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.
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.
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…
It promised to bring a more varied and original approach to football writing but George Ogier feels the Great Football Blog Boom has gone bust. And he knows just who to blame…
Last week saw Dispatches lament the demise of the football manager. So this week, the Sofa felt it needed to channel the afterlife to interview a manager whose presence still resonates years after he passed. Frost/Nixon this may not be. But it’ll give Gallagher/Balotelli a run for their money.
For Ray Dimond
When it comes to the team I hate most in football, it’s not Arsenal who have subjected most of my years supporting Spurs to one humiliating capitulation after another whilst watching on enviously as the trophies and plaudits washed across the hearths of both Highbury and The Emirates. It’s not even Chelsea, who spent years playing the playground bully holding the school squirt’s attempts to land a blow on his chin at arm’s length. West Ham? They’ve always been a minor irritation but have never come close to raising my hackles to such an extent that I lose the ability for rational thought.
That particular ‘honour’ will always belong to Coventry City. It’s not their association with Richard Keys that sets my teeth on edge, although that doesn’t help. No, the genesis for my myopic brand of loathing can be pinpointed to one particular sunny day. 16th May, 1987. On that day, I awoke to find a seven inch vinyl copy of Chas ‘n’ Dave’s FA Cup final song, Hot Shot Tottenham, gleaming with promise and hope at the edge of my bed placed there lovingly by my mum; it was better than Christmas. And from about eight in the morning to when the television build-up began around noon, I played it continuously on a loop. The outcome of that day we all know, but what truly stung was the realisation that cup win number eight was not as the Cockernee Duo promised, “coming up” and neither were Spurs, “the team, the cream… the best you’ve ever seen”.
What’s ruining football? Manchester City’s ‘moneyball’? John Terry’s foul mouth? The decline of the Big Man up front? Actually, it’s none of the above. Simon Jones reckons it’s something else. His theory is not beyond the realms of fantasy.
Read more on The Hidden Perils Of Fantasy Football by Simon Jones…
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.
