FREE KICK

Excerpt from my new novel: NO ONE TO PLAY
 
DOME 4, Republic of California, 2057
 

Tanner stood and stared at the ball, he looked up and narrowed his eyes, calculating the distance to the upper right hand corner of the goal: 35 yards 2 and a half feet and maybe an inch or two. The distance was a critical factor, 35 yards was easier than 18, he still needed distance to make the ball do what he wanted. Only the Masters could hit this kind of ball up over a wall of defenders from 18 yards and into the net. It was written that Saint Ronaldo once executed this kick from a distance of just 12 yards but then many of the old writings were passing into the stuff of legend. Stadiums of 100,000 people were unlikely in a hungry world.
 

Tanner was aiming for a space that was only fractionally wider than the diameter of the ball and the ball would have to dip and swerve before it reached that space traveling the distance at an arrival speed of 85 mph. He looked back down at the ball and in his mind spoke softly to it as he would to a departing loved one. I love you, he thought, you know that, I’ve always respected you, even when you taunted me with your bounce, your unexpected bobbling, your skidding off the side of my foot when I was trying to kiss you with my laces, despite all this I’ve loved you, since I was a child. Now it’s time for you to leave. I hate long goodbyes so … he ran five paces toward the ball, planted his left foot next to it, and swept his right leg down in an arch that terminated its follow-through just as he struck the side of the ball.
 

His leg whiplashed spin into the ball and the ball leaped away like a scalded cat. It rose, accelerating toward the middle of the cross bar, far from the sighted corner, looking for all the worlds as if it would simply fly directly over and miss the goal. But 4 feet from the goal it dipped sharply and swerved violently to the left, hit the 90 degree angle where the cross bar met the post and bounced in a high, lazy arc to drop and roll to a stop almost halfway the distance between Tanner and the goal. He threw his head back in exasperation and bared his teeth at the stars that laughed at him from the other side of the dome.

I WANDERED LONELY AS A REF

I wandered lonely as a ref
That books ‘em high and books ‘em hard,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden yellow cards;
Beside the striker, face down in pain,
I reached for red, they cried in vain

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Match of the Day,
They stretched in never-ending line
Be it at home, be it away:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Raising their fingers in sprightly dance.

The Mexican waves beside them danced
In drunken sparkling waves of glee:
The crowd could not help but be cheerful,
Such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the game to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
Replays flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure glows,
And shines just like Sir Alex’s nose.

THE COACH

THE COACH
He wanted to play football
They made him play rugby
At home or away
He was no good at either
But he hated rugby with a passion
Only matched by his love of football

After school, the world took him away
And showed him many things
None of them to do with football
All the glittering foolishness
That is nothing to do with football

Much later when his back hurt
With missing teeth and a dodgy knee
He came to a land where he had to learn to call football soccer
(Although he still pronounced tomatoes and bananas
The correct way)
At the age of 54 he had a son
Six years later he fell in love with soccer once again
Peering back across the continent
Back across the Atlantic Ocean
He fretted and sweated
Through the season’s peaks and valleys
Of his beloved United

He took a mistress called Earthquake
She lived in San Jose
She wasn’t that good
But he was far from home
And a man can get lonely

Now his son begins to play
And in between writing pleas
For the Quakes to please win
He decides to become
Assistant coach to the U8 team.

After all, no one’s sure how long
Moyes might last at United
And this time, he’ll be ready!

CHEERING JUNIOR

Life liberty and the pursuit of the onside ball. We might well have come to USA seeking freedom from European persecutions of one sort or another. If you believe some of the latter day New York Times best seller seekers we may well have come here seeking to practice persecutions of one sort or another without any European hinderence. We might like to walk around thinking 236 years is more than enough time added on for us to have shaped a new and separate identity but the call of the ball is strong, the referee of eternity’s whistle echoes through the empty soccer stadiums of our hearts.
 
It might take little more than signing junior up to play some non-combatant, harmless, socially sanitized soccer for all those European demons to come howling out of the deserted stands, pouring from the ghostly mouths of millions of fallen fans, thousands of failed pundits. Xenophobia – fear of the other. Religious schism, my divine formation is the one true formation. Political dissent and unAmerican activity facing off for a quick 5-a-side kick to the death. Am I reading too much into it you ask? Are you, gentle reader, guardian of refereeing for the team, by the team, and of the team, reading too little? Let’s kick off and see what the first half brings. Heads you win, tails I lose. Fair enough? So, away we go …

WHY SO MANY PARENTS SIGN JUNIOR UP FOR SOCCER
 
Most parents, casting around for junior’s first organized sporting activity take a cursory look at soccer and see a nice, safe-looking game that doesn’t seem to involve much dangerous physical contact. This is especially appealing to boomers. More on the reality of that supposed safety of the game perception later. In addition, in the current economic climate with a good deal of house values underwater and a lot of retirement plans going the way of the dinosaur, they also see a game that doesn’t involve masses of expensive equipment. They might have heard US women play the game pretty well and it’s conceivable they vaguely know who David Beckham is, so they sign junior up for soccer.
 
Kitty is a suburban Seattle mom with two young daughters. Whereas their lives are not majorly shaped by soccer, the game does have some impact on their family. She told me her husband occasionally goes to MLS Seattle Sounders games “but it’s mostly just an excuse to hang out with friends.” However, he is also head coach of a group 7 year olds that includes their daughter Riley.
 
“Last year, we had trouble scrounging up volunteers, so he was the only coach. But this year, two other dads have stepped in. Both of them are European (Dutch and German) and take the game more seriously than the other parents. I think this Fall will be interesting as the girls will be challenged a bit more than last year. Spacing out and picking daisies whilst goal tending may be frowned upon.”
 
She also has perfectly valid parenting reasons for enrolling junior in soccer, reasons now backed up by a solid amount of hard data. Kitty puts it this way:
 
“Girls who play team sports are less likely to get in trouble. So for me, keeping the kid healthy and out of jail is my main reason for getting involved in soccer.”
 
Such are the inroads the beautiful game has made in recent years into the American mainstream, Kitty also has her own interest in soccer, “the only way that professional soccer impacts me is flipping through a magazine to see Becks in an underwear ad. For that brief, no pun intended, moment before I turn the page, I am a huge soccer fan.”
 
To be continued …

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

I remember my brother getting this book, Best of Both Worlds, for Christmas when he was 13. It was 1968, I was 16, and as well as being deeply into the music of The Kinks, The Beatles, The Stones but most of all Jimi Hendrix, I was a fervent Manchester United fan.
 
My brother and I only got to occasionally see our heroes, there was no Match of the Day on our 13-inch black and white television, much less Sky Cable, and looking back now we realize Dad was probably a secret West Bromwich Albion fan. The 160- mile round trip from Brum to Manchester was rarely an option so we mostly saw Charlton, Law and Best from the terraces of Villa park, The Hawthorns, or Saint Andrews when they visited Birmingham.
 
Recently, I bought a used copy of Best of Both Worlds online. Flicking through the pages, the musty smell of my vanished teenage years wafting off the pages, marveling at the naïve simplicity of a football players life in those days, and the massive changes George Best’s career was about to unleash upon the world, I came across this newspaper clipping, placed there between the pages by a fan 44 years ago.
 

Here’s the text (with acknowledgments to an unknown newspaper journalist):
 
“Not so long ago, the maximum wage paid to professional footballers was only twenty quid a week. Now the situation has changed. The top stars get top money. Like George Best,, of Northern Ireland and league champions Manchester United, who can count on well over £100 a week coming in as a result of the way he’s educated his tiny feet to do almost anything with his tiny feet.
 
So George sat down and pondered. He pondered: “I’ve got a lot of loot coming in and I’d like to invest in a business – so what business shall I pick? There’s no profit in exploiting my enthusiasm for pretty girls. But I do have a pretty good idea of what’s good in up-to-date clothes. That’s it: I’ll open a boutique. Make my money work for me …”
 
George, the biggest pop-type name in football, had decided that he’d join the pop-star brigade who went In Gear. Into the rag trade. Into the top stars who use their names to sell modern fashions. Really, it’s a natural progression of events. You build your name, create an interest – and then USE your name to sell fashion, clobber … or gear!
 
Well, George now is laughing. His business enterprise paid off. He runs a boutique in Sale, near Manchester, which attracts Best-fans for Best-buys in modernistic gear. He’s also opened another, with his soccer-playing England international chum Mike Summerbee, in the very heart of Manchester. It’s called George Best Edwardia and covers the whole range, the lot! Of modern gear. George has even designed his own range of trousers and reports happily: “They’re selling well!”
 
But George, who has rejected several offers made for him to make pop records, isn’t the only one. Many of the pop-top stars find they’re making money and decide that flogging the old clobber to their fans is a paying game.”
 
So there you go David Beckham and your corporate logo-bedecked ilk, you can thank George Best for blazing the way for all of you.
 
And he was a better player than all of you as well!

Spliff an’ Kick an’ Ting

Name a famous soccer player who regularly used drugs when he played but was never drug tested.
 
Bob Marley.
 
The documentary “Marley” provides some first-hand accounts from those close to Marley as to the importance to him of the game. Bob Marley’s manager and former professional footballer, Allan “Skill” Cole, started a routine with Marley that involved running and soccer training every morning.
 
In the movie he tells us, “It became an integral part of our lifestyle.”
 
Marley would run on the beach, then up to the waterfall at Cane River Falls. There he would smoke a spliff, and get a back, shoulder, and neck massage from the waterfall. Then back to “the stadium” a 40-yard asphalt rectangle where he played five-a-side scrimmage soccer with breeze blocks for goalposts.
 
Neville Garrick, artistic director for the Wailers: “In everything that Bob does, very competitive. Everything he really gave it the hundred and ten percent.”
 
Allan “Skill” Cole: “He had a passion. Everything I did with a ball he would try to do. “
 
Close friend, Dessi Smith: “He just didn’t play for the fun of it. It was part of the process, y’know. Before he writes a song, burn a spliff. Then you go run so you can lively up yourself and then he’d get more inspired so the lyrics could come out.”
 
Bob Marley: “Tell you the truth, I play everywhere. Anywhere ‘tis possible, y’know.”
 
Many people are surprised to hear Bob Marley was a fanatical soccer player and fan. That might not fit their image of a legendary reggae star: the marihuana smoking, the lazy reggae beats, the dreadlock Rastafarian easy-going attitude, the political activism. But soccer is deeply rooted in the world.
 
Bob Marley: “Football is a whole skill to itself. A whole world. A whole universe to itself. Me love it because you have to be skillful to play it. Freedom. Football is freedom.”
 
Whether on tour, in the recording studio, or chilling with family and friends Marley loved kicking a ball every day. He also loved watching soccer on TV. His favorite team was Santos Futebol Clube and his favorite player was Pele.
 
On a trip to Brazil , in Rio de Janeiro in 1970 he joined in a street soccer game. Along with fellow musicians, people from the record label Ariola, and Brazilian street kids there was also Paulo Cesar, member of the 1970 Brazilian World Cup team. In Brazil it seems everyone plays soccer with everyone else. The Brazilians gave him a number 10 Santos shirt (Pele’s number). While putting the shirt on Bob Marley smiled and declared that, just like Pele, he too could play in any position.
 
In 1977 the reggae superstar injured his foot while playing soccer with some friends. The wound seemed pretty extreme for a simple soccer injury, and when it got worse instead of healing, he decided to see a doctor. A melanoma was diagnosed and amputation of the toe was recommended.
 
But as a devout Rastafarian, Bob Marley believed that amputation was sinful. A Bible verse that Rastafarians hold very important, Leviticus 21:5, says: “They shall not make baldness upon their head … nor make any cuttings in the flesh.”
 
There is an additional tenet of Rastafarianism. The belief is essentially that death is not a certainty, and that truly holy people will gain immortality in their physical bodies. To even acknowledge that death is a possibility is to make certain that it will come soon.
 
By the late summer of 1980, the cancer had metastasized throughout his body, and while jogging through New York’s Central Park, Marley collapsed. His final performance was in September of 1980 in Pittsburgh, a performance that was recorded and released as Bob Marley and the Wailers Live Forever.
 
In 1981, while on his way back home to Jamaica his plane stopped over in Miami, where he died on May 11.
 
RIP – Bob Marley, Rasta reggae soccer star.
 
All quotes are from the documentary film “Marley”, and The Bible.

IN THE FLOW

A meeting in heaven between Sir Alf Ramsey and Jimi Hendrix.
 
JIMI: Hey man, Sir Alf, how’s it goin’? Everythin’, uh, outta sight?”
 
SIR ALF: Indeed. As well as can be expected. All things considered.”
 
JIMI: How’s the team comin’? How’s the Big Guy doin’? Gotta be a trip coaching the Son of God, man.
 
SIR ALF: Well yes, He’s a good captain. No Bobby Moore though. Still has a lot of trouble with the dead ball. Keeps bringing it back to life.
 
JIMI: Bummer
 
SIR ALF: And I just can’t get Him used to only having ten teammates. Keeps asking for twelve. Told Him, this is not the Galillee League now. Big game coming up against Archangel United. My spies tell me they have a couple of good wingers.
 
JIMI: Sounds like you don’t have a prayer, man.
 
SIR ALF: On the contrary, we have too blessed many. Can’t hear yourself think sometimes, much less drill the finer points of the offside trap.
 
JIMI: Are they experienced?
 
SIR ALF: Not really, no. John the Baptist is prone to panic in defense, loses his head. Thomas seems to lack confidence. And how can anyone trust Judas?
 
JIMI: Chill out, Sir Alf. Like I was just telling Brian Jones, time is on our side, yes it is. As in Eternity, man.
 
SIR ALF: Is it though? I have a feeling we’ll need to win in regulation time. I mean, just how do you play extra time in Eternity? But that’s not why I asked to talk to you.
 
JIMI: Yeah what can I do to help man?
 
SIR ALF: Well, I hear that you used to be something of a voodoo child
 
JIMI: Shush man, like cool it. I don’t like to talk about that stuff up here.
 
SIR ALF: Oh, yes of course. How silly of me. Sorry. It’s just that I need you to try and influence one of the living.
 
JIMI: The living?
 
SIR ALF: Let me explain. Ever since 1966 the England national soccer team haven’t won anything. Frankly they’ve been mediocre at best and often downright terrible.
 
JIMI: Yeah, ’66 was a good year for me too, man. Came to London, first hit record.
 
SIR ALF: You see there’s this mortal who believes that his guitar playing can influence the way a team he’s watching plays. He thinks that if his playing flows perfectly then so will England’s play. I believe it’s called (glances round nervously) sympathetic magic. I need you to touch this boy’s playing the next time he watches an England game. Just give him five minutes of your flow, right on 40 and 85 minutes if you can manage it.
 
JIMI: Uh, I dunno Sir Alf, man. Sounds kinda desperate. Like clutching at straws.
 
SIR ALF: Oh believe me, a large part of managing the England team consists entirely of desperately clutching at straws.
 
JIMI: Well, I’ll see what I can do. Never easy getting through to the living though. Now if you’ll excuse me while I kiss the sky …
 
 
I have a 1994 black, American-made Fender Stratocaster that I like to play while I’m watching soccer games. When my blues riffs are in the flow, even in pale imitation of his Jiminess – Hendrix be his name – then Manchester United’s play will be flowing. Their defense will be rock steady, the midfield will be in the right key, and their strikers will be on song. But a bum B natural where there should be a B flat and Paul Scholes will play an uncharacteristically sloppy ball and gift the opposition. If I want to see Valencia tear into a startled formation of defenders I know I had better be spraying out riffs like a drug-crazed rabbit chasing an amphetamine-fueled carrot. My hammer-ons, pull-offs and string bends are the marionette strings that cause those mesmerizing feet to caress, stroke and wave over the ball like a master magician about to produce an eighty mile an hour cannonball into the roof of the net.

DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS

SOCCER IN BRITAIN IN 1970s
 
In the 1971-2 season Brian Clough took the former Second Division Derby County side to the top of the First Division (now the Premier League). The following season the new champions came up against the former champions Leeds United. The two sides had met before, in an FA Cup tie, but here they were facing each other as division equals. Sort of. This league game took place a few days before Derby County’s European Cup semi-final against Juventus.
 
In Tom Hooper’s film The Damned United the Derby County v Leeds United game resembles a medieval pitched battle fought in a ploughed field during a torrential downpour. There are bone crunching body checks, ankle-scything tackles from behind, there is blood, there are blatant head butts, kidney punches, left hooks, and the stomping on of downed players. The actor playing Leeds United captain Billy Bremner then sarcastically wishes the actor playing Derby County manager Brian Clough “good luck in Europe”. The film infers, none too subtly, that Derby County lost 3-1 to Juventus because their team had been sorely depleted by injury.
 

In reality, Derby County did indeed lose to Juventus in controversial circumstances, with claims from Brian Clough that the Italian club had bribed the match officials, calling them “cheating bastards”.
 
Football in 1970’s Britain was a reflection of the society in which it was played. Britain back then seemed to be a black-and-white place where it never stopped raining. It was a land of power cuts, spiraling inflation and massive unemployment. The peace and love generation’s flower children had withered, their petals crushed between the gigantic pages of merciless history books. It was every man for himself, and win at all costs in recession-stricken Britain. If Brazil’s soccer reflected carnival and dancing in the streets, English soccer reflected a hooligan rampage through a burning shopping center.
 
How would the pampered superstars of today, with their snoods and gloves, their manicured lawn playing surfaces, and perfect hi-tech balls, have survived the blood and mud baths of the English First Division of 1971? Well a lot of them probably wouldn’t. Not even with their own personal, hospital-sized injury treatment teams.
 

“I think the game was shall we say more physical then. Y’know players got away with a lot more then. The referees were more lenient, the game was probably tougher.”
-Eddie Gray (Leeds United and Scotland)
 
In 1973 tackling from behind was perfectly legal. The referees were seemingly oblivious to a lot that happened off the ball anyway, and players took full advantage. There is archive footage of kidney punches, clear and blatant right hook punches to the head, nose breaking headbutts, tackles that include forearm smashes to the mouth. It was apparently common knowledge among players that Manchester City striker Rodney Marsh had a trick of running into the area with the ball and if a defender came anywhere near him he’d clip his own heel and go flying, demanding and often getting a penalty. No slander this, watch the special features interviews on The Damned United DVD with former Leeds United players Eddie Gray and Gordon McQueen. They smile fondly as they recall the “bending of the rules”.
 

“There’d be four or five sendings-off (in the league) every week, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. They’ve clamped down a lot now. The tackle from behind for example that was legal in the days we played so that pretty much let you get away with anything. There wasn’t cameras covering absolutely every angle so you could get away with things off the ball. So there was quite a lot going on and referees then compared to now well there’s an absolutely massive difference.”
-Gordon McQueen (Leeds United, Manchester United, Scotland)
 
When Brian Clough came to Leeds United as their new manager in 1974 he lasted precisely 44 days before being sacked. The players, conditioned by 15 years of being coached to not only play but apparently to cheat and cheat well by former manager and father figure Don Revie, refused to play for Brian Clough. They had Leeds worst start to a season for 20 years. Brian Clough in typical bluff manner had told the players to go home and take all their medals and cups and awards and throw them in the trash. He told them they’d been won by cheating, they had won “ugly”. He told them they were going to play different soccer from now on, they were going to win by playing fair. They were going to play with smiles on their faces. He told them people were going to love them for playing decent, honest, attractive football. And in a perfect reflection of British society at the time they told him to “f*ck off!”
 
“Johnny Giles and Norman Hunter were two players who were fiercely competitive, I mean fiercely competitive, and Billy Bremner. They didn’t want to lose football matches and sometimes they would bend the rule books to say the least.”
-Gordon McQueen
 

After he left Leeds, Don Revie’s subsequent career as England national team manager failed, and he disappeared into Middle Eastern soccer where allegations of corruption and bribery swallowed him.
 
Brian Clough took another Second Division side, Nottingham Forest, up to the First Division and on to win the European Cup in 1979 and retain it again in 1980. To this day, he is the only English club manager to achieve this. Brian Clough made enemies by speaking the truth but the truth he spoke was that fair play is the best way to win. A truth we would all do well to bear in mind. Whatever year it is.

FERGIEX

Luke Jimmy James here, reporting live from the Valley of The Soccer Gods. Today I’m seeking out a legend who has fallen on barren ground, a mortral who sewed dragon’s teeth but brought forth no crop of silver trophies.
 
My editor’s budget doesn’t run to SUVs or even rental camels, so I am well and truly on my pennyfarthing bike on this one. I’ve pedaled like a bugger and thanks to the Valley’s traffic system I’ve managed to keep pace with Zeus’s limo. He’s pulled up just ahead in the Athlete’s Foothills of Mount Nike. I’ve just parked my bike between the buttocks of a snoozing shepherd and am creeping through midfield towards the limo. The mouth of the cave is littered with statues. Zeus is out of the limo, brow like thunder, toga flapping and he’s into the cave. No time added, I’m going after him. At least there’s no turnstile or seven-headed dog guarding the entrance, just an old sawback nag tied up. Strange, the horse is muttering “what a friend, what a friend” over and over.
 
I’m in through the cave entrance now, and the floor’s littered with empty red wine bottles. Some pretty expensive vintages too if this reporter is any judge of a label. No Hirondelle here. I’m crouched behind a boulder and I can see Zeus talking to a figure who appears to be struggling to repair the frame on a broken transfer window. Looks like he could use a glazier or two to help him. Look at the state of this damp and fetid cave, the walls are dripping blackened tears. What is this fearful place, a craven cottage in hell? There’s not much light, just a dull red glow coming from the figure’s nose. Zeus’s laughter is echoing around the chamber, he’s holding something aloft, it appears to be the soccer uniform and on its back is a name, a name that gladdens the hearts of all those afflicted by cross eyes, neck scars, and horse teeth. The red-nosed figure is lashing out now at Tevez’s name on the shirt, he’s moaning, a dreadful wailing as if of leaky bagpipes fills the air.
 
“Why are you still playing for City? You said you’d bog off back to yon Argentinian bog from whence you crawled!”
 
Zeus has got the cackling under control. He’s addressing Fergiex:
 
“Foolish mortal. Did you not lock horns with him? Did you not deny him a regular first team place? Did not your lust for silverware so boil your blood that you lashed out at him?”
 
“He was a trouble making, ego maniac. The big headed bugger was the scourge of team spirit in the changing room. I had the other lads to think about, the club! I just wanted what was best … ah just wanted to carry on … being the best.”
 
Fergiex is fumbling blindly around among the litter of bottles at his feet. He’s looking for one last sip of the wine of victory. He’s trawling the dregs. But the bottles are all empty, they clatter with a hollow sound around his ankles. He raises his head,
 
“One … last … trophy … I beg of you … one last trophy.”
 
He’s collapsed, sobbing, the wad of gum falls from his mouth. I’m sorry, I’ve watched match-winning goals scored with sly hands and given, I’ve gazed upon Cisse’s hairdos, I’ve even eaten a beef and onion pasty at the Villa ground and lived to tell the tale, but I have no stomach for this. It’s an early bath for me. Blow wind and crack your cheeks! We are indeed but unwanted bubbles in the Jacuzzi of the gods. And I am on my bike!