As featured in The Guardian\
It’s the final Wednesday Dispatch, so what better way to bring a cracking season to a conclusion than by handing the Sofa over to someone who sits on it every day. Mrs Theoharis never knew what she was letting herself in for. Let her explain.
Read more on So I Married A Football Blogger by Nina Theoharis…
When I turned thirty I had what can only be described as the early onset of a post-quarter-life-midlife-crisis. I was consumed by the desire to do something kerr-ay-zee, so I took myself down to the local tattoo parlour on the eve of the 2008/9 season and booked myself in for an hour or so of self-inflicted skin-scratching, pricking, searing pain. On my right shoulder now resides a cockerel balanced on top of a football. It’s there forever. Forever, ever? Forever. And I hate it and love it in equal measure. It’s there now as a permanent reminder with its ink-stained durability, of the despairing futility that being a supporter of a football club brings. It’s a nihilistic pursuit, with little if any reward. Because like Spurs, I cannot ever erase it. It’s part of me now, for better or for worse.
Somewhere within the sprawling narrative of Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, you’ll come across a literary oddity entitled Parable of the Grand Inquisitor. A short tangent but an intriguing one nonetheless, it tells the story of Jesus’ return to Earth as the fifteenth century gives way to the sixteenth and sees the second coming occur in Seville with no hint of celestial fanfare. Nevertheless, the unannounced stranger causes quite a stir as he goes about restoring a blind man’s eyesight and resurrecting a recently deceased child of seven years.
There was a time when you could saunter up to your local stadium and you’d know you’d have a fairly good chance of meeting one of your heroes. You might even have a chat with them. A photo. Definitely an autograph. But as the song goes, “something changed”. Ian Rands knows exactly what happened.
The Media Studies student with a basic knowledge of how audiences consume media texts will tell you all about the famed Hypodermic Needle Model. This was a theory that came into prominence in the 1920s that suggested audiences passively digest information without question. As this era ushered in the use of propaganda by the Soviets and later the Nazis, it was more or less accepted that people could be manipulated into thinking what the ‘powers-that-be’ wanted them to believe.
Inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
The tapping at the window had haunted him for several nights. Despite the gloom that rolled the fog across the field of Craven Cottage and the incessant thunderstorms that had ravaged any hope of a contented sleep, Heathcliff Jol knew that the sounds emanating from without were not of a natural origin. He had seen it some three moonshines ago. An apparition, pallid in complexion, gaunt, transparent but familiar regardless. It was the figure of his great lost love, Catherine Lilywhite. She had returned to him, after so many years but the very essence of her life-force was evaporating before his very eyes.
Jol could not face the spectre for a third night and thus buried his face into the pillow of his bed, wrapping the bedsheets around his hulking frame and wishing for the haunting presence to once again return from whence it came. “Cathy,” he muttered breathlessly, “why do you taunt me so?”
It’s all about Pelè’s Beautiful Game and we should all be worshipping at the altar of the Camp Nou right? Not everybody thinks so. Like a Vandal striking at the gates of Rome, Arsenal fan Natasha Henry is here to celebrate the non-aesthetes. Yes, she’s an Arsenal fan.
“Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà-vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before” – Steven Wright
It’s probably fair to assume that it hasn’t been the best week in Alan Davies’ career. Listening to the now infamous Tuesday Club podcast, in which the ‘comedian’ managed to alienate most of Liverpool with his misguided comments about Liverpool Football Club’s refusal to play on the fifteenth of April, it comes across as the snide rantings of a pernicious classroom ‘wit’ who elicits cheap laughs from his gang of sycophantic mates at the expense of the kid with a weight problem/spots/lack of sexual experience. It was malicious in its tone and as a consequence, he has been under fire all week with some equally distasteful comments being aimed in his direction from some in the football community.
It was a very rare public show of emotion from Sir Alex Ferguson last Monday night. With his side having all but sealed the three points against a stubborn Blackburn, the old curmudgeon pumped both fists in a victorious gesture of defiance towards the visiting support. It was in that moment that it became clear that the latest threat to his supremacy at the game’s zenith had been vanquished should the remainder of the season conclude with Manchester United sweeping all before them. Manchester City had blown it. And he didn’t have to break sweat.
Read more on His And Her Dark Materials: The Mind Games Of Samantha Brick & Alex Ferguson…
A new job drove William Abbs into the arms of another club. Is it really possible for a fan to reconcile a love for one team with their feelings for another, or does it all just get a bit too complicated?
Read more on Playing Away Or ‘Cheating’ On Manchester United by William Abbs…
In Defence Of Luis Suarez by Rachael Singh
What’s The Point Of Scottish Football?
Captain Caveman: The De-evolution of John Terry
Alan Davies Is Here All Week
Liverpool Football Club, 1892 – 2012 – An Obituary
Make sure you don't miss any Dispatches by staying connected.
