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Phill Jupitus
As much as I feared when I first took this gig, the worlds of showbiz and football have collided, but not in a hilarious way like Hoddle and Waddle being on Top of the Pops. My new role as a gentleman of the English theatre means that I have been unable to go to any football for more than a month and so am hanging up my press credentials.
Oh, I know that there is usually precious little mention of any actual football in this column but that’s not the point. Being at games and hearing the crowd and the cursing and watching young men tearing around for millions of pounds was always the fuel for the fire.
Continue reading "Sir Alex Ferguson and the long goodbye" »
Phill Jupitus
When exactly did Brazil become synonymous with footballing excellence?
The florid South American imagery is a copywriter’s dream. Would that I could have had a pound for every time I read the word "samba" or "carnival" in a match report over the years. I would have nearly 30 quid. As a child with a passing knowledge of football, even I knew that Brazil were the best. At the age of 8 in 1970, as part of a desperate attempt to fit in, I spent 12p on a packet of Panini stickers and was despised almost immediately for getting Pelé in my first batch.
In that spring, we acquired our first colour TV and I vividly remember sitting with my face pressed up against the screen looking at the tiny red, green and blue dots that made this miracle of the age possible. I recall the disappointment of discovering Bugs Bunny actually was grey.
Even though the 22in beast was confined to the dump decades ago, I wish we still had it, if only so I could experience the satisfying "Ka-chunk" of the buttons we had to depress into their faux teak housing. Four buttons, three channels . . .
Continue reading "Greatest England v Brazil game will always be history" »
Phill Jupitus
With football being but one of a veritable kaleidoscope of interests in my life, I have always very much taken it on face value. I relish the simplicity of 22 men running around a field trying to establish which half of them is better than the other. And when I need to be absurdly analytical about it, there’s room for that, too. But as one who has hitherto maintained a tenuous relationship with regular physical exercise, I feel I have never truly understood what players go through.
Oh, sure, we can all see what they go through. The rough challenges, the sheer effort of keeping going for 90 minutes. But in my own small way, I have started to view performing in a West End show ([Hairspray)] as being a bit like playing in a football game. For a start, there are two halves. Yes, as far as the similarities go, that’s the main one, but I am running around a bit getting incredibly sweaty, and at Saturday’s matinee, a ball even got kicked into the crowd! You get a damn good talking-to from the resident director (manager), then the dance captains and musical director (coaching assistants), and the stage manager (magic sponge) reminds you not to run into things.
There’s even a quite demanding pre-show warm-up. OK, so mine consists of walking around in a suit and hat watching bendy young men and women work their supple bodies to the tune of Superstylin’ by Groove Armada, before singing "Fluffy fluffy puppy" for ten minutes. But at least I’m getting in the zone.
You’re probably wondering how the jarring clashes come into such a tightly choreographed show packed with talented young professionals.
Well, somebody found a way. During the finale the other day, I was descending a staircase in a red, sequined, floor-length evening gown moving rapidly towards American chanteuse Belinda Carlisle, who was in a bright yellow dress. I caught a trailing heel on the last step and thundered towards Carlisle, whose eyes betrayed genuine fear. Try to imagine a sparkly Jan Molby taking out a Norwich midfielder and you roughly get the idea . . .
OK, so it’s lame but it gets me through the shows. But I suppose the real drama of football is that you aren’t guaranteed a happy ending.
Phill Jupitus
"You’re West Ham, ain’t ya?" are words I quite often hear either through the gap in the glass partition or crackling out of unseen speakers in the back of black cabs when travelling through London. In fact, anywhere in the UK if you’re taking a taxi and you know it’s going to be longer than a ten-minute journey and one of you can’t hack the uncomfortable silence, then football seems to be the go-to topic.
But when was this decided? Why leap into such potentially choppy waters when looking for ten minutes of low-impact chit-chat? There seem to be various ways that it can go. If the driver is a Hammer then he will immediately dive into the deep end, without any preamble. The present top-three themes referenced by West Ham-supporting taxi drivers are: "We haven’t got any finishing", "I like Zola" and "We’re too good to go down." Words that will surely send anyone who saw Joe Cole’s last season into utter hysterics.
If the driver hails from another London club, then they will usually open with: "You’re having a rough old time of it, ain’t ya!" At which point I have to decide whether they are talking about Simon Amstell leaving Buzzcocks, West Ham’s decline or some terrible third thing that I don’t yet know about. So I usually look bemused and go, "Sorry?" so they can go, "Seven points!" and then we’re off.
Continue reading "Life imitates art for London's cabbies" »
Phill Jupitus
I felt the Arsenal game bearing down with a grim inevitability, so when the day came, I realised that I wasn’t emotionally prepared to watch the disheartened Hammers having to cope with Arsène Wenger’s in-form team. It’s an odd feeling to have paid for a season ticket and not use it.
But then, from tonight I will be spending the majority of my evenings dressed as a woman for money, which is on balance slightly more odd. It’s not like I’m working the docks by the way, I shall simply be playing the mum in Hairspray in the West End.
It’s only once you have decided to forgo a game that doubt starts to creep in. We could win. Something completely incredible might happen. It could be the turning point of the season. In your mind, all of these things seem somehow much more likely when you know that you won’t be there to witness them.
Continue reading "Cross-dressing was a bigger draw than Upton Park" »
Phill Jupitus
While in Italy during the summer I rounded a marbled corner in Milan’s impressive train station to be confronted with a 50-feet high, 150-feet wide billboard featuring a reclining David Beckham wearing nothing but a pair of Mr Armani’s skimpy underpants.
Within them he was seemingly engaged in smuggling two frisky squirrels.
So as West Ham’s temporary descent into Hell grinds on and on, I am one of the few people to find some relief in one of last week’s more absurd sidebars. David Beckham has grown a beard, yay! For someone who is usually so carefully manscaped, it gave him a look more akin to Kirk Douglas playing Van Gogh in Lust for Life. It seems that these days the farthest that players dare venture is the occasional touch of designer stubble. So the scraggly chin of Beckham has been seen by some as a call to revive the hirsute days of yore.
At West Ham in the 1970s Bonds and Lampard Sr sported a good, solid beard accompanied by a shaggy mane of hair. A look that could be described as "unemployed Dr Feelgood roadie". Ricardo Villa’s dense Latin growth was another famous one, as well as the patchy, almost pre-Raphaelite majesty of Nottingham Forest’s Peter Withe.
It’s funny to think that when you look at archive photographs from the turn of the 20th century, nearly every player has his arms folded beneath a bushy beard.
Our modern game is bereft of such pervasive facial topiary. Stephen Ireland has something that is less a beard and more heavy shading done with a 2B pencil and a ruler. His oddly angular offering belongs on a baddie from Star Trek: Voyager. Thankfully you don’t need a computer to see how things would look in a hairier world, just take a pen or pencil to the photos in a copy of The Game and beard ’em up! I have tried it myself. John Terry looks like a fretful George Orwell and Stevie G looks like the "Unabomber".
In the days after "beardgate", one of the tabloids featured a photo spread of various England squad members who were apparently following the example of Beckham and going for the radical new bearded look.
Well, they might have been, or perhaps they just hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
Phill Jupitus
Here is just some of the online coverage of Ukraine versus England as it happened . . . Commentator No 1: “Well you join us here in a PC World superstore on the outskirts of Kettering, where we’re taking advantage of their Wi-Fi network as ‘somebody’ spilled herbal tea into our router. And what a game it looks like its going to be!” Commentator No 2: “In my defence, who would keep LAN network equipment that close to a kettle . . . And as we hunch over the ten-inch display of our shared laptop, like Fabio Capello we are going to have to make some tough choices. Should we go to full-screen mode, sacrificing clarity of picture, or keep the game in a separate window about the size of a CD cover?” Commentator No 1: “I’m going to have to stop you there because we’re just getting some news from the African stages. Apparently a prominent member of an African royal family who wishes to remain anonymous, has £15 million he needs to move offshore, and was wondering if we could send him our bank details?”
Commentator No 2: “Sadly, I don’t have my sort code on me, but there seems to be a hail of fire and smoke in Robert Green’s penalty area, and how is the game supposed to continue like this? Green is imploring to a heavily built referee, who appears to have antlers and is brandishing what looks like a massive axe!”
Commentator No 1: “Ah, sorry about that, I think I accidentally clicked my World Of Warcraft icon. Meanwhile back at the game, well I’m very sorry but our connection speed seems to have dropped as the juddering, leaden figure of Rio Ferdinand moves slowly around the penalty area.” Commentator No 2: “No, I think you’ll find that’s how fast he’s actually moving.” Commentator No 1: “Well this is going to give Ukraine the chance they’ve been waiting for as Artem Milevskiy rushes towards Green.” Commentator No 2: “A pop-up window offering us never-before- seen Britney Spears vids!” Commentator No 1: “And we can save $$$ on Viagra and Cialis!” Commentator No 2: “But back at the Dnipro Arena, I’m afraid Green appears to have vanished from our screens altogether!” Commentator No 1: “Try unplugging it and plugging it in again . . .”
Phill Jupitus
I had something rather odd happen in the small hours of yesterday. For the first time in my life I dreamt that I had to play for West Ham. It was surprising on a personal level because the truth is that I couldn’t imagine anything worse than the responsibility of turning out for the team that I support.
We were away to Histon in the FA Cup and upon arrival at the ground I was told that I would be required. My reaction was one of mild panic and I protested that surely there were many better players than me in the crowd. This was ignored and on my way to the changing rooms I saw a tall, angry Italian who wasn’t Gian-Frodo Zola remonstrating with the referee about which strip we had to use. After some shouting, it transpired that we would be wearing light blue shirts with no sponsor’s logo. As the anonymous Italian stomped by, I noticed he was wearing a tiny medallion with a swastika on it.
I got changed but had no boots so was sent to another room where I asked for a pair of size tens. A man said, "It’s not that simple, mate," and asked what weight of boot I needed, as another man started individually measuring my toes. I could hear the game had already started, so was panicking. I was dragged to the touchline wearing the kit but still carrying all my clothes as flash guns went off all around me.
Then I had to go to the opposing bench and say hello to the chairman, Steve, who was about to leave Histon for Manchester United. After wishing Steve well, I turned around but couldn’t see the West Ham dugout so was sent back inside the stadium, where I got totally lost.
At this point I realised I was supposed to be meeting a mate so I flew away, high above the stadium without as much as a kick of the ball.
I Googled various dream-interpretation websites for some explanation of my wayward subconscious. Apparently, dreaming about playing "soccer" is a way of "suppressing violent sexuality and expressing it in a more socially acceptable manner". Lovely! Another take was that it "symbolised the learning of rules and talents towards the achieving of goals". Yeah, yeah. All I know is that nobody sleeps easy at the bottom of the table.
Phill Jupitus
The other week on TheGame Podcast we had a chat with Dwight Yorke, and he seemed like a regular chap. Mind you, I suppose anybody would maintain a certain reserve when on the phone to three football journalists at the top of their game and a TV pop-quiz captain he had quite understandably never heard of.
His observations on going to the 2006 World Cup with Trinidad & Tobago did the job, we said goodbye and he was gone.
So when I heard the lilt of his familiar accent on Saturday night, I bobbed up to see Dwight on television. Had I accidentally turned over to yet another new satellite sports channel? Perhaps the BBC had made another knee-jerk executive decision and brought in Yorke to replace Alesha Dixon on Strictly Come Dancing. Alas no. A beaming Dwight was promising us the truth about his turbulent life with Jordan in exclusive excerpts from his forthcoming autobiography. I wondered how Mrs Andre might react to this bombshell. I can only assume she’s an every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining kind of gal, and is just glad of the press. I darted to the newsagents the next morning, carrying my saucy cargo home in an Angler’s Mail.
Continue reading "Dwight Yorke lays bare his relationship with Jordan (not Joe)" »
Phill Jupitus
"I am against video technology because that will take away the human face from the game . . ."
Michel Platini, Uefa president And so last week the first new development in 100 years of match adjudication landed awkwardly at goalside, the "additional assistant referees" (AARs). Blithely disregarding the fact that now television will presumably get the opportunity to make six blokes look incompetent instead of four, Platini has ushered in a new era of confusion.
But surely this is just the tip of the officiating iceberg. The AARs’ job is presumably to be an extra set of eyes on the penalty area and to help out with those tricky "ghost goals". A single man to the right of the goal is the most tokenistic of gestures. Remember, they would still remain unsighted if an incident happened on the opposite side of the area.
This is where two "extra additional assistant referees" (EAAR) would come in. They would give the referee almost total control of the penalty area, with four individuals following each and every moment of play.
But to play Devil’s advocate, let’s imagine a situation where these four good men and true are unsighted by a particularly dense crowding of men around the ball. To circumvent this, then, I think there should be "supplementary extra additional assistant referees" (SEAARs), who would operate as secondary linesmen on the opposite side of the pitch and provide a much-needed second opinion on offside decisions.
Having said that, a linesman might not be level with play in the final quarter. So rather than risk that, why not utilise four "ancillary supplementary extra additional assistant referees" (ASEAARs), who would be specifically charged with maintaining a vigil over passages of play in the final 20 yards of the field. Perhaps "central-zone linesmen" could pass the flags to "end-zone linesmen" like a relay baton?
Then the spectre of mistaken corners will raise its ugly head, which is where four "subsidiary ancillary supplementary extra additional assistant referees" (SASEAARs) will come into play. And only when TV coverage makes these 18 blokes look like idiots might Mr Platini think about using the bloody cameras!
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