Showing posts with label Middlesbrough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middlesbrough. Show all posts

Sunday, January 30, 2022

And Away . . . by Bob Mortimer (Simon & Schuster 2021)

 



(Another shit comment that I have never been able to wash from my embarrassment files happened when I met Sinéad O’Connor sometime in the early ’90s. I had been to the filming of a comedy entertainment show in central London in which Sinéad had appeared. All the boys I was with were in quiet disbelief about how beautiful she was in the flesh. After the show, Jim, Jools Holland and I kind of queued up to chat to her as she stood at the bar. When my turn came, I fell to pieces in the face of her radiance and blurted out, ‘Hi, Sinéad, do you have a local shop near to where you live?’ She politely answered ‘Yes’ and then turned away. It still hurts to think of it.)

Friday, April 19, 2019

Black Boots and Football Pinks: 50 Lost Wonders of the Beautiful Game by Daniel Gray (Bloomsbury Sport 2018)



This stiller world was embodied in players’ under­stated goal celebrations. Here were climactic moments responded to without choreography, ego or hands lifted to ears in front of the away end. A scoring player “could seem modest to the point of embarrassment. It was as if he did not want to take all of the glory and wished to silently convey that a goal belonged to everyone. There was poignancy in this reaction for those on the other side of the advertising hoardings. A scorer’s lack of self-congratulation tacitly acknowledged that a goal was a supporter’s moment. Here was the star actor, pointing to the audience during curtain-call applause.

His celebration was rarely more flamboyant than the raising of an arm. Perhaps he was taking time to drink in the roar of the crowd, even to look at those smiling faces. He would take the back pats and rigid hugs of teammates, the feeble handshakes and the cupped taps to the back of his head. Then, a jog back to the halfway line, where he could catch breath with hands rested above knees. He looked to the ball now moored on the centre-spot and gave inward thanks for what it had given him, and what it had given that crowd.

In truth, he deserved to be more exultant. None of us would have minded. Instead, he was left to revel in a goal in his own time, staring into space among the racket of the communal bath. There could now rise across his face the grin of a fulfilled man.

(Excerpt from the chapter, 'Understated Goal Celebrations'.)

Friday, August 15, 2008

Depending on Berbatov . . . . and Midtablebrough

Oops, been slacking off with the Guardian's preview of the upcoming English Premier League. That calls for some last minute substitutions:

  • Man Utd
  • Middlesbrough