Articles of Faith

I am writing this intro so that you feel validated in purchasing this compilation of columns. If I don’t write it you might feel aggrieved that you’ve coughed up money (yuk! Who’d do that? You could only cough it up if you’d eaten it. I hate those people that eat coins and light bulbs and clock parts. Why don’t they get a proper job? Like me for instance, I write a lovely column – and intros to column compilations – you won’t catch me scoffing down change and chewing cogs then thrusting my coppery palm into your face for remuneration: ‘If you wanted money you should of kept those pennies instead of gargling them down your whorish trachea’ one might respond. I’m also against ‘beards of bees’ and, in fact, all records. I don’t know how Guinness have snided their way into the world of records – it’s none of their business, stick to booze, what’s next – the Benson and Hedges encyclopaedia of maritime mysteries? The Skull Bandits almanac of porn? The Olympics can fuck off an’ all – it’s just the Paralympics for people who haven’t suffered, it doesn’t make sense. Running, jumping, swimming, triple jump, high jump. Don’t they know there’s a war on? Do they know it’s Christmas? Timing things? Grow up. The only occasions on which my actions were timed were when my dad was tricking me into going to the newsagents. ‘Go on, I’ll time ya!’ he’d say. Though by the time I’d return the competitive element had dissolved, replaced by fag-snatching indifference. Where’s my medal? Where’s my tickertape parade? I wasn’t even allowed to keep the change. Luckily I nicked it anyway) only to read stuff you could’ve got for tuppence ha’penny with the
Guardian
, plus you’d’ve got all the ol’ news in that an’ all – not to mention those gorgeous tarts on page three and the weather. But with this book, you get all the articles – together at last, the cover picture, in which I am unadvisedly posing as Christ and interviews with famous football fans – providing I’ve had time to do them. What a bargain. I don’t know why I’m trying to sell you this book; you’ve obviously already bought it. Unless it’s a friend’s copy or you’re in a shop. If so, pop it in your jacket and walk out –
I don’t care – I’ve already been paid plus I don’t really do it for the money, I do it for the honour and my love of the art of intro writing. I could sit and write intros all day.

It just occurred to me that you might be reading this in the distant future, having chanced upon this in a second-hand book shop from the future. Should that be the case, get back on your hover-pod and watch the final glacier dwindle into naught and lament that you never knew the glory that was the 07–08 football season.

It was an incredible season, beset with drama and fused with romance. I love the game itself, of course, but these articles focus chiefly on my reaction to the phenomena of football culture – Sir Alex Ferguson, who doth abide and will ne’er relent, like a face carved into the edifice of the national game as though it were Mount Rushmore; Kevin Keegan, who in the past brought Newcastle so close to success but now has the air of a Sunday league dad hollering ‘go on my son – they don’t like it up ‘em’ from the touchline; Avram Grant, poor unlovable Avram whose legacy is as murky and as difficult to judge as the dental blur that resides betwixt his lips; Ronaldo, a man allegedly labelled a slave by that flippant nit Sepp Blatter – a tag he did too little to shed (‘Yeah, I am like a slave – I remember that episode of
Roots
where Kunta Kinte, reclining in silver hot pants, got noshed off on a yacht by a never-ending procession of gorgeous floosies – no wonder he was peeved.’). Ronaldo has remained at United, wisely allowing his free will to be coaxed into acquiescence by the endlessly successful Fergie. I’m sure he’ll be a better man for it but how can he top last season?

Then of course there’s my beloved Hammers, for whom it was a relatively uneventful year, which typically means that the subsequent season will see Upton Park burned to the ground or Lionel Messi join the club – West Ham cannot be mediocre with any degree of consistency, they are defined by volatility. Or should I say ‘we’ for Paulo Di Canio himself, one of the club’s most beloved anti-heroes, referred to the institution of West Ham as ‘you’ while addressing ‘me’. A team he played for for over four years and yet he grammatically acknowledged the
strength of my allegiance. This is where the game’s power lies. When abroad, if I see someone in the shirt of a British football team, even Tottenham, after ascertaining that they’re not dangerously drunk, I will make eye contact and talk. About football. It gives us a common language. We recognise that whether you’re hollering for Hull City to stay up or for Manchester United to gobble up another cup, what you’re actually doing is submerging your identity as an individual into a whole that is common to us all. Separation is an illusion and in a game that is built around opposition we discover that ultimately we are all one.