Arsenal looked pretty damn good against Juventus last night. I’d love it if they won the Champion’s League, not just because they’re a British and London team but because it would be a bit more sand kicked in the face of Roman Abramovich.
Tag: football
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Ashley Cole and gay footballers
Ashley Cole, who plays at left-back for Arsenal and England, has sent his lawyer to complain to Google because at the moment, if you search for ‘Ashley Cole’, it says:
See results for: ashley cole gay
Possibly even more bizarrely, from a legal point of view, he’s suing the News of the World over a story that didn’t even name him. The NOTW claimed “two bisexual stars made some very dirty phone calls – using a mobile phone as a gay sex toy” and published a heavily-photoshopped shot supposedly of them. Some internet detective work suggests that the photo is Ashley Cole.
I have no idea whether Cole is gay, and I dont think it’s anyone else’s business anyway (he’s one of the best left-backs in the world, he’s English, it’s a World Cup year; come on people, let’s get our priorities straight). The trouble is, while I don’t think it’s important, I do rather want to know, because it’s a good piece of gossip. We have such an ambiguous relationship with the idea of celebrity privacy; I don’t actually want to cause Cole any more upset than he’s dealing with already, but I can’t resist poking around the internet for the details and repeating some of them here.
There must be a few thousand professional footballers in the UK; surely at least one or two are gay. This would be a better country if they didn’t feel they had to keep it a secret, and someone is going to have to be the first to come out since Justin Fashanu. Fashanu, though, ended up hanging himself. Even in the 8 years since that happened, I think the public’s attitude to homosexuality has probably moved on a lot, but between football crowds and the tabloid media, it would be seriously tough for anyone to have to deal with. It would be nice to think that the fans might surprise us by taking it all in their stride, but at the recent Liverpool/Manchester United match, the Liverpool fans were chanting about the Munich air disaster and the Man U fans were chanting about Hillsborough, so we’re not talking about models of sensitivity here.
I watched Shaolin Soccer on DVD the other night. The box is covered in recommendations from the Sun, FHM, Nuts, and similarly blokish publications, which was a bit off-putting, but actually it was the most entertaining film I’ve seen in ages. It uses the classic structure of a ramshackle team of outsiders who finally have to beat the all-conquering professionals in a cup final. The pros are called ‘Team Evil’ which pretty much sets the tone for the whole film.
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Michael Owen breaks his foot
Which means that in a four-year period, out of eleven first-choice members of the England team, six have suffered broken metatarsals. Is anyone else wondering if their boots are sturdy enough?
I’ve been watching Strictly Come Dancing which, for those who don’t know, is a BBC knockout pro-celebrity dancing competition. Last year it was won by a soap actress, the year before that by a newsreader. This year, for me the pleasure has been watching Darren Gough. Gough is a fast bowler (i.e. a cricket pitcher), and he’s a big beefy cheerful Northern lad. For years, when England were crap at cricket, Goughie could be relied on to wake up the crowd and lift his teammates – but I don’t think anyone ever would have guessed, watching him run in and try to knock the batsmen’s heads off with 90mph bouncers, that he was a natural dancer.
What’s been great, watching him, is that although his dancing is sharp and technically excellent [according to the judges], he never loses the sense of bloke-ish physicality. Doing the jive, he could be a GI at a local dancehall; doing the salsa he could be a Cuban stevedore on his day off. There’s nothing dancerish about it. And he always looks like he’s enjoying himself.
To go off at a tangent for a moment, Brazilians sometimes claim to play football ‘to the rhythm of the samba’. I’ve wondered sometimes if English clubs would do well to take that literally, and to teach the young trainees to samba as a kind of cross-training. If nothing else, it’s good practice at close foot-control and balance.
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England vs Argentina
I’m looking forward to the footy this afternoon. The only question is whether Sven will manage his usual trick of taking all the fun out of friendlies by creating an atmosphere where no-one cares enough. Surely even Sven can’t take the sting out of England vs Argentina?