Brian Clough and the 96

 

On the eve of the 20^th anniversary of Hillsborough, I feel moved to reflect on a tragedy in which I lost no-one, but which has nevertheless deeply affected my perspective on the beautiful game.

As a Liverpool fan, it seems poignantly ironic that it was Bill Shankly – a man revered not only for his sporting achievements, but also for close affinity with the city – who said: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s must more important than that.”

Rarely have the comments of a sporting figure been disproved with such a resoundingly black sense of totality. If Shankly were alive, as a man of great humanity, his words would surely have haunted him. They do not add colour to the great man’s memory. They defile it. And, if I had my own Bolshevik airbrush, I would choose to expunge those words from history.

So goes the luxury of adopting a revisionist’s frame of mind. We can revisit our heroes, and mould them as we wish. Shape them how we would like, rather than how they were. There seems a lot of that around at the moment. Particularly relating to the memory of the current media darling, Brian Clough – a man so acquainted with bravura that it became his stock and trade.  

Shankly respected Clough. After Hillsborough, however, few others on Merseyside did. And although his comments were spoken through a fog of alcoholism, they remain inexcusable. He said: “I will always remain convinced that those Liverpool fans were killed by Liverpool people.”

It was a disgraceful remark that flew in the face of the weight of evidence. And, although it may have been retracted by the time of his death, it exposed a cruelty in Clough’s complex personality that is glossed over in the glib film adaptation of David Peace’s multilayered book, The Damned United. His comments were perceived as vindictive. And, put bluntly, his words shit on the memory of 96 dead, innocent people. As if that wasn’t enough, they also inflamed the anger grieving families and spat bile at an embattled city. Naively, he sided with the Police; who, as has since been proved in recent times, do not lie, cover up the truth or deny liability - unless, of course, it best suits their interests.  And, as a professed socialist, unforgivably, Clough sided with a distasteful media campaign played out in the right wing press: most notably, The Sun.  

His conduct can be contrasted with the weight of emotion that drove Kenny Dalglish – an intelligent and humble man – to resign. Now, in the face of such a tragedy, it is inconceivable that an opposing manager would act in such a way. And tonight, it seems a touch remiss – though not entirely out of character – for ITV to run a story about Hillsborough on the national news, followed up by a documentary tribute about Clough on ITV 4.       

However, all this controversy played out during my childhood. And whilst my reading age may have been about right for Kelvin Mckenzie’s rag, my Mum wasn’t moved to let me read false stories accusing Liverpool fans, such as my Dad, of stealing from dead people and pissing on corpses. This was probably sensible. And, in truth, my own memories of Hillsborough are vague. I remember watching the grandstand update. Then again, I have seen this report several times since and it seems indistinguishable over the passing of time. Nevertheless, at the age of six, clearly I could not form a view or conceptualise the scale of the tragedy. But, given the benefit of hindsight, I do now feel free to reflect on how the tragedy has affected my own upbringing – obviously in terms that are superficial when compared with genuine loss of those whose family died.

After Hillsborough, so my Dad tells me, the game changed – he says for the better, and I’m inclined to agree. The Taylor Report was a watershed moment; not just for football, but also for popular culture. It banned alcohol and introduced all seated stadia and ticketing. And the ensuing drive for modernisation culminated in Euro 1996, which introduced football to the middle classes. For many people, this was the era when the national game –synonymous with Bovril, Stanley Knifes and The Winning Formula (a statistical theory promoting long ball football) – ‘sold out’. But, the rampant commercialisation of football did not derive from the Taylor Report. It was reflective of society at large. And I’m happy to have grown up in safe stadiums and to be able to go to a top class football game without the risk of getting crushed, stabbed, trampled or beaten.

But, was the sacrifice of 96 people necessary to save the game I love? No, absolutely not. Football should never be about life and death. A fact tragically remembered because of one FA Cup Semi Final.

The Sugar Ray Leonard Cup

 

The Contender – I fucking love it. There’s boxing, gratuitous cheese and Slyvester Stallone. What could make this better? Ohhh yes, a bit of jingoism – which is Stallone’s standard fall back option when it comes to updating a moribund format. It worked brilliantly with Rocky IV – my favourite Rocky - not only because our hero wins over the Politburo, but also because it features the best montage of steroid abuse outside of ITV’s coverage of the Tour De France.

 

 Sporting nationalism adds spice. And that’s why The Contender Challenge: UK v USA seems like a winning concept. So, having missed the series first time around – it’s debut screening was in 2007 - I’ve just sat down to watch the first episode.

 

The format of the tournament involves 6 fights, each over 8 rounds. The victorious country takes home the ‘Sugar Ray Leonard Cup’. And whilst the organisers may have missed a trick by not calling it something stirring like ‘The Churchill Cup’ or ‘The Field Marshall Montgomery Invitational’, Sugar Ray is an inspirational figure in his own right.

 

The first fight began with Anthony Small – a boxer from London who goes under the dubious alias of Sugar Ray Clay Jones Jr – commencing his ring entrance wearing a scream mask and clutching a riding crop. He claimed it was his ‘spank a yank’ tour. In the dubious history of boxing ring entrances, it must rank as amongst the most surreal, which is an achievement in itself. 

 

As the fight starts you can see that Small resembles a flea market Naseem Hameed. He’s got the low guard and the fast hands, but he lacks the power and balance necessary to tie it together. Teddy Atlas, the famous ESPN boxing commentator, tells us he’s a qualified plumber. He’ll earn more money from that than boxing.

 

Teddy Atlas, the ESPN commentator, who's name sounds like a multinational cuddly toy emporium.

 

 

 

 

The opening rounds of the fight are dull. And Small’s opponent, Walter Wright, doesn’t look great. Whilst Sugar Ray Leonard tells us that his style is similar to a modern day Tommy Hearns –  it just patently isn’t. Although Wright busts Small’s nose in the final round - with Small’s non existant guard and crap reflexs, it’s hardly an accomplishment. The judges eventually gave Small the nod on a split decision.

 

The next fight is Freddy Curiel versus Ross “The Boss” Minter. Teddy Atlas say’s that Minter – the son of former undisputed middleweight champion Alan Minter – has skin problems. And whilst I wouldn’t like to fight a bloke with dermatitis, I’m still going to have to go with a Curiel win. Mainly because he seems to have a considerably better record. But also because anyone with such an uninventive moniker as Ross “The Boss” just can’t be any good.

 

You’ve generally got to think beyond simple rhyming couplets to impress me. And just sometimes you’ve also got to think beyond a bit of simple jingoism. 

 

(If anyone happens to fancy watching a couple of brilliant fights: download the Isreal Vasquez -v- Rafael Marquez Trilogy, Juan Diaz -v- Juan Manuel Marquez, Arturo Gatti -v- Mickey Ward, or (obviously) Jose Luis Castillo -v- Diego Corrales … perhaps the greatest fight of recent years. I watched the bulk of these during a violence strewn weekend. It had an interesting affect on my thinking. Brilliant entertainment. Highly recommended). 

Car Park Beauty

 

Most people in the UK are blissfully unaware of Craigslist.

 

I had no idea what it was until I came across this piece of solid gold:

 

“The girl who took a dump in the Art Institute parking lot! – m4w

 

“I sat there in my car wondering what the hell you were up to – you spent at least 2 minutes scurrying around your parked car, looking to see if the coast was clear. I thought you were going to, like, break into someone else’s car or something. Then I guessed you thought you were “safe” and hurried to the front of your car, near the third level stairwell, dropped your pants, squatted and WENT TO IT!

”For Christ’s sake, woman! All the time you spent looking out for passing cars so no one would see you crapping like a dog in public, you could have hustled your lazy ass downstairs and into the building and USED THE DAMNED RESTROOM!

”Sheesh!

”Anyway – if you’re free later, drop me a line. I was never more turned on in my life.”

 

A woman in a ball gown in a car park - dark secrets.

 

I’m awe struck. Within these five paragraphs, I think that society may have reached its zenith.

 

Man has created the most intricate and far reaching communications system ever conceived. And now I can see a dating advert placed by a man in Santa Monica after he’s seen a lass take a shit in the car park of a building of higher education.

 

And whilst I might recoil at the image, I can only salute the human achievement.      

 

To you, man of Santa Monica – I doth my cap.

 

 

To you, mankind – a moment to bask in our glorious endeavours.  

Ivan The Ohhh So Terrible?

 

It seems strange – being in my mid twenties – that I’ve lived the better part of my life under a Labour government. And just to think, whilst it’s incredibly cynical of me to say so, the death of David Cameron’s son is probably going to do as much to end that as the recession.

 

By that I mean, who can now dare wallop the Conservatives on the NHS? And also, what respectable jam making middle class Tory bigot wouldn’t vote for a man with a dead disabled son? They’d be a right heartless bastards if they didn’t … ohhhh.

 

All in all, it seems that the only thing that can save Gordon Brown from the political wilderness would be some utterly unforeseeable event … a political force majeure.

 

For example, should Jeremy Clarkson hijack prime time TV wearing an eye patch and butcher Brown’s wife with a cutlass … that might have a tangible impact. Cameron’s sympathy would be trumped. And the transport lobbyists would be shafted.

 

Or, to play to the whims of first time voters, namely the dunces who buy Heat, Jade Goody, HRH Queen of the Peasants, might make a statement from her deathbed (through Max Clifford, of course) nominating Brown as her anointed power on earth. The Tartan Mafia could use her gesture to rally working class support in Thatcherite shitholes like Luton, Dagenham and Canvey. And the Labour Party would be ‘saved’. Although exactly what that would mean for British democracy is almost too tragic to contemplate.

 

Jade Goody - will she give Brown the thumbs up?

 

 

 

 

But all of these dire prognostications aside – is David Cameron really that bad? And are Labour really worth saving?

 

Taking Cameron first, he seems relatively tame and inoffensive. Kind of like an aeroplane fart – he lacks the requisite air to breath and the very worst of his vapour gets expelled into the fluffy cushioning of a seat (the seat being the numerous liberal filters doubtlessly now built into Tory focus groups).

 

And whilst Cameron does have the ubiquitous posh boy Tory background, he also has a veiled air of timid vulnerability about him. For example, if Cameron’s family ran into financial difficulties and his Dad had fucked a black woman – just so as to exclude them from the normal safety nets of civilised upper class society – he could have ended up at a Merseyside comprehensive like mine.

 

And although I still would have hocked a greb on the back of his head in the line for lunch, flicked a dolly bead into his ear at point blank range or forced him to watch whilst a group of us bukakked his younger sister on the playground – I would have felt guilty afterwards, especially if I’d just ejaculated (when I always feel guilty anyway).

 

For me – it’s a fundamental quality – if I guff on a politician’s younger sister, I need to feel a pang of remorse … especially in a group scenario. Tony Blair had that happy trait, until he bombed a load of innocent Iraqi children. Now, I’d happily ditch fuck Leo with cold dead eyes - which is why, for me, Blair just had to go … my repulsion at my own disgustingly congealed bitterness. Even at the height of the poll tax riots - by way of a reprisal - I wouldn’t have dreamed of inflicting a dose of surprise sex on Carol Thatcher. Then again, I was about 10 … and it is Carol Thatcher.    

 

And whilst I start to wince at my previous Leo Blair comment – poor lad has enough to deal with growing up with a prat for a father – it does bring me neatly to Labour … what a bunch of cunts!

 

It almost seems the cliché of our times to spout some bitter polemic about the Iraq war - generally whilst wearing a number of rubbish badges and drinking a Fruli. I refuse to stoop so low in vitriolic posturing as to imbide a ’fruity beer’. Suprise sex, yes. Cherry beer, no. 

 

Other than dead babies, what’s really bothered about the Labour government is the failure to deal with the growing inequalities within our society. Britain now proudly possesses a peasant underclass defined by ill-health, ignorance, poor diet, criminality and that most Victorian of concepts … wanton disregard. You only need to look at the cases of Shannon Matthews and Baby P. In each instance, the lack of social welfare was genuinely frightening.

 

Social welfare in action - well done Tony and Gordon!

 

 

On the other side of the coin – moving up the social rungs – the same Labour government has managed to offend notions of social justice again. As architects of Britain as it is today, Blair and Brown have got to reflect upon the fact that they’ve created a vacuous middle class comprised of soulless, money grabbing, opportunist, yuppies who worship at the alter of Pret boxed salads and Carrie fucking Bradshaw. Nye Bevan is weeping at your store cards.

 

Nye Bevan - he's disgusted by your Office store card.

 

 

It’s not that it was all bought on credit that irks me. It’s more that it feels like we’re stuck with a 3 day come down after half a shit pill. If I’m going to pay the day after, I want to have tore it up. But all our society has left to show for our debts are Friends box sets, questionable tribal tattoos and one of those giant rubber balls under the stairs that your ex girlfriend pretended to do sit ups on. It was rampant consumerism. And it’s all come crashed down around us. It wasn’t white elephants. Just white goods.      

 

As I indulge my own ponderings and waffle - personally, I want to go back to the Liverpool of the 80’s. At least my Dad’s generation could see the enemy coming. And just in time to lock themselves in a council bed sit with a shed load of smack and an Echo & The Bunneymen lp - safe in the knowledge that Liverpool would likely win the league – until it all blew over. 

Whilst my Dad’s generation could see Thatcher’s uncaring evils for what they were, the problems of my our generation came with an endorsement from a Manc tosser, a ready line of credit and a D:Ream sound track. ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. They didn’t, they only seemed to.