered a torrent of evidence of insanity took this to be a kind of needless outburst of Touret-tic orienteering lingo rather than a sweet nod to a menacing chorus. These things happen. A trivial, accidental injustice that has speared its way into the malignant core of my creativity and lanced the tumour of furious perfectionism that festers therein. These things happen. I suppose it doesn’t really matter – it wasn’t the defining sentence of the book – but it’s
difficult to quarrel with one’s own feelings, and I feel browned off.

That big, lovely, bald Honey Monster of a man Martin Jol apparently experienced similar duress when at the Lane, he endured Damien Comolli giving him an unwelcome reach-round while he was trying to bring his squad to climax. Jol revealed that he planned to bring Manchester City hits Elano and Martin Petrov (it’s easy to say that now, I’ve always loved Sven myself, never once suggesting that he joined England players in the
post-match bath wearing soggy knickers) to Spurs but Comolli brought in players that would have long-term commercial re-sale value like Darren Bent (we’ll all be rich, I tells ya) and Adel Taarabt.

It can’t be much fun trying to manage a Premier League team of teenage millionaires while the club chairman and director of football (which is a job title to undermine a manager’s control if ever I heard one – ‘Don’t mind me, I’ll just be here directing the football’) stand just behind you pulling ‘spaz’ faces and doing ‘wanker’ signs. Why not just turn up at first-team training sessions and stick Post-its on Martin’s back reading ‘I want my Mummy’ or put cards in phone boxes with his mobile number and ‘I will bend over for cash’ written on them.

The only way to run a Premier League club is as a dictatorship. Witness the top flight’s own Stalin and Mao, Ferguson and Wenger, answerable to no one, sat beyond reproach atop the power pyramid of their respective clubs, Titans answerable only to God and their own consciences. May I just point out that I’m not implying that either man is genocidal, it’s simply not called for in their line of work, but I can’t imagine Sir Alex would take kindly to anybody abbreviating his autobiography – although his life isn’t littered with evidence of instability, unless he really did throw that shoe at David Beckham and even that’s not as bad as the ice pick that Trotsky had to contend with just for trying his hardest.

So, try and use EAST EAST East London as often as you can till it’s as popular an idiom as Whassup! Or Milf. Make sure you find an appropriate situation, though, or people will think you’re nuts.

I’m in Morocco and no matter how completely my senses are flooded with the mystery of the souks and the nobility of the Atlas mountains this will always be to me the nation that in Mexico ’86 fielded a player called Mustafa Merry (I remember the Panini sticker book representation rather than the individual). I liked that name as a child as it seemed like a joke, and also pre-empted by a decade my mate Matt’s nickname for me as an Arabic tunic-wearing junkie, Mustafa Skagfix.

The other prejudice I’ve been carting about was learned from the Joe Orton biopic
Prick Up Your Ears
where Joe and his murderous lover Kenneth Halliwell briefly holidayed here and copped off with loads of rent-boys. I don’t know why that stayed with me, it just seemed so jolly, bathing costumes, giggling and Alfred Molina and Gary Oldman enjoying tense frissons. The memory of the pair of them, and Mustafa Merry, skipped through my mind while I was on the phone to the travel agent.

‘It’s like flirting a bit, or any form of seduction: one must destabilise the target to make them suggestible to new ideas’

I’ve not encountered Mustafa or a single rent-boy the whole time I’ve been here and am thinking of demanding a discount. I’ve kept my eye on things in Albion though and here’s my round-up of football news, not to mention my ‘wacky, sideways’ view of it all: Chris Hutchings’s sacking; oh. I liked him, he was a friendly peep-eyed, thin-lipped, gel-haired uncle and I don’t think Dave Whelan has given him long enough. Also talk of Paul Jewell returning to Wigan seems barmy because Hutchings was formerly his first-team coach.

What if Jewell does return and offers Hutchings his old job back? It’ll be uncomfortable, Hutchings won’t be able to tell the players anything – he’ll
be like a castrated step-dad. ‘Run round them cones lads,’ he might shout; ‘Eff off, you’re not my real coach,’ Heskey’ll respond. It’ll be awful. It doesn’t do to go backwards, unless you’re an old lady descending stairs, then it’s de rigueur.

West Ham have always been keen on the ol’ ‘sell players then bring ‘em back’ technique and it’s always a bit disappointing. Julian Dicks, Tony Cottee and Frank McAvennie all came back for less successful second spells and whilst it’s romantic I don’t know that it’s good business. Though who wouldn’t welcome dear Harry Redknapp back to the Boleyn in an instant? Why, only the loopy and the indifferent.

There was talk of Nicolas Anelka returning to Arsenal but I imagine Arsène Wenger is not one given to nostalgia, and it seems improbable that any of Fergie’s former charges would be welcome back at Old Trafford – they usually seem to be kicked out from ‘neath the protection of his coarse petticoats like incestuous toddlers.

I admire Sir Alex Ferguson’s need for conflict as much as his appetite for success, and his remarks this week about Sepp Blatter’s proposed cap on foreign players were tremendous fun; implying that Arsenal and
Liverpool would suffer most under such a ruling then nonchalantly awaiting the protestations from the Emirates.

Wenger was of course unable to resist retaliating and I thought his riposte was a good one: ‘His own foreign players must feel undervalued by that.’ I enjoyed this particularly as I was following this minor dispute as if it were a soap opera and after Ferguson’s initial dig I knew Wenger would respond but was unable to anticipate the quality of his parry. It’s like flirting a bit, or any form of seduction: one must destabilise the target to make them suggestible to new ideas, like bumming.

Not that I’m suggesting that this was Ferguson’s ulterior motive although the chemistry between them is exciting. The cursory, eye-contact-free handshake that followed last Saturday’s clash, whilst brief, must have felt enormous to either man. Like having a fingernail traced up the nape of your neck or sweet breath blown into your ear, how could it not engender an electric shudder? I wonder if they think about each other much when they’re alone, initially angry – ‘the security was a bloody joke’ – but lapsing into the whimsical – ‘he has such inviting lips, ever wet and puckered, each rebuke a prelude to a vicious kiss’ – almost certainly.

Actually Yossi Benayoun would be carried shoulder high along the Barking Road should he ever return. His hat-trick against Besiktas, like every ball Joe Cole has ever kicked whilst clad in blue, induced a gut-pang, and now as a nation we must hope that he uses his much missed and lamented skills to give England a chance of qualifying for the European Championship perhaps, if the mischievous deities of nostalgia have their way, under the stewardship of Terry Venables.