So much so, in fact, that I recently began to wonder where one could actually find a cool, balanced take on the game. The answer, it soon became crystal, was Wikipedia. Just in case you’ve spent the past decade in cryogenic suspension, Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia, to which everyone is entitled to contribute; at last count, there were nearly four million articles. And Wikipedia is dispassionate; its entry on itself points out that “Wikipedia’s most notable style policy is that editors are required to uphold a ‘neutral point of view.’ ”
There is tonnes of stuff about football on the site. And I mean tonnes. The full details, for instance, of the obscure Full Members/Zenith Data Systems/Simod Cup (1986-1992) are there — Chelsea won it twice. Sir Bobby Robson gets several pages; Stephen Kelly, the Tottenham Hotspur reserve, gets four lines. And all of it is written in a very unvarnished, unemotional, unbiased way. Indeed, we are so used to everything we read about football being spun, euphemised, smoke-screened and hyperbolised that it is quite shocking to see what posterity will know about our heroes in the chilly, measured language of an academic repository. Funny, too. Mark Bosnich, the former Manchester United goalkeeper, we are reminded, “claimed that Ferguson got rid of him because of his (Bosnich’s) ‘right-wing’ politics.
Bosnich once publicly gave a fascist salute at White Hart Lane.”
Simple as that. The famous moment where one midfield player squeezed the scrotum of another is reported thus: “In one notorious incident he (Vinnie Jones) distracted Paul Gascoigne by grabbing his testicles.” Distracted? Yes, I’m sure he was. The spotlight is merciless. On Paul Merson: “Since being sacked as manager of Walsall, his second wife has left him, and he was pictured, in March 2006 . . . drunk and appearing overweight.”
Even the game’s knights of the realm do not escape this unflattering gaze. The gigantic entry on Sir Alex Ferguson ends with a snippet from a 2001 press conference: Journalist: “Sir Alex, do you really think that £27m Juan Verón is suitable for this club?” Ferguson: “He’s a f***ing great player and you’re all f***ing idiots.”
But the greatest joy of idly surfing Wikipedia is that it can accidentally take you off to the strangest places. I entered the name of Trinidad & Tobago star Dwight Yorke to see if there was any mention of his famous videotaped threesome with the aforementioned Bosnich and a superbly upholstered third party. I inadvertently left off the “e” of his surname. So now I’m confronted with the life history, and philosophical meanderings, of one Dwight York.
York is an American musician and rabble-rouser who founded several religious and black nationalist groups. He also built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-style compound (complete with pyramids and temples) for his followers. In Georgia. He claimed to have written several of the disco hits of the Seventies, including Love Train, Wake Up Everybody and Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now, though his own group, Passion, seem to have remained sadly bereft of such material.
In May 2002, the US Government put a stop to Dwight’s gallop, jailing him for 135 years for over 100 charges of sexual impropriety with members of his cult. They must have had fun filling out the charge sheet because York also went under 90 or so other names. Included among them were dozens of Arabic monikers, plus . . . Malakai Z. York, Dr Malachi Z. York-El, Chief Black Thunderbird Eagle, Imperial Grand Potentate Noble: Rev Dr Malachi Z. Dr Malachi Z. York © TM, Baba Afrika, The Grand Hierophant, Michael the Great, The Angel Michael, The Reformer, The Master Teacher, The One and The Green One.
His philosophy was the usual “I am right, you are wrong, everyone must die” stuff beloved of compound-builders everywhere. By comparison, the other Dwight Yorke (only other known name, “Yorkie”) has led a quiet, uneventful life.
There is tonnes of stuff about football on the site. And I mean tonnes. The full details, for instance, of the obscure Full Members/Zenith Data Systems/Simod Cup (1986-1992) are there — Chelsea won it twice. Sir Bobby Robson gets several pages; Stephen Kelly, the Tottenham Hotspur reserve, gets four lines. And all of it is written in a very unvarnished, unemotional, unbiased way. Indeed, we are so used to everything we read about football being spun, euphemised, smoke-screened and hyperbolised that it is quite shocking to see what posterity will know about our heroes in the chilly, measured language of an academic repository. Funny, too. Mark Bosnich, the former Manchester United goalkeeper, we are reminded, “claimed that Ferguson got rid of him because of his (Bosnich’s) ‘right-wing’ politics.
Bosnich once publicly gave a fascist salute at White Hart Lane.”
Simple as that. The famous moment where one midfield player squeezed the scrotum of another is reported thus: “In one notorious incident he (Vinnie Jones) distracted Paul Gascoigne by grabbing his testicles.” Distracted? Yes, I’m sure he was. The spotlight is merciless. On Paul Merson: “Since being sacked as manager of Walsall, his second wife has left him, and he was pictured, in March 2006 . . . drunk and appearing overweight.”
Even the game’s knights of the realm do not escape this unflattering gaze. The gigantic entry on Sir Alex Ferguson ends with a snippet from a 2001 press conference: Journalist: “Sir Alex, do you really think that £27m Juan Verón is suitable for this club?” Ferguson: “He’s a f***ing great player and you’re all f***ing idiots.”
But the greatest joy of idly surfing Wikipedia is that it can accidentally take you off to the strangest places. I entered the name of Trinidad & Tobago star Dwight Yorke to see if there was any mention of his famous videotaped threesome with the aforementioned Bosnich and a superbly upholstered third party. I inadvertently left off the “e” of his surname. So now I’m confronted with the life history, and philosophical meanderings, of one Dwight York.
York is an American musician and rabble-rouser who founded several religious and black nationalist groups. He also built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-style compound (complete with pyramids and temples) for his followers. In Georgia. He claimed to have written several of the disco hits of the Seventies, including Love Train, Wake Up Everybody and Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now, though his own group, Passion, seem to have remained sadly bereft of such material.
In May 2002, the US Government put a stop to Dwight’s gallop, jailing him for 135 years for over 100 charges of sexual impropriety with members of his cult. They must have had fun filling out the charge sheet because York also went under 90 or so other names. Included among them were dozens of Arabic monikers, plus . . . Malakai Z. York, Dr Malachi Z. York-El, Chief Black Thunderbird Eagle, Imperial Grand Potentate Noble: Rev Dr Malachi Z. Dr Malachi Z. York © TM, Baba Afrika, The Grand Hierophant, Michael the Great, The Angel Michael, The Reformer, The Master Teacher, The One and The Green One.
His philosophy was the usual “I am right, you are wrong, everyone must die” stuff beloved of compound-builders everywhere. By comparison, the other Dwight Yorke (only other known name, “Yorkie”) has led a quiet, uneventful life.
All Dwight on the night
Published by Ceser.
MUCH HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID about the half-hearted dirge that is the official England World Cup song, Embrace’s World At Your Feet, a record about England in the football World Cup that is too cool, or cowardly, to mention England, football or the World Cup. But, believe me, compared with the literally dozens of proudly unofficial ditties that have arrived on my doormat these last few weeks, it is Good Vibrations, Smells Like Teen Spirit and Waterloo Sunset all hand-whisked into one gorgeous confection. Everyone is trying to have that big hit; no musical stone is being left unflipped in the search for that elusive World Cup anthem.
And that search, it seems, is happening in every corner of this green and pleasant land. The other night I had just finished another award-winning stint at the microphone for BBC London 94.9 and had repaired, with a selection of cronies, flunkies and molls, to the pub across the road. There’s a discount for BBC types and they never run out of Magners. I had not even hoisted my behind on to the stool when mine host came vaulting up to me.
He is a fellow in his mid-twenties, pleasant enough when dispensing the cold drinks, but hardly a bosom chum. Imagine my surprise, then, when he grabs me by the elbow and entreats me to “come upstairs” with him. My mother warned me that there’d be days like these, but he was just so insistent . . .
“Upstairs” was reached through a locked plywood door, the better, one suddenly imagined, to keep out the Environmental Health people. “Upstairs” is dusty, half-decorated, semi-abandoned; I began to search the gloom for signs of raggedy hostages chained to radiators.
My young friend was sweating nervously as he steered me into a kitchen that looked like it had been abandoned, some years ago, by Motörhead. Beside the half-full sink was an old radio cassette. He pushed the play button. From the speakers clanked the unmistakable skirl of the theme from Minder. But over the music were not the vocal stylings of Dennis Waterman (“I could be so good for you”, etc) but the not-bad voice of the bar manager himself . . . “We’re all going to Ger-man-eee . . . Haven’t finished Wem-ber-lee!”
All music journos dread this moment. Elvis Costello/David Blunt/The Manager Of The Pub Across The Road stop the tape of their newest meisterwerk, stare deep into your eyes and implore “whaddaya think?” Actually, I said, it’s not bad at all. With that, he bounded back down the stairs, whooping with delight and utterly ignoring my sage advice about obtaining the rights to the Minder theme. A few days later, I heard the finished item booming from the pub across the road’s sound system. It was OK; better than Embrace; drunks sang along; everyone seemed chuffed. Oddly enough, the bar manager has now disappeared. A new job? In rehearsal for Top Of The Pops? Or maybe Dennis Waterman’s people have more clout than I imagined.
It’s not just music. Around World Cup time, the usual steady dribble of football tomes becomes a cascade. They are aimed at every age, prejudice and IQ, yet all have one thing in common; football is always the most important thing in the world, the players are all dashing heroes or villainous fools. In short, these books take a very colourful, and coloured, view.
And that search, it seems, is happening in every corner of this green and pleasant land. The other night I had just finished another award-winning stint at the microphone for BBC London 94.9 and had repaired, with a selection of cronies, flunkies and molls, to the pub across the road. There’s a discount for BBC types and they never run out of Magners. I had not even hoisted my behind on to the stool when mine host came vaulting up to me.
He is a fellow in his mid-twenties, pleasant enough when dispensing the cold drinks, but hardly a bosom chum. Imagine my surprise, then, when he grabs me by the elbow and entreats me to “come upstairs” with him. My mother warned me that there’d be days like these, but he was just so insistent . . .
“Upstairs” was reached through a locked plywood door, the better, one suddenly imagined, to keep out the Environmental Health people. “Upstairs” is dusty, half-decorated, semi-abandoned; I began to search the gloom for signs of raggedy hostages chained to radiators.
My young friend was sweating nervously as he steered me into a kitchen that looked like it had been abandoned, some years ago, by Motörhead. Beside the half-full sink was an old radio cassette. He pushed the play button. From the speakers clanked the unmistakable skirl of the theme from Minder. But over the music were not the vocal stylings of Dennis Waterman (“I could be so good for you”, etc) but the not-bad voice of the bar manager himself . . . “We’re all going to Ger-man-eee . . . Haven’t finished Wem-ber-lee!”
All music journos dread this moment. Elvis Costello/David Blunt/The Manager Of The Pub Across The Road stop the tape of their newest meisterwerk, stare deep into your eyes and implore “whaddaya think?” Actually, I said, it’s not bad at all. With that, he bounded back down the stairs, whooping with delight and utterly ignoring my sage advice about obtaining the rights to the Minder theme. A few days later, I heard the finished item booming from the pub across the road’s sound system. It was OK; better than Embrace; drunks sang along; everyone seemed chuffed. Oddly enough, the bar manager has now disappeared. A new job? In rehearsal for Top Of The Pops? Or maybe Dennis Waterman’s people have more clout than I imagined.
It’s not just music. Around World Cup time, the usual steady dribble of football tomes becomes a cascade. They are aimed at every age, prejudice and IQ, yet all have one thing in common; football is always the most important thing in the world, the players are all dashing heroes or villainous fools. In short, these books take a very colourful, and coloured, view.
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