So we beat the Bitters at “Wembly” with a gaggle of gifted kids, having been fluked into a 0-2 deficit at halftime. Some people – usually the losers – claim the Charity Shield isn’t a real game, but I think the sight of Micah Richards’ studs-up challenge on Ashley Young tells another story. Ironically, city are using the “under strength” excuse, despite having all their main steamers on the pitch that day (excepting Tevez). De Gaea endured a nightmare 45, especially their second goal, when his little pogo motion took him out of sync with Dzeko’s shot, thereby delaying his dive until it was too late. That’s right; I’m a goalkeeping specialist now.
History flutters its eyelashes and a million monkeys jump to attention, defying convention and avoiding pretension, Scholesey’s orange napper’s got midfield in the crapper, alas, poor Carrick, he’s on fly agaric, I knew him well, tin-bath Geordie bell, when his mam she ‘ad nuffink, except an old cufflink, that was once Supermac’s, made from recycled tacks. What’s wrong with Fletch, that poor Scottish wretch, he’s a rake on the take, an he needs a good steak, while Nani’s emerging, downfield he is surging, a harbinger of doom, statue in living room, and he does like a strop, but where will it stop, I can’t take it no more; a fucking big face on the planet next door? A boat-race on Mars, gazin’ out at the stars, rocket fuel in our cars, let’s put some aside while we still know the score, ‘cos the planet is Red an’ – OK, none of that made any sense, I know.
Arsenal are fragmenting, with Flabbergast off to Catalunya, Bendtner off to anywhere, and Wenger probably off his head. Ever since the Handbags Era and the food fight (not to mention apeman Keown mocking Ruud after his penalty miss) I have nursed a strong urge to piss on Highbury/Emirates from a hovering Harrier. The only downside to this is that city could be guaranteed a permanent slot closer to the top. And that’s never a good thing.
One thing I’m sick of, no, not Paul Dickov, is the Bitters’ small mindset, must be a blind get, to not see the irony, of their Prima Donna tyranny, dissin’ Roberto, that poor little squirt-oh, an’ that Ballotelli, should give him the wellie, I watched them at “Wembly”, they became very trembly, when de Gaea cocked up, thought he’d won ‘em the cup, but it’s a shield you daft gets, an’ despite all our debts, we cleaned up again, it was on News at Ten, right after the rioting, an’ a bit about dieting, showed Nani break free, outran shite Kompany, and buried the ball, just like fuck all, and the Bittermen cried, and denied and denied, that the shield’s important, as is Rooney’s new implant, Colleen must be buzzin’, his napper is fuzzin’, but the streets are aflame, and no-one’s to blame, for kids who just burn things, livin’ on Burger Kings, Planet o’t’ Scrotes, an’ carnival floats, bearin’ footballing prizes, in various sizes, will not satisfy, the hungry magpie, cos all that glitters, has gone down the shitters, an’ the youth want a piece, an’ they’re not gonna lease, they ain’t lookin’ to buy, as the missiles fly, but United’s in debt, Glazers not finished yet, there’s a chance they’ll sell, to ‘im from’t’ oil well, while the Megastore cranks, and Gilgamesh wanks, ‘cos the boycotts ‘ave died, town’s fires subside, but I’m ‘ere in the States, degrees high ninety-eights, Nu England Bayou, climate changin’ hey-ho, an effect domino, the odd tornado, but enough about me, wharrabout Ste, with his infected groin, an’ American coin, with forehead so crinkled, his bollocks all wrinkled, he’s on his way out, with a bad case of gout, while Kenny the Saviour, and the gifts that he gave yer, stands forlorn on the side, his eyes open wide, ‘cos the Red Sox are watchin’, his face is all blotchin’, he’s spent a pile, but they’ll lose by a mile, ‘cos Carroll’s a drunk, an’ Suarez smokes skunk, an’ Henderson’s shit, but Phil Jones is a hit, and so is Young Ashley, attacking so brashly, and it’s time to stop this, it’s turning to piss…
So, another season to look forward to, and though we say it every year, this one could be a biggie. The performances in the States and against city at Wembley have raised everyone’s expectations, with good reason. The whole Sneijder to United saga, a soap opera of truly gash proportions, and bested only by Ronnie-to-Real and Cesc-to-Barca, has become little more than a tedious sideshow, knowing the likes of Cleverley is waiting to prove himself. Once young Tom gets his tendency to let fly, Gibsonecstasy style, under control, he will be an asset. Hopefully not one we sell to Sunderland for five million, though.
I’ve got my BBQ on, my slave girls waving huge peacock tail fans languidly in my general direction, and a hard-on that’s gonna have to wait until halftime to get sorted. Are YOU ready to rumble, fellow Reds..?

So the crane fly and the Jack Russell have gone. We all knew it was coming, but the sense of vulnerability is physical now it’s happened. Can’t we sign Shay Given and Joey Barton while we regroup? Take them on loan? My head is whirling here on the plastic prairie. We’ve been on a six-hour tornado warning tonight. Several twisters touched down less than ten minutes away. Hospitals are packed with trauma victims (makes a change from gunshot, I suppose). A cowboy caravan will roll into town in the morning, offering expert construction advice. But fuck that. VDS and the Ginger Prince have fucking fucked off. Two gaping holes remain, like punctures inflicted by some alien drilling machine in the Madcunian crust, or a giant vampiric beast called Time. It’s draining the lifeblood out of the squad, and all we have to replenish it are vague rumours of continental wunderkinds and shit declarations of “pride” in how we got our legs slapped in the CL final. Bunch of dozy knobheads. Wake up and smell the bell cheese. The terminals need a scrub, the verdegris is rampant. The spark is fucking GONE. Didn’t yer dad always tell yer to wash behind it? Alien drillers or vampiric beasts, something is TAKING resources away from this great club and GIVING nothing back in return. There’s too much schmeg in the system. And now the summer is upon us the rot will only get worse.
John Hemming’s unmasking of Bryan Giggs days ahead of the Messicre didn’t help. An attention-seeking shithouse ignorant of social media, believing he was telling the nation something sensational: Mister Wales has been shagging Missus Wales. Catherine Zeta Jones might have summat to say about that, like, but she’s mental, so it’s a one-horse race, really. Having said that, mental birds are good fun, especially the Welsh ones. Missed yer chance there, Bryan. Fucked it all up at the final hurdle. Christ, can’t footballers fulfil our dreams anymore? Oh, forgot about you, Scholesy, sorry. And Edwin. Yep, you two have been gigantic. Not gigantic enough to beat city and Barcelona at Wembley but pretty decent anyway. Pair of fucking slackers. Only joking lads. Fucking CUNTS. Oops, Jesus, what am I saying? – I’m a bit pissed and writing daft things. It’s alcohol-induced Tourette’s, honestly. I’m just feeling vulnerable and lashing out at easy targets. Do one more year each, you sad twa- alright, I’ll let it go.
The one silver lining in the Giggs saga was telling my wife that the player she admires most for his skill and humility – comparing him to me as an example of a “good man” – has been boning some minx behind his wife’s back. Her shattered illusion of Giggs’ perfectness means I can drink even more and if she says anything I can wag my drunken finger at her and say, “A few scoops is nothin’…Giggs…look what he did….”
Silver linings, aye. Speaking of which, outside this window there’s an amber sky below an opaque black cloudline whose deathly tendrils keep threatening to become twisters. Constant media warnings; tornadoes ten minutes away in Springfield. At least four dead already. The weather’s crazy this year. My hypothesis is that we’re in the midst of an Epoch transition. Gonna be a lot of things going extinct, maybe even us, and what doesn’t will be forced to evolve into something else. It might not be human-caused either, so don’t be getting all ashamed, or proud, or whatever.
Which brings me to the “pride” issue. All those who hammered on about how well United played against Barca at Wembley. I assume they were watching a different match than me, because I saw nothing to be proud of. I’m not saying I was ashamed either, but proud? You’ve gotta be midnight tokin’ pal. Living away from Manchester for 17 and a half years makes you see how biased you lot back in the Old Country are. I watched a United game live on telly with my dad once. After about two minutes of totally objective commentary, he jumped up, saying, “Ah’m not listenin’ ter this! Bleedin’ hate us, they do!” and proceeded to mute the TV while listening to a Manchester radio commentary instead. From the radio issued the voices of an ex-United player and a known United fan. Rattling on about the dirty tactics and inferiority of the opposition compared to the noble reds. My dad turned and said, “Now, this is a lot more honest.” It was an eye-opener; I’d actually found the television commentary to be slightly in our favour if anything. So when all the “pride” talk erupted in the wake of our second drubbing by the Catalans, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Top reds and all that.
My wife is seven months pregnant. She’s out now having her napper done at “Hairdresser on Fire”. True story, take note Morrissey. She phoned earlier to warn me of the tornadoes, but decided to press on with the mission. The nesting instinct has kicked in. It’s a dog’s life. Building fences, chopping trees down, painting bedrooms, you name it. I’m knackered. It only seems like yesterday when I was writing these same things. That was two years ago. Our daughter is already a beast. History repeats. Time is round and space is curved. Things grow, in size and ferocity, until something happens to tame them. You start with an Eden but people come and vandalise wantonly. Then someone lays the law down and we start again. No matter how idyllic your picnic, the animals are always gonna find the party. The Hells Angels were attracted to San Francisco in the late 60s like football lads drawn to raves in the late 80s. Hillsborough was football’s Altamont. A cleansing made from pain and death. Layers of red tape and sanitation brought in to quell the panic and deflect the blame. Each time the kiddies go too far they cop for a blast of cultural Domestos. It’s up to us to provide a resistance to that and push back. Prolong the party. In 1999 we went all the way and no-one could stop us. This year we fell twice at Wembley, with the soul of the world against us. Everyone wanted city to win the semi. Nobody expected us to beat Barca, including ourselves. Two years ago we won our third title on the bounce. I was waiting for our first child to appear while fretting over Planet X and the New World Order. Nothing’s changed in that department. Something mysterious and irresistible waits in our future; an answer that casts an immense shadow on the present. The universe is constantly morphing from a simpler to a more complex state, and this thing is both complex and simple. It’s a transcendent bridge between epochs, an evolutionary punctuation. But I’m rambling here, so I’ll stop.
Or will I? Sir Alex isn’t gonna be around forever. The successor must soon be chosen. Recent developments on the Iberian Peninsula have brought a certain Special One’s pedigree into doubt. Typical of football’s fickleness. What Real did to Spurs, Barca did to Real. According to popular imagination, Spesh spent the second leg curled up in a ball in his hotel room, having publicly melted down in the days prior. When I phoned my dad a week or so back, he said, “We should go for that Pep Guardiola. He’s good ‘im…” No trace of irony, nothing. He thinks Pep will leave Barcelona to live in Manchester. He’s probably still listening to “honest” radio commentary while watching United on telly, an’ all. Actually, I think he’s boycotted Sky, so maybe not.
Back to this tornado-blighted side of the pond. For several weeks United tickets have topped all others, including NHL and NBA playoff tickets. Just shows you how popular we are here. The yanks are getting proper giddy at the return of their heroes. The only puzzle for me is why the MLS All-Star Game is being played in the tiny Red Bull Arena. Maybe there’s an agreement that United will help pay for America’s first purpose-built soccer stadium. With a tiny 25,000 capacity it won’t be the same as last year’s finale in Houston, that’s for sure. The game at Gillette Stadium is tempting, but the realisation that Scholes won’t be playing ever again hits me like a punch in the gut. He’s gone. The Ginger Prince has left the building. I watch the Youtube of his greatest passes for the umpteenth time and take a swig of something lively. And what of Giggs? First in and last out of the Class of ’92. Scholes has taken a training job at United, but when Giggs retires I foresee him disappearing into the valleys. Skiing Snowdonian slopes in the dead of winter night, dressed in black. Scything to a halt outside isolated stone cottages before plunging inside and shagging their luscious inhabitants to within an inch of their lives. Mister Wales, the black and silver Super Goat. Might wanna consider that aspect of him when marketing to the yanks, Mr. Gill. It has legs. Goat legs. If yer reading this, get in touch and I’ll send you the artwork. Makes the Silver Surfer look like John Terry in Moscow.
The Premier League season ended amid the FIFA fiasco, as certain managers came and went, but Mr. Blatter endured. The usual suspects played musical benches and realigned themselves with new clubs. It’s embarrassing; a clique of blokes just taking turns at doing a shit job. Like Australian telly actors. Every role has the same few cunts popping up. Hughes has left Fulham. Villa fans are still rueing the shame of Houllier kissing the Kop’s ringpiece when they played there. Rumours of Rafa coming to fill his boots sent them into frenzy; if Houllier saluted the mickeys what would fucking Rafa do? What would Jesus do? What would you do, dear Scholesy? I know, you’d kick their fucking balls in and that’s why there’s a black hole to fill in midfield. I can’t imagine who’ll manage it. See y’all next year, top reds.

There’s been times this season when it looked like we couldn’t win a carrot. Arsenal were the team to beat and Rooney was on his bike. That’s not a metaphor, by the way. And now look where we are. It never rains but it pours, as the saying goes. You go months without discovering a single conspiracy theory and then nine arrive all at once. That’s how Lizard Wenger must feel at the moment. Caught in a web of weirdness so unlikely there simply has to be people pulling the strings. First Shake Man Sewer pays off Bolton to let Stoke leather them five-nil. This has the unintended side-effect of giving Arsene a false sense of security when the Invincibles (lord help us) go to the Reebok. There was the outlandish finish at the Emirates against Liverpool, the ref giving penalties like a drunken sailor. Being told to “piss off” by Kenneth Dalglish on world television. And the Spurs comeback at the Lane saw plastic bottles bouncing like ‘70s superballs. Make or break time at Bolton, despite a penalty miss, saw the Trotters walk all over crybaby Cack Wilshere and his whingeing friends. If only Chelsea could provide such epic flopping, we’d be parading the trophy round Manchester already. Oh, wait…only city are allowed a parade, I forgot. Apparently United haven’t done enough for the image of Manchester around the globe to deserve one.
Of all the planets in all the galaxies in all the parallel universes, why did I have to be marooned on this one? Chicharito’s ancestors predicted the current Age would end on December 21, 2012, and the symptoms have been deepening for a while. city winning a semi-final tells me the end is nigh. That those clowns are in a cup final is a major indicator of the coming global cataclysm. If the blues are winning on the big day with seconds remaining, get ready for a fucking big meteor shower 18 months early, ‘cos some things just aren’t meant to happen. As we approach 2012 we should expect a ton of mass extinction documentaries and other lovely stuff pertaining to the apocalypse. We have entered a period I call the Time Radius. The Time Radius is a kind of backwash we are passing through and it affects things in hideously crude ways. Cover versions of good songs by shit bands, for instance (see “Ever Fallen in Love With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?” by Fine Young Cannibals or “Dock of the Bay”, by Michael Bolton). All the remakes of films like Willy Wonka, The Italian Job, Jason and the Argonauts, Planet of the Apes – absolute and utter piss. Fact is humanity’s hit a wall somewhere up ahead, or at least our collective unconscious has, and our creativity’s washing back over us and latching onto old ideas and deciding it’s OK to recycle. But it isn’t. When a species or an entire Age hits its limit, you will see Hilary Duff singing “My Generation”, or Manchester city qualify for the FA Cup Final. It’s very strange, and very wrong. It means we are going extinct.
Then again, maybe this world ain’t so bad. There must be planets out there with truly abysmal conditions. There’s probably one where every living thing agglomerates into a single gigantic erect tongue of slime every 26 thousand years, to tower beyond the upper atmosphere when a neighbouring planet passes by so it can lick its surface and fertilise the other in an act of cosmic cunnilingus. Panspermia, they call it. I imagine that would be almost as bad as supporting city. Especially if you were down where all the phlegmy cannon fodder was, rather than up at the tip, doing the business with the superior DNA. Speaking of which, we could do Blackpool a huge favour if our title is already won when we play them last game. I like the Tangerines. If only ‘cos they’re called the Tangerines. Right now it’s looking like the three W’s are going down; Wolves, West Ham and Wigan. Hopefully the pie will survive, but not at the cost of a tangerine. One person who didn’t survive – in the cruel world of internet warriorhood, that is – is Darron Gibson. Dgibbo28’s epic Twitter fail is old news, but it serves as a solid demonstration by United fans that, though we’re #winning the league, there’s no room for complacency. Or shit players. Perhaps Dgibbo28 expected to receive a cyber arse licking from his army of adoring fans. If so, this confirms that he and those who rate him suffer collective delusions of slurpiture. To earn a global anus tonguing from the internet you’ll have to do more than kick a ball quite hard and inaccurately, Dgibbo28, you arrogant cringemonger.
While we’re on arrogant, with the upcoming United tour of the USA, I foresee myself organising a night out with Wazzaroon08, Giggsy and Chicharito. It’d be brilliant, stumbling home with Wazza and Pea, plus the bloke my missus would probably leave me for in a heartbeat….fucking hell, you could do me a proper favour there, Ryan, lad. Only joking, of course. Thankfully there’s no value in the market or she’d have fucked me off years ago. Me and Gibbo are brothers in that regard. Being married ain’t easy, and those of you who are wed know the score. It seems there’s three-month shagfests with slags you meet in pubs, or else there’s marriage. That’s the choice, as far as “relationships” go. There’s one night stands, obviously, but they don’t count. And then there’s wanking.
Wanking, as 100% of you know, was revolutionised by the internet in approx. 1997. Many of you never really went for hard copy wanking tackle; nudie books just didn’t agree with you. Too easy for yer mam to find it, slipped inside that Stranglers “No More Heroes” album. Barring the odd nicked one, or some rain-sodden discovery in a derelict house when you were 8 years old, paper-based stimulants were off the menu. I remember a cartoon on a stairwell wall in Cowper House, Kersal back in the ‘70s. It was a drawing from inside a woman’s body, with an erect knob emerging from a slit with a smiley face on the end, and the knob was saying, “It’s nice in here!” It wasn’t a bad cartoon cock, as cartoon cocks go. Some stippling on the bell-end, a few veins, and a fine distribution of spiky hairs on the bollocks, which for some strange reason were also inside the woman. That was childhood for you. Tiny things pleasing tiny minds. The odd discarded rubber Johnny under a bridge in the park was enough to send you into near-mythic delirium. Then you became old enough to have sex and go to football and act the goat. Seen it, been there, done it, etc. By the mid-90s you were 29 going on 50. Bored, shagged out, married and fat. So when the Web hit you with its motherlode of porn, you were like the American Indian in the face of alcohol. You had no resistance to it. Days spent sitting in darkened rooms, pants round ankles or completely off, tugging one’s member violently to an abominable digital compendium of tits, fannies, legs, arses, faces, hair, you fucking name it, sunbeam. It’s OK. I feel your pain. I know how it is to realise you quite fancy hanging old women. Birds with glasses on. Hairy arsed ugly slappers. Fat cunts. Freckled bony sluts. You dirty pervert. Anyway, as a result of this situation, I have developed a fantastic new Web tool for gentlemen such as yourself: The Wank Tracker. Now, I’m aware we’re in the running for a splendid Premier and UEFA Champs double, but forget that. The Wank Tracker is the answer to all your prayers. No longer will you wonder what happened to that life-changing photo set of “Brooke” (“Babes” section, oddly enough) that had you quaking with aftershock-lust all Saint Patrick’s Day, 2000, or that unbelievable redhead (“Moira”) in the lilac panties that almost sent you mental back in the scrotum-draining spring of 2002. They’re gone forever, like ships in the night, but no longer, thanks to my invention. I can see you now, a wad of bogroll at the ready, staring goggle-eyed at the clock in the lower right corner (“Christ, I’ve been at it an hour ‘ere and no joy!”), your town halls about to explode as you frantically hunt for something decent. You’ll never suffer the unrequited Barclays ever again. The Wank Tracker will record those more memorable cuntquests in a spreadsheet, week by week. All your cyber-tugging back over the years, thanks to its Web-based application. No more saggy old emergency pull-offs. Private login, encryption, the monty. You know it makes sense. And then there’s the Wank Tracker Pro, but don’t me started on that. Suffice to say it won’t be cheap.
But back to the Time Radius. The edge of human destiny. Time catches up with everything in the end, even light. Death itself dies, given enough time. Diseases can be passed through time – by genetic inheritance. It’s horrible, but these little glitches in the molecular structure finish us off eventually. Even if your name’s Poly Styrene or Buckminster Fullerene, for that matter. Unfortunately Poly’s recent passing was somewhat eclipsed by heated discussions involving city fans’ disrespect for United’s history and the songs they like to sing about us. That many United supporters had been so moved by the screening of the TV film “United”, despite Matt Busby’s family insisting it was unrealistic and innacurrate, didn’t help; the Bittermen chanted about “Munichs” the very next night at Blackburn. Like Mr. Ferguson once said, “they’re a small club with a small club mentality”. We’re both made of the same stuff, but it seems we just have more. More quality, more trophies, more fans (both local and otherwise) and more class. In short, we’ll always be the Cock of the North and they, by comparison, will always be Manchester Clitty. As we wrap up the campaign, it’s easy to rue the FA Cup semi-final as a treble that got away. Fact is, we’re revving on all cylinders at exactly the right time, and maybe, just maybe, we can do something really special this year. Whether it’s to see magnificent Barcelona, or the mouthpieces from down the road, have a nice Wembley, lads.

Spring has sprung like Zebedee on crack, pipe down at the back ‘cos this May could be cack, though it might just be a belting craic. Not for the faint of heart-strings, knowhatImean, wack? Mancini and his robots are revved up for this semi-final. United must feel like the poor Japanese in the face of their punishment from the World Bank earthquake machine. Shake Man Sewer has unlimited beadage available to fund his little hobby horse. But don’t worry; we’re gonna sign Reina and Torres and the Qataris are buying us and Benzema, Schweinsteiger, De Gea, Banega, Rodwell, Sneijder and Kaka and Mourinho and – bollocks, I’ll have a cuppa and calm down. I’m sitting here, dithering like an alcoholic whippet, worrying about which component(s) of the treble we can afford to write off. There’s the League and Arsenal; could we really live with ourselves kissing goodbye to Number Nineteen? I think not. Then there’s the Champions League and Chelsea; can our Gibsonesque gimps put the pretenders in their place? Hard to say. Last, and by all means least, we have the FA Cup and the Bittermen; a devalued trophy we totally blew off in favour of the Intercontinental Cup after our ’99 treble, suddenly infused with meaning due to the bizarre fact that Manchester city have managed to beat Leicester, Notts County, Aston Villa (wow, Villa?!) and Reading on their way to their first semi-final since Albert Tatlock last got his end away. How horrible will it be if the Q2 whores edge us out at Wembley? I’ll never be able to utter the phrase, “when city beat us at Wembley…” ever. EVER. Granted, those words aren’t as difficult to say as “Bernard Breslaw”, “architrave” or “tundish”, with a straight face, but they are vile and without logic. In 1999 we flipped our middle finger at the FA and fucked off to Japan to beat Palmeiras 1-0 with a Roy Keane strike and Mark Bosnich minding the goal. Evergreen Ryan Giggs was Man of the Match as United became the first and only British team to win the trophy. But this year’s FA Cup has suddenly become important. Not because of the trophy itself, but because city are Chelsea Lite and as such must be battered on and off the pitch and sent home to their stinking hovels with welts, blisters, lacerations and piles. If our current squad of unstable crybabies, Amazonian cheekboners, Toltecs, beanpoles, French Action Figures, retirees, “clients”, sweet Transylvanians and shrunken-headed rapists fail to dispatch those blue cunts I will be fucking seething. Chelsea and Liverpool bullied us. If city do the same I may kill someone. Probably Darron Gibson, not because he’s crap, but ‘cos he spells his first name with an “o”, the annoying gobshite. Or maybe Michael Carrick. If he was a horse, they’d shoot him. As will I. Chris Smalling will help me dispose of the body. He’s proved very useful lately. I bet he can carry and dig with the best of ‘em. NOTE: I’ve just gone to Smalling’s Wikipedia page and discovered someone’s been pissing about. Here’s what it said: “Chris Smalling also had multiple trials with many County Cricket teams, but was considered too good to play for them, and opted to play football instead. He is widely considered the best centre-back in the world.” “And it wasn’t me, hand on heart; I’m on a second warning with Wiki and will be barred for life for a third. My assaults on the Michael Jackson and High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program pages put me in very hot water, so I’m on the straight and narrow these days. Bullying geek bastards. It’s their “time”, apparently.
Bullying is ugly and wrong, but sport is a physical contest and inevitably the big boys get to throw their weight about. We are seriously lacking in the weight throwing department these days. Nani’s serial humiliation at Hamford Fridge and ultimately Anfailed proved this beyond measure. Little Pea also comes in for too much stick and there’s no-one to watch his back. Even Rooney, as game as he is, seems to reserve most of his short-arsed venom for the officials rather than the David Luiz’s of this world. Then again, I can’t blame him; Luiz is proof there’s plenty of value in the market if you know where to fucking look. This bullying of United players by shitehawks like Gerrard and Ivanovic is painful to watch, but it might be on its way out. The fact that football has become a form of showbusiness may mean a shift downward in scale. Just like Hollywood actors are really miniatures of the characters they play (i.e. Harrison Ford is actually four foot nine and seven stone, but they make him look like a six foot hunk), footballers may soon be required to fulfil similar criteria. Nobody over five-three will be permitted to participate. HDTV and Max Factor will create a pop culture wonderland of little men who look awesome. Evra and Park will be the dominators come the titchy revolution. Tevez will be a raging beast. That midget feller who plays for Marseilles will be the new Messi- oh wait, Messi’s smaller than him. Either way, it’s the future. But until then Fergie needs to sign some big steamers who can sort it out in the middle. They say it’s the size of the fight in the dog that matters, but living in the States I’ve grudgingly come to admit that sometimes bigger is better. Mega and Meta. Macro and Micro. Two fractals in a modern sporting dichotomy. Giants versus elves. Football freakonomics bows down to physics at the end of the day, ‘cos 15 stone of bone, ligament and muscle trumps 10 of skin and bone. When Beckman became the bend it king and other set-piece specialists emerged, football took a step towards a more American approach. The game was dissected, butchered into clinical moves and zones. Having big guys in the engine room became imperative. Sure, football’s always had its centre-halves, but power and speed are now as important as heading ability and grit. Each player now serves a more defined function even as they’re expected to cover more ground. United are currently struggling with a jack-of-all-trades gaggle. Utility men like Rooney, the twins and O’Shea shuffled about the peripheries of a misshapen blob. Rooney’s work-rate and support skills have won matches, but his salary means either Chicharito or Berba must start on the bench. Now Tony V is back the pressure is off Roon and on the opposing defence. That’s the way, a-ha, a-ha, I like it. The novel formation Ferg fielded against Arsenal in the FA Cup was a stroke of genius, but we’re gonna need some steel against dirty bastards like Barry, De Jong and Kompany in this Wembley test. The latter is a square-headed cyborg, but even he couldn’t control Luiz at Chelsea recently, and Aleksandar Kolarov nearly snapped his foot off in a tackle with the onrushing Brazilian phenomenon. Sorry to be kissing Luiz’s arse a bit here, but WHY DIDN’T WE SIGN HIM? EH? Was it ever even a fucking rumour? Never mind, there’s always Sergio Canales if rumours are your thing. The truth is we just need a goalkeeper and two monsters in the centre of the park and we’re fandabbyfuckindozy. It could be worse; we could be bringing Peter Schmeichel out of retirement, a la Arsenal and Lehman. How embarrassing and strange is that? But enough about football. It’s shit.
Don’t get me wrong; “bigger is better” has its applications, but I’ve not turned into a dumbass yank. Anyone who’s been around competitive people knows that it really is about vibes and body language, perceivable clouds of pheromones and neurotransmitters that combine to send complex messages. These aromatic halos are instantly deciphered by the ancient brains around us. It’s why toddlers seem to read our minds when we try to outwit them with semantic codes. We say more to each other with these silent clouds of information than we ever could with silly words. And right now we’re oozing a queer blend of confidence and fear on the pitch. United are strong yet weak but the big time may be something we little people don’t completely understand. Conspiracies are probably rife. Fact is, we should have also won at Chelsea, but refereeing decisions obstructed us and Fergie was right to question biased ref Martin Atkinson. Things could be worse, as I say. We could be poor Arsenal, bringing out an old man to stand between the sticks, having crashed out of three – that’s right, three – competitions in a couple of weeks or so. Wenger will be pacing the sidelines in his tortoise coat, his reptile boat race grimacing madly in the title run-in. A very dear friend called John Burney died last week, aged 52. John told me recently that he thought the 3-1 loss at Liverpool was “a fix for the betting”, and I am inclined to agree. It’s John’s funeral tomorrow and I am drinking (again) tonight, while I look at photos of Carr Clough, Prestwich, Rainsough, Whitefield, town, etc, thinking of all the times we had. I can see him now, in leather soled shoes, man-pants, a smart shirt under a lambswool v-neck sweater. Hair swept slightly back, with an amused expression on his face. On his knees, helpless with laughter, to be exact. In a pub. Only the good die young and John was very good, and he believed in speaking the truth. He watched United to the very end and never lost his sense of humour or dignity. Most strangely, the least prestigious of those three competitions is the FA Cup, and it’s the one we HAVE to win. I just wish John had lived to see it, whatever the result. There’s no need for any bigonomotry for this one – it’s as big as it gets, let’s not kid ourselves. So if you’ll excuse me, I must play some music and look at some pictures and relive many memories of a great man and United supporter about whom many tales could be told. As Dr. Seuss once said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened”.

I’m in me parents’ kitchen, typing words into the laptop they never use. Been in Manchester two weeks, loved every minute. It began with the view from the plane as we circled Ringway. In the cul-de-sac outside, several illuminated kitchens and living rooms can be clearly viewed – people talking, laughing, arguing – and it warms my heart. It is Europe. All my mates have gone mental, barring one or two, but the weird distinctions between what is acceptable and what isn’t remain, even among the mental ones. I’ve gained a stone in 2 weeks, my own version of Man vs. Food. Puddings, pies and kebabs the main culprits. I’ve loved the rain and gloom, but there’s been plenty of blue skies and sunshine, too. In two days I will be crying as I say goodbye, to my family and history. My wife and one year old daughter mean the world to me, but this is where my heart is…The USA is a wonderful place, but one day I hope to bring them here to live. Call me silly, I don’t care. You either understand or you don’t…One day I hope to return…to Mataland!

The day wot we flew, I woke up on cue, not packed a jot, hangover an pot, sped down to Kennedy, full of eggs benedict, she brought pushchair an car seat, an a bag of posh meat, cos “airports peddle poison”, I got the Artois on; throw tantrum, swear, guzzle, dint get nicked though – a puzzle, the babe was the focus, a skrikin likkle locus, of hate to the punters, lined up to the fronters, in a fifteen seat radius, mincemeat they’d a made of us, if it want fer me eyes, all evil an wise, but once past the water, I cradled me daughter, we circled the stack, I looked down at the craic, surprised at developments, high rise and elements, crammed round the centre, that beating placenta, of concrete and glass, with patches of grass, met by a mate, there at the gate, a VIP minder, sez Fergie’s a blinder, an the Glazers aren’t gets, despite all the debts, hugged by me folks, bacon an yolks, beat Scunthorpe United, but why get excited, then I met Andy Mitten, right ‘ere in Britain, in’t’ Pevril o’t’ Peak, one night in the week, we bought a fanzine, he spoke very keen, of life over’t’ water, an expectin a daughter, he ran to meet others, his DIY brothers, Red Issue an such, he loped off through the slutch, near’t’ Briton’s Protection, I give it inspection, faces like bulldogs, defences like hedgehogs, then in comes a text, from a bloke oversexed, a chemical fiend, whose brain is careened, in no time I’m walkin, the ‘Dilly an talkin, ’bout architects an gangsters, we merry pranksters, love’d up on trips, rekindlin’ friendships, dancin on moonlight, far beyond midnight, but it’s no way to roll, when yer forty years old, an I’m nigh forty-five, me heart was alive, gonna burst with the potion, right side of the ocean, next day we played Bolton, I was dead meat wi’ salt on, lyin in feather, under the weather, took me days to get right, me chest feelin tight, an the sky hangs like lead, over me head, in black puddin foodhall, one proper oddball, surrounded by crowds, gabblin loud, feelin depressive, back end of expressive, it looked like Uzbekistan, I looked like Desperate Dan, days bleedin later, a right done potater, so I raced in me car, down to a bar, in Manchester town, wearin a frown, an I met that Mike Duff, still feelin dog-rough, he bought me Holts bitter, the rain went a-pitter, we swapped some signed books, an a few funny looks, he asked “wot’s the mattoh”, the rain went a-pattoh, said “lay off them pills”, I breathed thru me gills, an his mate was called Ted, a Burton Arms head, but Duff was pissed up, with bitter to sup, an I bid ‘em good luck, continued to truck, give Valencia the welly, on a dirty big telly, the ol’ Trafford Centre, a piss-poor adventure, a radio interview, “Salford is into you”, DJ Steve Doyle’s got soul, he’ll swallow yer whole, nil-nil at Mackem, we failed to attack ‘em, back out with the lads, most of ‘em dads, they shoulda known better, doin E’s, coke an Ketta, in a wild Prestwich boozer, no such thing as a loser, come in from the cold, jukebox 20 years old, blastin Roses ‘n’ James, fannin chemical flames, like a lurid French bar, silhouetted overrevved car, but I’m nigh forty five, an I like bein alive, so I phone me ol’ man, he’s there quick as he can, an we get a kebab, like a fuckin big slab, a dog on a butty, in hot spicy putty, an we laugh about life, as he wields the knife, cos it’s nice to be home, like they say “when in Rome….”

The season’s kicked off amid weird uncertainty in the air. What to wear and what not to: All those G&G windsocks that inflated our hopes, now in danger of being cast off like so many used Johnnies. Imagine if only one individual kept it going? He (or she)’d be a technicolor bird in the palm of a cyclops’ hand…stranger than it is horrible…and it is very horrible. One lone gay child decked in red, gold and green surrounded by the instant gratification mob, all sulking ‘cos Glazer’s still pulling the strings. Extinction of a dream. This won’t be resolved overnight. Wearing Norwich scarves – as humiliating and garish as that is – is only one small fraction of what needs doing. Fortunately, the rest doesn’t concern us plebs; it’s in the hands of the big boys, those whose mothers went to finishing school and think the great unwashed are a joke. Lovely people, honest. They make barbs about each others’ choice of holiday chateau or insider trading moves while we get pissed and scoff chip butties, secure in the knowledge it’s out of our control. Let the egomaniacs battle it out while we reduce the whole business to a tabloid sideshow thanks to alcohol, drugs and fried food. If you want to attack those who stand out for their poor understanding of football politics, just remember – there’s a lot of sheep out there, followers who haven’t a fucking clue. The megastore harlequins are harmless. They don’t even know enough to hide their ignorance. It’s your responsibility to unearth the camouflaged danger within. Responsibility isn’t for us, I know. Down a hole shovelling shit suits us better, far from the egotesticle. But football is a working-class sport. I’ve gone from ditch-digger to roofer to removal man to housepainter to sign-writer, to pesticide analyst to advertising, and if I’ve learnt one thing it’s this: People are cunts. If I wasn’t such a hairy bastard I’d have murdered half the fuckers I’ve ever met by now. Can’t be shedding androgenic fur everywhere with those forensics sniffing around, though, can we? The camouflaged wankers who claim to be proper United would be top of my hit list. Everyone’s whingeing ‘cos that UNITED—KIDS—WIFE bloke got his picture took with a Glazer in a lift in America, like he committed a fucking war crime or something. While wanking over the prospect of some upper-crust gaggle taking us away from all this. Fact is, football is shite, we’re all hopeless romantics, and the jaded moneymen are laughing like a goon squad in our hearts. United’s the McCoy, the rich man’s club. Sheff United, Sunderland and Stoke all sport the red, white and black but each is a shrunken malformed version of the real thing. We’re the good guys, the James Bond to the ugly Eastlands whore-hound. The nearest competitor to us is Liverpool. In terms of football history they’re a ruin we can barely see from the top of the bustling OT pyramid, obscured by the curvature of footballing time. Arsenal are there, too, in the stepwise ascent to M16. Others labour far below; yer Evertons and whatnot. Put another way, Arteta is the poor man’s Fabregas is the poor man’s Ronaldo is the poor man’s Giggs. We represent home-grown steel. The kind that doesn’t rust and keeps coming back again and again when the others have gone home to blow-dry their scant pubes. I’d have included Torres in that staircase but he belongs to a separate lineage; he’s part worm and those others are mostly goat. I still want Fergie to sign him though, that pasty-faced Spaniard in the works. In technicolour terms full-headed Queerbeasts like you can understand, Paul Rieser is a poor man’s Bruce Willis is a poor man’s Jack Nicholson is a poor man’s Sean Connery. United’s perched proudly at the apex of this diminishing baldy sex symbol formation. You see, United and Giggs (and Connery), they’re one and the same. They’re COVERED in pubes, and as such leave evidence everywhere they go. That’s why we can’t just kill any bastard that gets in our way, despite popular terrace chants to the contrary. Instead we choose to fight on the side of good, against evil, like super-heroes. Body hair tightly sealed in under snazzy costumes. Now there’s a conundrum: Why are those who’ve acquired super powers via gamma rays or radioactive spiders capable of constructing those imaginative skin-tight suits? How are we to believe that Daredevil, blind as a fucking bat, could manufacture that costume? Being able to stitch fabrics together with unrivalled meticulousness is an as-yet unspoken aspect of the special powers that superheroes acquire. You’d need patience, and superheroes should lack that, in my opinion. Not exactly Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Tortoise, are they? It’s a superhero we need to rescue United, not the Four Horsemen of the Stockopalypse. Proper megalomaniacal reptile mitherers fresh from some extra-galactic mission vanquishing warty inhumans. That said, look at Tarzan. Raised in the jungle by apes and still managed a pretty nifty pair of leather trunks. And he could fight. Makes me feel right inadequate. Fuck it, I say. Suck yer gut in, have another chip butty, live the dream. And what is the dream these days? It’s sad; I recently watched city beaten by a last gasp penalty at Sunderland. As small time as it is, it made my weekend seeing them lose. city think everything is going to fall into place immediately, a bit like the G&G sulkers. Only at Wastelands the sulking goes on on the bench, not in the stands. The subs at Sunderland, notably Given and Adabeyor, looked like Veruca Salt upon discovering they had to actually work for that Golden Egg. There are people – generally 35-year old know nowts – who insist that Liverpool are our main rivals, but in truth it’s those blue bastards from Quadrant Two. With their billboards and almost-past-it foreign acquisitions, and Kaka tattoos and Arab outfits and ludicrous statistical dredging. At least Liverpool supporters can get in our faces with “five times” or “football’s first clobbered-up mob” or “Brookside was more realistic than Coronation Street” or “the Beatles were better than the Hollies, Herman’s Hermits and Freddie and The Dreamers combined”, etc. What have city got to brag about? Their preposterous parallel to Best, Law and Charlton is Summerbee, Bell and Lee. But what did that mediocre ménage à twats actually win? A league championship in ’68 (we had bigger fish to fry), an FA Cup in ’69, a League Cup in ’70 and ’76 and a European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970. So basically the ’76 League Cup is the only thing they’ve won since 1970. And their subs’ bench is packed with faces like smacked arses, and yes, you think I’m going senile with this repetitive dwelling on city and you want to hear about drugs and that instead…
Just say no, Queerbeast. Drugs are for naughty Beatles. I see you as more of a Herman’s Hermit; safe and sound in your carapace, supping Horlicks in an eternally black and white pre-psychedelic Hovis realm. Listening to “Sugar Spun Sister”, waiting for that superhero in red, gold and green to sweep you up in his arms and make it all go away. Perhaps the Vision, the Marvel mutant able to render himself intangible (and batter Superman, in my opinion), is that superhero. Perhaps it’s Ken Dodd. Who knows? I saw Ken perform live once in ‘73. What a Sunday that was. I’d been to Maine Road with the cubs that morning; Akela was well in at city. I was bullied into going by older lads in my neighbourhood, to make up the numbers. I was frankly amazed at the power of the workout Bell, Summerbee, Lee and Co. were undergoing, deep under the Main Stand. Belting real footballs against a concrete wall with such force I’d never imagined. They were training in plastic suits and the sweat was bursting from them. A steady stream of dewdrops running off Nijinsky’s hooter all over peoples’ autograph books. Didn’t see owt like that again till I did some bad sulphate in ’83 and suffered the same effect for vastly different reasons. Didn’t get that close to Bell again until ’93, when I delivered a box of industrial fasteners to his restaurant in Whitefield. I had no autograph buke that day in ‘73, just a few bits of paper scrounged on the fly. I’d refused to bring a real autograph buke on the grounds I was a red. In truth I knew me ol’ feller would never pay for one. You know the kind, smallish, landscape-oriented mock-leather bound. Different coloured pages, very girlish. You probably had a few, Queerbeast. Full of Peter Noones (Ian Brown’s biological father), Owen Coyles (Fletcher’s biological father), Alex Mcleishes (Scholes’ biological father; give him a break, he was 16 at the time you judgemental cunt!) and James McFaddens (Rooney’s malnourished twin). But that’s your business. Went to see Ken Dodd that night at the Opera House with me mam and dad. The only bit I remember was when Ken pretended to shoot a gun in the air and a full size inflatable cow fell onto the stage. Super, yes, but hero, well, you be the judge. Oh aye, I was quite the man about town when I was 8. Never been inside OT though; just skulked hungrily on the forecourt with Salford urchins, minding cars and secretly swooning at the majestic air.
The 35-year old know nowts I referred to earlier will also tell you with a discreet wink that United supporters actually sang YNWA at the ’83 FA Cup Final, like they’re imparting some secret knowledge you should be grateful for. They’ll tell you the Stone Roses are better than the Beatles. That’s when you realise you’re dealing with supercocks. We sang YNWA every week, and the Beatles are to pop music what Shakespeare is to theatre. Now do me a favour, Chameleon; go and stand on the little glass bit in the Hilton Tower bar and listen to “Hanging Around” by the Stranglers on your QueerTunes player. You’ll love it, I promise. Welcome to our hole.

Let’s have a good ol’ moan about something, eh? Brits and Irish love a good moan, don’t they? I saw your eyes light up when you read that first line, you moaning twat. Maybe it’s the dismal weather or just widespread alcohol abuse, but there’s something about a few beers and a thorough slagging of workmates, football players, bosses, politicians and celebrities that makes you feel whole, isn’t there? A fine example of this is David Beckman’s donning of the G&G after we knocked AC out of Europe. A lifelong United supporter recently considered the most famous athlete on the planet performs a great gesture and all you can do is complain ‘cos he covered his arse the next day and lives in Beverly Hills. Just used the G&G to get himself in the limelight, eh? You fucking cunt! Seriously, it’s the same with the megastore muppets and their merchandise. Why not let them wear G&G? It’s a visibility device whose ubiquity pushed the issue into mainstream media. They did us a favour. But you HAD to say something; you had to be the victim innit. If Beckman changed his name to ClungeBob QuarePants, permanently dyed himself gold and green from head to toe and got a massive tattoo across his forehead saying “Glazer is a cunt” in Hebrew you’d still find something in it all to pick apart and mark him down as a prize Gilbert. Would’ve had the tat done in English if he really cared, right? That’s why I love you so much, Tatlock. Deep down beneath your rubbish attempts to build interesting new architecture and “skyscrapers” (47 floors, haaheehaah stop, you’re tickling me!) you’re still sat in the Rovers’ snug in flat cap with whippet at heel, playing dominoes with Alf. And Bert. You’re a pathetic northern slag and that’s how you prefer it.
So, it’s World Cup time and you’re happy as Larry ‘cos it’s a social opportunity to be gaily tabloid and say nasty things about Lampard, Terry, Gerrard and all the other wankers who play for the wrong teams. It’s a glorious summer soccer smorgasbord and you’ll be down the local in yer six hundred quid hiking coat and Adidas Lite reissued trainers, laughing at the replica shirts and George Crosses and the fact they’re wearing plastic bowler hats and eatin’ pork pies an’ feelin’ dead proud of Rooneh an’ generally being douchebag puncture outfits right up to the moment England are eliminated by a goal from the usual suspects. Then they’ll deflate, puking a viscous torrent of fishy effluence in the face of anyone who’ll listen and fold their flags up an’ iron their shirts one last time an’ put ‘em away till the European Championships in 2012. You’ll tell yerself that you did yer bit, by watchin’ all the games live, an’ even makin’ the effort and goin’ ter town for some of ‘em, an’ bein’ pleasantly surprised by the attitude of the crowd in Tiger Lily’s or Planet Ballsackwood, or whatever other Printworks-cum-Hardy cosmo-pseud-politan gaff you watched it in. You tit; you could have been “assembling products at home” or selling acai berries online to cultural laggards in Didsbury. But no, you did yer bit, like them wot stormed the beaches on D-Day and put the kibosh on the Boche, or the Bosh, or even the Bosch. Inevitably we’ll botch it. I might actually pretend I want the USA to beat England, just in case they do. Yes, I’m that much of a slimy traitor. You try living here, Mummy’s Boy.
The one thing England can always bank on winning is the Albert Tatlock Fair Play Trophy, assuming FIFA haven’t scrapped it by now. The continentals and South Americans had it sussed donkeys ago but Britain, being an island full of working-class heroes, failed to cotton that pretending to be injured was a nifty way to win refereeing decisions. And by extension World Cups. Now we’ve become a load of mard-arsed diving bastards ourselves it’s too late; refs have the power to dish out yellow cards for synthesis and everyone’s at it so it cancels itself out. Can you imagine how thick we looked to the other real contenders, trying to win the World Cup FAIRLY? We’re talking here about countries dedicated to competition, to owning that trophy whatever it takes, because that’s what winners do. Reminds me of a game of Krazy Golf I played against two Italians a decade ago; kept catching them cheating but never thought to do it meself. Who d’you think won? Many folk stories tell how the winners cheated. It’s right there, in black and fucking white. Somehow the British never noticed that truth, and as such we wallowed in a sense of righteousness that I GUARANTEE has constrained British football forever. Does anyone remember that fateful night Mark Hughes dived and the United fans were disgusted? He was in the wall at a free-kick and was lightly brushed by an opponent. Went to ground all ladylike. Cue chorus of confused goatlike bleats from Tatlock Paddock. Guess what; it was another Manchester “first”, but we never saw it for what it was. I’m positive it was in a Euro match against “cheating” foreigners. I suppose we’re the good guys, we’re United, so no way could one of ours dive like that. It’s ironic, given our hatred of the national team, but what could be more English than Manchester United and Coronation Street? Even Old Trafford symbolises the side of fair against ugly; an honest Starship Enterprise fighting vile Klingon contraptions like Stamford Bridge. The red rose, the red brick terraced homes, the rosy cheeks of the lads and lasses, smiles upon their faces, walking bathed in floodlight over puddly cobbles, sodden hot-dog wrappers and healthy-looking dog turds. You know the kind; neatly curled, mid-brown, a good three-quarter inch in diameter. The type of dirt alsations and the larger mongrels of the 1970s would deposit. The antithesis of Meatbag’s White Dog Shit Hell, if you will. But enough of that. It’s too galling to dwell on. The not diving I mean, not the dog turds; I can always make time to discuss faeces, dog or other.
But dogs are boring, we all know that; loyal, trusting and stupid enough to shit on their own doorstep in many cases. A bit like our national side. Cats is where it’s at; lithe, agile, beautiful and strong. Pound for pound, they’ve got dogs beat hands down. I think in the future, when there’s five tigers and eighteen lions left in the world, we’ll have pedestrian safari parks full of genetically engineered big cats. All wearing giant versions of those electro-shock collars they use to keep dogs inside boundaries. They’ll be commercially conditioned by the collars. Zapped into staying off the footpaths where tourists can walk and marvel up close at these fabulous predators. But that’s a long way off, Tatlock, and I’m sure you’d say it was shit anyway. You might well be correct; you can never trust a wild animal, even a ponced-up genetic synthetic. You can’t trust John Terry either, him and his pretend lion’s heart. At some point something will set off alarm bells and that’s where cats and dogs go off, royal. Plastic chairs get thrown and plastic lions run riot. South Africa is not a place to fuck about though. There are real lions there, and they live in horrible shanties just one wrong turn away from the action. It’ll take more than two hundred boneheaded chair-throwers to sort them out. So think on, Dogface.
Cheating is where it’s at, cats, so fuck what the papers say. This motherfuckin’ World Cup is serious shit. Oh yiss, you gotta hustle like an African fuzz muscle, ya gotta handle the scandal, yo betta learn to dangle befo’ the mangle while the ol’ triangle goes jingle-jangle wi’ the tabloids like haemorrhoids on yo ass, Homeclunge. It’s not just about diving, either. Hand-balls are always big news. Take Thierry Henry, or even better Maradona’s Hand of God in 1986. Who won that tournament, remind me again? We fielded a team of good doggies against the jaguar-like Argies, and got seen right off; Quasimodo Beardsley the Hunchback of Knotty Ash; Gary “Salt ‘n’ Lineker”, nicknamed “the Crisp Man” by Mark E. Smith for his involvement with Walker’s potato products, and the ironically catlike Peter Shilton, the man with the curliest hair north of the 33rd parallel. None of these freaks could stop the Claw of God. There was infamy but the World Cup went to Buenos Aires. D’you think Maradona was losing sleep on the long road home that year? No, ‘cos he didn’t have a gallery of slobbering Nigels and Tristans waiting to throw gourmet bon-bons at him for fun when he got there.
Which leads me back to Beckham – The Beverly Hills Red. In 1990 BHR was an all-the-rage scent manufactured by Giorgio, or more accurately Giorgio’s swarthy little neighbour, and imported in containers by naughty men from Salford, Manchester and Glasgow. Snide perfume was as common as snide digs, and the Tatlocks were lapping it up. Cheap anniversary and birthday prezzies wannit? 1990 was a good year, but the later Beverly Hills Red, the golden boy with the bootmarks on his face, didn’t HAVE to put that scarf round his neck. Too many Alberts with foot in mouth disease had too much to say there. Never satisfied. Like the ape named Kong, murdered by the United States Air Force, the weak will always band together to bring down the strong. But not in the World Cup. It’s one on one, team on team, and may the best team win. It’s gonna be a great World Cup. We’ll see William “Parietal Lobes” Gallas, Fernando “Worm Profile” Torres, Cristiano “Brontosaurus” Ronaldo, Rio “Nessie” Ferdinand, Didier “Hair” Drogba, Landon “Nut Head” Donovan, Wayne “Moonheart” Rooney, Lionel “Otterface” Messi, “city? HAHA!” Kaka, and many more. I’m lucky my boss has generously offered to have televisions screening the tournament live on site, for all us foreigners. Once I’ve convinced him of the cultural importance of drugs and alcohol we’ll be bending the rules like Beckham…seeya there, Tatlock.

A crappy thought stopped me in my tracks the other day. Pacing the homestead like a frustrated Pacman waiting for United to kick off, I remembered I was going to die. I’d totally forgotten about that. Ruined my fucking day to be honest. When I mentioned it to my mate The Chilean he laughed in my face. “Death?” he said. “What a pile of shit that is!” The Chilean reckons death’s an illusion invented by what he calls “our serpent overlords”. We were already on two feet when snakes appeared a million years ago. No wonder we’re fascinated and repulsed by the slippery fuckers from cradle to grave.
Serpents and death, we’re ruled by at least one of them. If entire regions of the planet suddenly began to die; soils, trees, animals, fungi, that’d wake people up. Especially if you were forced by law to share your house with all the refugee type cunts that were being displaced by it. Queuing up to use your own toilet is bollocks, but large scale disaster is nowt new. The bible described a worldwide deluge survived by natural enemies capable of living together in an ark. That would be like us cooperating with Scousers to solve a problem. But those ancients who wrote the bible had their own bible; a book of horror from the dawn of time. The Epic of Gilgamesh it was called and we should remember its lessons. If not we might well end up cooperating with Scousers.
Gilgamesh, or to use his full name, David Gilgamesh, thought he could oppress the citizens. He presided over the First City on Earth (as opposed to “the City of Firsts”). He had big ideas, such as taking the piss out of a famous resource the people held dear; the Cedar Forest, a beautiful expanse of potential red lumber guarded by a ferocious ogre. Despite being tastier than a Yankee Stadium hot-dog, the ogre was leathered by Gilgamesh and his mate, the forest pillaged for all it was worth. An environmental catastrophe The Chilean doesn’t like the sound of. I likened it to the rape of United and explained to him there was talk of befriending the Scousers. He ranted, “Cats living with dogs…it’s not right!” from behind 3-D glasses, hopping between browsers on his PC like it was a pinball machine, twelve tabs open in each, displaying Red Sox v. Yankees tickets. He got his tickets, and will probably get a few beers and a hot-dog between innings an’ all.
Football’s impending apocalypse was caused by football taking things for granted. Like season tickets; we live in an age where people still drag their sweaty carcasses to OT, obliged to watch matches IN PERSON. United take them for granted. They think they’ll always be slavering at the turnstiles like grinning clots with brain issues. In “the future” the process of obtaining tickets to games will be very different. When you browse Viagogo there’ll be little teaser videos you can click on and watch – videos of FUTURE matches, like trailers from movies. You’ll be able to see part of what happens, the odd goal, etc, and decide whether you can be arsed going. At least that’s what The Chilean reckons. He reckons we’ll become too much of a handful for the serpent overlords and they’ll be forced to gift us time travel, albeit in this shitty monetised form. Those without tickets can be plugged into an instrument that virtually places them there, maybe even lets them see the game through the eyes of a star player, for a price. At that point will it matter if it’s real or just the Matrix? All the pie-buyers, those passionless puppets, may as well be watching a virtual football match anyway. After all, reality’s just electrical impulses. Billions of rods and cones transmitting the action to the back-ends of their brains. Slack-jaws-a-plenty with green and gold upon them, enjoying their pies more than the match itself. Must be some fucking good pies, that’s all I can say. Once the serpent overlords give us the technology no-one will ever miss out on “being there”. It’ll be like the second coming of some kind of Rave Jesus, breaking capsules instead of bread and fishes, making the E go a long way. Feeding five thousand Gregory Pecks with dancing dust, or virtual match-going experiences, turning 80 thousand tickets into 80 million. For now, though, you’ll just have to heave your sweaty arseholes onto those plastic seats and not buy a pie at halftime.
But back to Gilgamesh, his mate and you the ogre – tastier than a Yankee Stadium hot-dog – that failed to protect the thing held dear, the self-proclaimed “biggest football club in the world”; looted, exploited and left decked in Norwich colours with an Old Trafford pie in its hand and a replica shirt on. Which brings me to the next order of business: How WANK is the current United top? Seriously, was that chest stripe fashioned from excess cloth off old women’s pseudo-velvet cat-suits from the ‘70s? Park and Evra resemble Star Trek Enterprise personnel, the kind that are engulfed by living slime within the first 6 minutes. By which I mean those two look the BEST out of the fucking team when in that shirt. I’m positive the club are copping some sort of benefit from Nike on the strength of agreeing to it. Would that surprise you? It’s something to think about while you sell retro Adidas trainers on EBay, moan about pie-buyers, and defend the rights of Thompson and Venables with fellow queergoats. Frankly, you disgust me.
David Gilgamesh is the scab you think is a crow; you keep picking at him and wondering why he won’t go away, and you end up with the aroma of Malted Milk and dogshit occupying your nostril. You’ve tried stickers, protests, FCUM, G&G, and even discussed co-operating with Scousers, but nothing has worked to exorcise Gilgamesh from the babble turrets and quadrants of OT. Perhaps religion will work…The Manchester United Sacred Trifecta is trotted out on clacking hooves – the Father, the Son and the Holy Goat: Busby, Best and Giggs. Unfortunately, the goat’s been got at, gagged by the arrogant scab, Gilgamesh, in his attempt to defy the football gods.
I know, I’m boring you. I’m boring myself if I’m honest. I usually go online and do what any red-blooded man does when he’s bored. That’s correct; GoDaddy, to check out what domains are available. I had a butcher’s on there today. “Hmmm, spazchariot.com is available…not bad…” I mumbled. The Chilean pipes up, “Has spazchariotsoffire.com been taken? THAT definitely has possibilities…” I imagined travelling the UK offering to paint flames trailing from the front wheel of peoples’ spacker-chackers. Taking photos of them with the owner grinning from behind handlebars of mayhem. I could post videos and photos on the website. Possibilities, definitely. Maybe I could move back to England and earn some money at that. The Chilean is machine-gunning his keyboard, going, “As your attorney I advise you to buy that domain and hit Limeyland with a ton of cocaine – Oh, wait, there’s already a Facebook group for it. Never mind.” So, bored again, we embark on a fierce attempt to properly analyse Planet X and what it means for our serpent overlords when it finally arrives in 2012. The Chilean explains that there’s an underground war currently taking place between the Greys, the Mantids, and of course the reptilian illuminati which emerged from the OT darkness in the form of David Gilgamesh.
I told The Chilean about rumours of an internal war raging deep beneath the great theatre between two different species of stewards. One species committed to total domination and the other determined to fight for our right to obscure the scoreboard with green and gold banners. I began to daydream, delusions of grandeur…me in full battle dress above the crowd, fighting the evil species. The Chief Steward hissing at me like a snake in the melee, thinking no-one can hear him, “Weee willl con..trrrolll yoooo….weee willl ssssuck thisss cllubb drrryyy…”
“Too late Buster,” I tell him, holding up a phonecam, “I’ve just beamed you live to a fifty foot screen in Piccadilly Gardens where it’s driving an immense crowd mad with hate.” And he just stares and stares at me in disbelief (mainly ‘cos he’s never been called “Buster” before) and he knows I’ve got him by that worn-out scaly nub he calls his balls. Then a great roar goes up and the crowd floods the streets, fighting the evil steward species hand-to-hand. The Piccadilly lot have reached OT now, assailing the inner sancta, soiling the reptilian buffets and pummelling the serpent overlords. The police are moving into position, trying to decide whether to let people buy chips or not at the top of SMBY, or whether to stop our army as it moves in the opposite direction towards Salford. There are shouts, screams, low-flying black choppers and the acrid stench of chemicals coming off the Ship Canal. I’m flying a vast gold and green flag from a huge gilded pole, but the evil ones are pushing us closer and closer to the water’s edge…and then they see it: A mass of spaz chariots, spaz chariots of fire pouring round the corner from White City, so many spaz chariots that the mind boggles. The serpent overlords embedded in the crowd begin to panic and a new fight erupts. The reptiles are jumping into the canal to escape but the spaz chariots just follow them right in; an endless battery of fiery plops, like penguins off an iceberg, each one exploding in the water and lighting up the area with a livid incandescent flash. I see David Gilgamesh clinging to a sinking chariot, begging to be rescued, but Granville Boden roars out of the darkness in a stolen Reliant Robin, launches his three-wheel steed off the quay and straight down onto Gilgamesh’s screaming head.
Then there’s a tap on my shoulder. It’s The Chilean. “As your attorney,” he says, “I advise we drink many Margaritas at Pancho Loco’s bar. Drown your sorrows after findin’ that domain’s worthless”. And I’m back in The Now, somehow…

Seasons change, and with change comes sameness. In winter I shovel snow and it helps me think. Now spring has sprung I mow my football pitch-sized lawn, trammelling up and down like a swimmer, and I get to think some more. Come the fall (the original English word for that season; autumn is French, so think on) there are lots of multicolour leaves to rake, and thinking gets thunk once again. Last week there was a big ol’ dead possum on the driveway. Weird, ‘cos he looked quite healthy; nice big feet on him and a tail as thick as a Yankee Stadium hot-dog. His heart and lungs were probably perfectly fine, but so is the heart of Portsmouth FC and, for that matter, Manchester United. The only thing missing was his eyes, pilfered by birds; those feathered godless bastards are in like Flynn when anything glitters. But this time of year has brought glittery things for a while now, and when that glitter is out of reach life feels a bit shitty. I’m here again, waiting for Chelsea v. Stoke to start, 11 AM my time, amid the aftermath of my daughter’s first birthday party. Yesterday’s antipasto platter, a mountain of empanadas, a silver bucket of homemade hummus and a towering chocolate cake demolished like the World Trade Center by swooping in-laws. United’s victory over Tottington Hotspurs and fresh April sunshine made the Peroni and pale ale taste better than ever; the road to the Championship glitter opened once more, or was it the road to delusion? Chelsea winning at Liverpool is an ugly proposition but it’s looking likely. Sunderland’s manager will be in charitable form; they are safe from the drop and Bruce’s loyalty to the red, white and black extends beyond the Black Cats all the way to the Red Devils. Or does it?
On telly Liverpool are currently getting mauled by Burnley at Turf Moor and now Chelsea-Stoke has kicked off. Fuller is crap, as are the rest of the Stoke side, and their inability to effect any kind of game-plan is frankly terrifying. They are 1-0 down and then 2-0 down and Delap’s Kenny Sansom rip-off routine is to no avail. I’ve just switched it back to Turf Moor and Liverpool are bizarrely 2 up. Great news. It will build their confidence for Chelsea at Anfield if nothing else. On the other side, Chelsea are now 3-0 up and it’s time to turn it over again. Liverpool are now 3-0 and the Burnley fans are singing like they’ve just qualified for Europe rather than booted back into the Championship. Now it’s 4-0 at Turf Moor and everyone’s talking about how Chelsea will draw at Anfield and we’ll nick it. Or how they’ll get beat at Anfield but we’ll draw at Sunderland and they’ll nick it. Or how – hang on, by the time you read this none of what I’m writing will matter, so fuck it. On our current form – or more accurately, Berbatov’s current form – we’ll be lucky to register 4, goals or points, in the last two games.
Berbatov’s a likeable chap, so it’s hard to be cruel to him. Especially since he began expressing his anguish so openly over missed chances about two-thirds through this season. A bit like how G Neville began kissing the badge (and his team-mates) with a relish most blokes are saving for the day a virtual shag machine’s invented and they can ravage any celebrity tart of choice; electrodes firmly attached to anatomy, viewfinder alive with unattainable flesh. Shite, hang on; Chelsea just scored their 7th against Stoke. That’s it; my year is finished. My life is over. Nah, only kidding, who cares about winning the 19th, really? The 19th is just an abstract statistic. It’s what Uncle Malc’s brood would have wanted, yes, but they’re currently much bigger reds than we are. That’s right, Glazer needs United to succeed more than you do right now. And you might even be responsible for putting United off. Don’t tell me that when Chelsea beat us at OT our boys weren’t a little distracted by the hordes of gold and green along the touchlines. This is a club in disarray, haunted by disaster and triumph, by a manager who is tactically bizarre but whose record bests anyone else’s in football, who, like the Queen of England seems unwilling to yield his throne to heirs, however special they may be. He may be “purple nose” or “Taggart the Tantrum-Thrower” to opposing fans but to me he’s a sex symbol, unparalleled in his decades-long campaign on the catwalk. He should be cryogenically stored when he pops his clogs until he can be reanimated. In fact, when they finally make Fergie: The Movie, I’d like to see Sir Alex played by Helen Mirren. I just know she could pull it off. (Think Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. And stop giggling at the back)
Now where was I? Oh, yes, when Chelsea had the gall to act like the league was at stake, beating us at the beginning of April, did the curse of the gold and green do more harm than good on the pitch? Every time G Neville or Berbatov gazed to the Gods in pretend bliss or horror they were confronted by the G&G. Is the G&G a subconscious attempt to derail United’s title bid and create disaffection among those who take winning for granted? What would Sigmund Freud say on the matter? And why does G Neville still have the “G” before the “Neville” on his back? Are we city, missing important shirt details, like the time they played an FA Cup match in their Premier League shirts, the League’s sponsor’s logo unnecessarily emblazoned on their Eastlands whores’ sleeves? G Neville has been a mainstay but his recent acting out his love of United leaves me wondering if it isn’t all just pre-testimonial panto from a man about to hit the Eject button and parachute down to the Shire in a house that resembles a Hobbit hole. In fact, continuing the testimonial line of thought, is there really still a “special relationship” between United and Celtic, or is it simply a money-spinning friendly fixture, guaranteed to get turnstiles clicking for the big tax-free payoff at the end of a millionaire’s short career? Just lately we’ve had this Forbes bollocks about United being the “richest club in the world”. The richest club? HA! This club is a breakdown on Paradise Boulevard, a sweat-gleaming stallion shot dead with a plastic spear-gun and packaged in McSoccer containers for consumption. It’s knackered by greed. They had a good thing going – the best merchandising system in world sports – but they took it too far and now we’re in utter disarray. And guess what…I’m glad! I fucking love it when I hear about price freezes on season tickets and “GLAZER OUT” banners being unfurled in grounds. Because this is war, and there’s only gonna be one winner, and that winner is us. The reason? We don’t care about increasing profits every second of every day; we don’t even care about winning if it means being run by gluttonous fuckpigs. So come on Glazers, face it: The fans are the life-blood and even this price-freeze won’t cut it; we want to know where the 80 million went. We want to unleash new talent on that hallowed turf, to build a true lasting dynasty like the big continentals have. Manchester United is the first British football club to achieve the opportunity to take our game up an entire level. But all Fergie’s work since 1989 is about to be wiped out by greed and ignorance. Last night I had a nightmare in which I was pursued and gang-banged by a gaggle of pathetic but horrifying animals. Initially I believed them to be apes, then later perhaps pigs. Every one of them drooled like a stroke victim on the back of my goat-neck as they mindlessly violated me, with their chinless balding heads and lifeless eyes. Fortunately it was only a dream or I might have learned to accommodate it in real life, as people do, especially those whose season tickets have been in the family since Gilgamesh’s granddad was a lad. After all, what’s a bit of neck drool between friends? Speaking of drool, there’s a demented farmer lives across the road in a tiny trailer with thirteen dachshunds. Takes a bath in a 300-gallon drum. One of his sausage dogs got run over outside here last week. First the possum and now this. I’d launched the possum off a shovel into the woods, but Animal Control came and took the doggie away. Gave it that special treatment. Either way they were two dead motherfuckers, both sporting glossy pelts and muscular legs, but something vital inside them had failed. Are Portsmouth the possum and United the dachshund? You know it’s been a shite season when the main excitement for us was city’s stomach-churning fight for fourth spot. And of course they made a movie. We all thought Blue Moon Rising was a joke but apparently not. When a football club releases a video about themselves achieving NOTHING you know the four horsemen are not far away, that’s for sure. But it’s almost summer, and for me that means hot, hot, hot. Soon enough the nights will be drawing in and preparations begun for the 2010-11 season. I’ll be cleaning the gutters and disposing of dead animals. Wondering if Spurs and Villa can scrape some points out of the Eastlands shitbowl next year. And whether Ronaldo’s really coming back one day. Tonight I watched Internazionale beat Barca with 10 men…Messi is an otter out of water, sometimes…I remember one year when we ottered – sorry opted – out of the FA Cup…maybe we should put Old Trafford and the entire squad into cryogenic freeze till Glazer dies and the middle-class jesters get sick of no trophies…opt out of football altogether, encased in solid CO2 or liquid nitrogen…at least until Ronaldo comes back…he is coming back, right? Glitter is in short supply this season, but this is a good place to get some thinking done.

I’ve been pissed for a week solid and you know the reason why; we’re trailing a goal behind the Wal-Mart wallahs and they’re getting all giddy, and I mean really giddy. I’m talking a level of excitement akin to that an ugly ape presented with the chance to shag Rosie Webster might experience. There’s nothing remotely good about any of it. I just want it to go away and soon. And tonight it will, for it is finally the second leg.
But there are more serious distractions, more important issues afoot than our tiny little neighbour with the megaphone; it is here, the time for action and it’s no secret affair. The final push against Malcolm Glazer and his chinless brood. And what is the battle-plan? Tennis balls on the pitch? Gobstoppers at the directors’ box? Golf balls at the Megastore? Beach balls in the penalty area? No, the alleged plan of action is, “let’s all buy gold and green scarves – once we’ve made our minds up between bar scarves and “student style” lengthways-running stripes – and we’ll all wear ‘em to the match and Glazer will fucking shit himself and give the club away right there on the spot!”
Hmmm, gold and green scarves. Sounds like a pile of horse-drawn steam engine excrement, doesn’t it? But it looks like the media are noticing it, and the centurions are not allowed to throw people out for wearing gold and green. Will it reverse the trend and return us to the swaying envelope that football once was? Not quite, because the trend is unstoppable. The world is being sanitised, not just British football; ever since they pedestrianised Market Street and other cities back in the olden days, when they took the lead out of petrol and removed the junkies from Times Square, when hordes of council knobheads hit Orlando, when Turkey became popular and package tours to the pyramids commonplace. And you, yes you, started going to all those Euro away nights like you were some woe-merchant latter-day Tony Christie but with decent weed and clothes. In the avenues and alleyways around OT these days there are blokes selling green and gold scarves and laughing at what a lot of harlequin shitehawks everyone looks. But it’s green and gold till they die or fold, according to the word on the street, or on the web forums. It seemed to make sense in the beginning and it’s got to be worth a try if it raises the profile and earns attention.
And then there’s this sudden backlash against Lord Ferguson. The man has gone from King to King Cunt overnight. The Horse Spunk Dossier has finally been pinpointed as the beginning, and our stale squad (of losers, goons, puppets, queers, ogres, dog-eaters, catastrophic foodies, Scouse Dwarves, duck-faced-drug-test-dodgers, plastic Ronnies, be-‘tached scruffy twats from Bury, identical twinglet merchants, lazy Draculas, Rastafarians, Redhead Kingpins, goat-boys, lesbians, Amazonian wildmen and ethnic cleansers) identified as the final straw in a disgraceful run that has seen us go three consecutive seasons playing worse than Chelsea but somehow nicking it every time. Christ, if we’d made it 3-2 in the dying seconds in Rome we’d have had a mutiny on our hands before now. And that’s why I love United; even when we’re winning cups we fucking hate it if the way we win ‘em is wrong. There’s a lot of bollocks talked these days by the Thought Police, that you’re a “spoilt brat” if you ever say anything negative about the team. United fans want to win, but when we shade it undeservingly, or certain players (and I’m talking CERTAIN players here) put in a poor performance, we have every right to an opinion. Beautiful attacking football, creative spontaneous moves, heart and soul, etc. They are the qualities we want to see in our teams. An array of honours is just numbers. We need flesh and blood and snot and skill. So if I want to moan because the peoples’ choice misses too many chances I will.
But back to the Glazers. Lord Ferguson must have a real opinion on this. He’s spent the past couple of decades building something here. That something will amount to a castle built on sand and not an ongoing dynasty if these buccaneers drag us down. Maybe Ferg wants it all to go to shit. After all, it will make him look better in the long run. But if the fans turn on him now he might be forced to reconsider his silence. I’d soil myself if he came out for the next game with half his face painted yellow and the other half green, wouldn’t you? Especially if he gave a press conference afterwards (at someone else’s ground, while their pissed wet through team had to wait in the cold until he’d finished, to get past him into their OWN dressing room) and said something like, “If you don’t like the Glazers you can fuck right off! I’m on a million pound commission for every five million I add to a player’s worth between buying and selling. We paid 12.24 million for Cristiano and got 81 back for him. I made almost 14 million on that little beauty. Nearly as good as the horses!”
Ferg and Glazer and Gill and the rest of them up at the top are candid fearless men in their own ways. They wouldn’t be gobbling in the executive trough with giant balls strapped on if they weren’t. Words have been exchanged across the banquet table Queerbeast, you know that. Don’t tell me there hasn’t been at least some good-natured banter about how the Horse Spunk Dossier opened the door for the Buccaneer. That’s how these pirates work. They don’t float aimlessly in the seaweed like a bunch of factory workers from Ashton. They offload the equine barbs, let fly with belittlement of Tampa’s NFL record. Gotta have a thick skin if you’re gonna sup with the pterodactyls. Cut and thrust, thrust and cut. Going places, knowhatImean, Tatlock? Fergie lost his horses, so he needed a new plaything to spur him on. Hence a commission on his works-in-progress, be it Keiran Richardson or some other flip-job hounded out of Old Trafford by the Thought Police and their baying hordes.
And don’t look at me; I have no idea whose side I’m on. What’s more, there’s more than two sides to this issue of how to fight the Glazers. There’s millions of sides…well, maybe not millions but fucking loads. There’s the “what took you so long, we’ve been at it since ‘05” mob (self-congratulatory cunts that appear to be glad the club is foundering). Then there’s the “Kill Glazer” psychos, people who obviously lack the ability to empathise with the Glazer siblings, who, since they were kids always wanted to own the biggest football club in the world. That they actually settled for United should elicit our pity. Then again, Real Madrid isn’t owned by “The People” who think that “Republic of Mancunia” banners can keep the wolf from the door. There’s also annoying bastards like me who live thousands of miles away but think we have a right to an opinion about everything; from whether the Ambassador Bingo hall at the top of Langworthy Road should’ve been demolished, to the quality of the black olives in a Sedgley Park deli, to the fact that, despite all the fluffing and strutting and eeh by gummin’, we haven’t had more than three real world-class players simultaneously at Old Trafford since, well, 1999. There. I’ve said it. Can you honestly imagine how much money and what an assemblage of top-notch players we’d have in the stable now if not for the debt? Or is that just another myth? You can point at Ronaldo and Rooney as two of the last big (successful) signings prior to mid-2005, but Evra and Vidic were brought in on the other side of the balance to cancel them out. And smack in the middle of the whole takeover is Van der Sar, who came to OT in June ’05. VDS cost a reputed 2 million though, hardly a fortune. And since then we have seen Ronaldo go and 80 million quid evaporate like city’s firm on Derby Day.
Which brings me to the next order of business; this second leg against the Bittermen. It’s happening right now and I am on pins, watching on telly, live. We’ve just had sixty eight corners in the first four minutes but not a goal to show for it. Then we scored and scored again and then that little determined Argie managed a snide weird one. All square. And then moonhead Roonhead steamed in and butted the ball through the back of the net and laughed his bollocks off on global satellite. The losers are still losers. Sad bitter cunts are destined to win nothing ever again, I swear. But back to the fight against the Glazers.
Green and yellow tennis balls are the answer, I have concluded, after discussions with people online: Continual bombardment throughout the game until it has to be stopped. If everyone can smuggle 10 to 20 balls each in, we’ve cracked it. The game will be abandoned, then the banners come out and the media get what they want. Were the “splitters” of 2005 the canary in the coal mine, or did it have to get this bad before real numbers began the revolt? You know the answer to that; the acid test is in this January transfer window. I’m looking through it and I’m seeing no activity apart from some bloke called Smalling – not exactly the surprise acquisition designed to sooth the savage goat, as many predicted…Even if we win a few things this season, if that 80 million doesn’t materialise it’s time we went to town, Manchester-style. And you know what that means: Evict the bastards. Before they finally remove the word “Manchester” from the club crest altogether and replace it with “Tickets” or [sponsored by] or “Soccer”. It’s the time for action. The time to be seen. In gold and in green…

I’m here, waiting for the match against Leeds to kick off. It’s the night before and I’m lashing the Carib lager like a good ‘un. Can I stay up all night I wonder? Sit here and ruminate on my childhood. How I was made to hear it, the full treatment; McShane, Finney, Kingsley, Jesus Powell, John Thaw, Frazier’s dad, all of them, plus 10CC, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Freddie and the Dreamers and on and on and on. The list of names that puffs up the breast of Tatlockville. It goes a lot further back than that an’ all. And now that pride will be harnessed against an old enemy. One of the biggest rivalries in British football, come back to life at last. Everyone knows United’ll win, the question is by how much? The War of the Roses they’re calling it. Very romantic and dramatic and obvious. For those who are proud of their roots it’s a choice cut. A choice cut of (police) horsemeat for men old enough to know better. Britain is a giant knacker’s yard populated by elves with crippled minds. The elves are preoccupied by silly titles, and I don’t mean “Chancellor of the Exchequer” or “The Fourth Earl of Lincoln” either. I mean, “Biggest council estate in Europe” or “hardest city” or “tallest building outside London”. Seriously, have you EVER stopped to ask yourself exactly where or how some of these preposterous claims could be verified? Yeah, you heard me right, you fackin’ muppet. You of “The first Marks and Spencer’s was in Manchester” (it was a market stall in Leeds, actually). You of “The Arndale was the biggest shopping mall in Europe when it was built”, and your nephew, he of “the Trafford Centre was the blah blah blah”. You of (give me strength) “Manchester was the first nuclear-free city”. It is this last meaningless claim that pains me the most. A nuclear-free city? What does that even mean? You don’t think that aeroplanes carrying warheads, or trains loaded with horrible glowing shite from Sellafield haven’t moved through Manchester airspace or along its train tracks recently? Or that the Chinese will take note should it ever come to World Barney Three. Wake up and smell the Irwell, people. This decay of pride and ideas has been gathering pace since the mid-60s, since they started filming Top of the Pops in Manchester. Yeah, honest, Top of the Pops was fil- oh, shit, now I’m at it. There was once a time when splitting the atom was a thing to be proud of. Or building and operating the machine that opened the fabled Dead Sea Copper Scroll. Or the wonderful contraptions developed by Messrs. Crompton and Arkwright that transformed fabrics forever. Or the nation’s first free public library. Or the first gas street lighting…To be fair, the Marks and Spencer’s thing also goes way back, but it was in Leeds anyway, so let ‘em have it. They deserve a little something. And that’s pretty little next to the first passenger railway.
A mate of mine once told me, “They were actually gonna create the Gay Village in Leeds, but Leeds wasn’t, er, y’know..” “Cosmopolitan enough?” I ventured. “That’s right!” he replied, as we strolled along chuffed to fuck for, as Syd Barrett once said, “It takes two to know”. And we all know Syd was firmly rooted in reality wasn’t he? Needless to say that conversation occurred in 1992, when our pride was the size of United’s current season ticket waiting list, i.e. nonexistent. We’ve been to heaven and back with the reds since then.
I don’t want to knock Manchester too much. But it’s hard not to. Standards and expectations have slip-slided away. Last time I was there (to see Liverpool hammer us 1-4 at OT and a pathetic gaggle of 400 students sing “Bring ‘em out” to the laughing policemen on the forecourt after the match) I was forced to eat humble pie. Not because of the disaster with the Scousers. Because the city centre had been turned into a communist-era free-for-all designed by wankers. These were buildings – real buildings in a real city – that had apparently been contrived to resemble industrial units but were in fact condos or office blocks or worse. It was all Joy Division’s fault, I concluded. And Morrissey. Between the lot of them Manchester has been reduced to the status and mood of a sixteen year old Tatlock geek who lives vicariously through grey representations of morbid glories. The irony is that Morrissey and Co. actually had their heads screwed on right. It’s the architects and city planners who fucked it all up. D’you honestly think pop stars expected to have that degree of influence over a dirty big city? Somewhere along the Manchester timeline the sense of proportion went all to shit. I venture this period lasted from 1964 to about 1990. That’s right; Top of the Pops. You of “the Rolling Stones concert at Belle Vue in 1964 was the first ever concert riot”. You of “G-Mex is Europe’s largest indoor arena”. You are the ones who have spread the rot. The ones who caused the clock in St. Ann’s Square to stop dead, like a machine killed by lack of ideas and – wait a fucking minute, summat’s happened.

Leeds happened. Final whistle. Just gone. Nil-one. I sit here motionless. Horror struck and brain-dead. It should have been nil-two to be honest. And if you don’t like that why don’t you switch off your television and go and do something less boring instead, Tatlock? And now the feeding frenzy begins, on telly, on internet forums, in pubs and on buses. The fickle fannies (like me) who thought we’d murder ‘em 14-0 have once again turned on the reds and are slagging everyone, from Ferg to Roon to that geezer in the turban who isn’t actually part of the OT staff but sits close enough to them (and gets his mug on telly week in and week out) to cop some collateral damage. Fergie, Rooney, Turban Geezer, what the fuck were you playing at out there? This was Leeds. The white rose, the hated thug platoon of jackbooted cockheads! And they’ve just bummed us in style. Christ, I swear I was almost cheering the fuckers on by the 95th minute.
Anyway, back to the Manchester story. 1964. The first ever rock ‘n’ roll riot. Top o’t’ Pops. I bet the blokes who started the football league in the Royal Hotel in 1888 would have had summat to say about Top o’t’ Pops. I bet the lads present at the first general meeting of the Trade Union Congress in the Three Crowns pub in Salford in 1868 would have give them Rolling bloody Stones summat ter think about, eh, Tatlock? I actually remember the moment when I realised football was the best thing about Manchester – and red football, not blue. And that anything else of greatness was finished, replaced by shit titles and claims, not including the league title, of course. It happened coming out of Victoria bus station many years ago, on the top deck of a diesel spewer. I found myself sitting behind a lad with a neck ‘tache and his gormless mucker. Mucker, who must have been especially gormless, was getting the full treatment apparently for the very first time; “Highland House. Highest building outside London when it was built” (he actually said those very words). Mucker gormlessly gaped upwards as we sailed past the office block I personally robbed daft for years. Next it was the CIS, “tallest buildin’ TODAY outside London”, we were duly informed. I decided enough was enough and tapped the tour guide on the shoulder. He tried to ignore me so I slapped him on the neck ‘tache and he spun round. I said, dancing suggestively, “What we should do at Old Trafford is all start singing Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You, Baby” in a dead high-pitched voice, all of us, letting it build across K Stand and up United Road. Then someone turns a set of strobes on, set high in the cantilever and which lend a stop-start surrealism to the boogying crowd, the music becoming louder and louder and louder and we’re all gyrating and going totally off our crusts, and-!” he brought me to my senses with a firm slap across my gibbering chops. He had to do something; I was scaring Mucker, who by now was gaping at me, his rubbery slavering jowls resting on the stainless steel bar running along the back of the seat between us.
But I was incorrigible, on a mission. “I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit you pronounce ‘books’ different from how you pronounce ‘boots’ don’t yer?” I told him. “But I bet yer mam an’ dad pronounce ‘em the same though innit. And further to that I bet you say ‘room’ like you say ‘boom’ an’ yer fink it’s bang on. The word ‘RUME’, fer your information, Tatlock, is pro-fuckin’-nounced the same as ‘book’. Like ‘rum’, an’ I, you’ll be pleased to learn, am the first cunt in Manchester to work that out!” By now the tour guide was utterly speechless as the truth of my words sunk into his once-proud skull…so I carried on.
“Smokeless zones, Rolls Royces, what next, bleedin’ trams? (I was right!) UFO landing pads in Hulme?” (right again!).
In Manchester, football has replaced science and industry, after a gormless interval involving pseudo-tall buildings, pop groups and Urban Heritage Parks. It convinced us all we were still in that place, the one that led the world. But here, in the ruins of the defeat to the sheepshaggers, awaiting the trip to Bitterland, our 20-year legacy of footballing domination is threatened. In 1992 I had a bet with Bitter Keith Barry in the Commercial pub on Bury Old Road. I bet him that city would never again win a major trophy. It was a tenner bet. A tenner I couldn’t hope to collect but the satisfaction of knowing he mightn’t either made it OK. By the time you read this that tenner will be safe in my hands or a lot closer to his. Tomorrow we play the Bittermen at Wastelands. Home of the world’s biggest Wal-Mart…ooh-er, pass me the bucket, I can feel the nause comin’ on again…

When Patrice Evra said English food was “catastrophic”, he was serious. He is one of 26 brothers and sisters (two sadly deceased) but I’ll wager those numbers didn’t prevent his mam from knocking together a better tea than Neville’s, Rooney’s or Bryan Robson’s each and every night. This is a man raised in a culture where food was made from scratch, not out of a box from Morrison’s or a giant vat of boiling oil from the corner chippy. How does that make you feel, eh, Tatlock? That little Senegalese goat –my favourite United player for the past three seasons – contradicts his generalist qualities only in his pickiness for decent scran. In every other way he is an omnivorous devil-boy, an awesome attacking defender who is always involved in our sorties down the left, nibbling at the stubborn weeds of confidence in opposing defenders. I sometimes wonder what he thinks of Obertan’s head…(What’s French for “desiccated mummy cranium”? Come to that, what’s Cornish for “gobshite”?) I see scintillating music between the two in the future; the Beefheart of Evra and the Zappa of Mummy Head combining to produce dazzling concertos. Obertan has that same trickiness we saw in the young Ronaldo. The difference is, Obertan’s tricks actually caress and manipulate the ball, always mindfully pushing it towards the goal. Young Ronnie’s party piece consisted of 18 completely unnecessary stepovers that often preceded him being turned over by more experienced defenders…But he’s gone, so let’s get the Boddies in and not get bitter. Hopefully we’ll earn a pile off Madrid for Obertan once we’ve spent several years whipping him into shape. Makes it all worthwhile. It’s a shrinking globe in an expanding universe. We’ve preyed on the minnows, stripping them of their best talent for generations. Karma’s a bitch but it’s a bitch with cash.
Football has become a science. They’ve done their sums and presented the proofs. Taken an ultra-canny Scotsman and turned him into a financial futures manager. Sir Alex acquires developing blobs and hones them into footballing world-beaters. Madrid step in and do the deal and the dosh goes to the Glazers. Either that or he’s taking it up to the Inner Hebrides and giving it Wicker Man. It’s become a science and Fergie is the Newton, the Einstein, the big man with the skills to pay the bills – or slinging it down a bottomless hole covered by a heavy trapdoor under Glazer Towers. When Einstein first uttered those immortal words, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” he was talking about something important. He was talking about progress, and evolution and drama. He was proving that balls weren’t attached to chains, and that the whole field was exactly that – a field. A dynamic non-uniform region subject to the sub-fields within it. Ferguson understands this truth better than any other manager in the league and it’s evident nearly every time United play; when you see Scholes put it out to Evra and Evra in to Rooney and Rooney out to Giggs, etc (or Obertan determinedly charging it into the main stand), you’re watching a ball moving inside a field, not simply propelled along invisible connecting lines between players. Balls are funny things. Little balls are no less powerful than giant balls; the earth’s influence on the moon isn’t cancelled out by the sun’s influence on the earth – the overall sun-field yields to the micro-influences within it, down and down, all the way to Giggs interacting with Evra, who’s pouncing along the left touchline with the ball at his feet and a bellyful of catastrophic food.
But snapping up youngsters and belting sense into ‘em isn’t the be-all and end-all of it. Giggs, Sharpe, Hughes, the Nevilles, Beckham, Keane, Brown, O’ Shea, Fletcher, Rooney, Ronaldo – maybe I should add Wellbeck and Macheda – have been balanced by our more mature acquisitions, like McClair, Bruce, Schmeichel, Cantona, Sheringham and the mysteriously fading Ferdinand. Whether Scouse Mike will ever fall into this latter group is highly doubtful. After all, the dirty little scouse twat said he’d rather play for Liverpool for half what he gets paid at United, and Liverpool are fucking shite, so you do the math(s). Mike is the same age Anelka was when he joined Chelsea. Do you remember laughing at Anelka when, about to leave Bolton (yeah, that’s right, Bolton), he speculated that he might consider United. Me and the yank at work – the one who said Manchester was too far from civilisation – pissed ourselves. Who on earth did Anelka think he was? As if United would sign a legend-in-his-own- prima-donna-mind like him! We all make mistakes. Two more of Fergie’s not-so-fledglings are Evra and Carrick. Carrick has been occasionally lethal with his shooting, but some say that Evra equals Michael Carrick squared, he’s that good. Depends whether you like it down the middle or tickled around the left, I suppose. You poncey cunt.
Isaac Newton, the man who originally proclaimed “E equals MC squared”, was referring, not to United players, but to the time he spent living among the addled Bwiti tribe of West Africa (rum lad, was the young Isaac). Unfortunately, he was wrong; no way is an E equal to methoxycoronaridine squared. Methoxycoronaridine is a derivative of the root bark of the iboga shrub. I too spent time with the Bwiti and self-administered MC many times. If you were to square a clinical dose of that, you’d still be nowhere near the vibrant horror of a good pill. Natural highs are fucking wank, let’s face it. I’ll leave my natural high stories for later. MUCH later. I had more fun, aged 9, listening to me dad’s Andy Williams albums. But I digress.
The game – all games – are a science. When Pythagoras shouted “Eureka!” he was hysterical, running down the street in his dick-suit, babbling about “too many cocks spoiling the broth” (yeah, he invented that one, too; those Greek baths were rum places). According to Pythagoras, three types of men existed, illustrated by the three types of people who attended the ancient Greek Olympic Games. Those who sell, those who compete, and those who spectate. Football is the same today. From those selling snide gear and tickets, to wage-slaves like Ronaldo, to the starry-eyed pigs in the executive suite trough, nothing’s changed. Those three are the angles of the footballing triangle. So be there or be square, like Scouse Mike’s napper.
Football is like writing. Actually, it’s fuck all like writing, unless you write as part of a writing team. You could say that we who write for UWS are a team, but if you’ve ever been on the Groundside forum (and witnessed us ripping each other to shreds) that romantic notion would be instantly crushed. Do you write what you think is best or what the people want? Fergie knows the answer: true football, like true writing, divides people. That’s why we detest Chelsea’s brats; they are our polar opposites in attitude. They’re evil, scowling wind-up bastards. A bit like me when I’m on the Groundside forum. But why write something purely to please? There is no better feeling than to write something and have people say, “what the fuck were you doing there?” while others say, “that was brilliant, I really enjoyed that!” Like Fergie’s team selections. Sometimes it’s nebulous and outright queer, until the game starts and we realise what the old man is up to. Other times we’re drawing 0-0 against cack and it’s the 83rd minute and Scouse Mike’s doddering on the touchline with his fake tan and angular skull, and Berbatov’s sat sulking in a seat and it’s all going avocado-shaped in a horrible, green knobbly hurry. But avocados have no real shape, not when they’re properly ripe. That’s why we bail ourselves out of the pan so often. It’s the flex of the team. The field, in four-dimensional spacetime over which our indestructible scarlet captain – excuse me, boss – seems to have such masterful control. He instinctively recognises his moment, like a top chef in some swish organic supermarket giving a piece of fruit a good squeeze. He knows where the weak spots are, and whether we have the pace and power to open them up. But Ferg must get bored down there in the dugout sometimes. Probably thinks, “fuck it, if I bring so-and-so on he could make a run through the left channel and Giggsy’ll lay one off for him an’ we’ll score…balls to that…I think I’ll just do fuck all and tell some useless cunt to warm up for a laugh…” He’s a man that crushes overripe avocados for fun. Then he smears them all over that little bald Mexican dog sitting next to him on the bench until it’s completely green. The dog wanders away towards the technical area so he slowly draws a weird blue plastic claw from its sheath, a gripping talon attached to a long plastic tube with a chicken tendon running through it. He forcefully grabs the dog’s bald nuts dragging it back…then, showing no mercy he jumps on its slimy green hide and wrestles it silly, right there in the dugout….and it’s the 85th minute now and we’re goggle-eyed, going, “What is Fergie DOING?!” Oh, fuck…looks like I digressed again.
We’re the opposite of Chelsea for many reasons, most of which are about attitude. Chelsea play in a shed in swanky West London. They pretend it’s a place to be proud of. The Red Devils play on a glorified dockland croft on the edge of a smouldering city called Salford. We know it’s a place to be proud of. The goat and the flame are never far apart. The stench of human barbeque is ever-present, rarely quashed by the deep blue sea. It’s a heavenly thing when angels are passing that pill from man to man. But it’s a contest, and in May only one team will win. To be or not to be, that is the question. Will our lads be spewing champagne, courtesy of some over-stated nauseating sponsor whose branded ribbons hang from the premiership trophy like thick ropes of thoroughbred horse spunk? Or will we eventually, tragically, be barbecued at the stake like Florence Nightingale?

Imagine wearing a replica Newton Heath shirt and a fez, riding a giant tortoise along the top of an Inter-City 125 speeding across a gigantic suspension bridge over the English Channel, which has been polluted and is pure fire, and all this was contained inside a little mechanical peep-show, in an arcade at Liverpool’s Pier Head, itself part of a model village in a future controlled by robots, described in an old sci-fi book on a table beside a young lad’s hammock on a sailing ship, and the whole thing was just a graphic in the sidebar of an EBay page displayed on a laptop, where Lou Reed’s Adidas cock ring, the one he wore when he bummed Bowie, is being bid for £246 from a not-at-all-gay football casual hard man such as yerself – hang on, is this getting on your tits? I’ll stop, then.
I know what you’re thinking; why doesn’t that cunt fuck off with his shit accounts of soiled sex toys and Scousers? Well, I’ll tell you why – because you’re an ignorant twat who needs some intellectual nutrition in his or her life, that’s why. Otherwise you’d exist on a diet of Windbag Manifesto and House of fucking Style, and you know how I feel about that, here in my tracky bottoms.
Fashion and danger are what it’s all about. Why are young people drawn so strongly to such things? I don’t know about you but my journey has meshed inextricably with childish fads, gang violence and substance abuse that very nearly killed me on several occasions. I’ve died in ambulances, been saved from a vomit-choked death in a midnight doorway by a barking dog. Infected by fish that saw me delirious in filthy alleyways and frontier hospitals. Bowling ball blisters shuddering on my leg, loaded with dead cells. Mind it doesn’t burst and ruin yer Diadora sandals, eh?
The allure of childish fads began when the dress code was murky and undefined. We kids taking over stolen cars abandoned by older thieves. Driving in mad circles on Drinkwater Park footy pitches. Launching them off the cliff into the Irwell, diving out at the last second. Full-on replications of the latest blazing American blockbuster. It was a magic time. Even ice-lollies had their place in the scheme of things; the Big Two were Lord Toffingham and Fab. I know you’re gonna say, “what about Milk Maid and Funny Feet?” and you know what, you’re dead right, but Funny Feet were like Stan Smith and Toffingham were pure Korsika. But Fab, well, Fab is probably a Twinkletoe Pixie Dust Skecher. Back then, sew-on patches on khaki bush-hats were considered cool and bottle-green bags and feather cuts. Behind it all lurked the air-wear boot and there was only one choice: Dr. Klaus Märtens’ “bouncing soles”, the German cushioned heel that stomped on Major Domo’s, Sergeant Peppers and other snides. I never owned a pair of Docs. I made do with Peppers after mournfully patrolling Salford Precinct. Dad attempting repeatedly to palm shite boots off on me in shoe shops. I endeavoured to look my best, my scarves tied round my wrists and dangling from my belt-loops. Little plastic fool.
United scarves had a hierarchy all their own in the 70s. There was the basic red and white and then there were the three combinations. The “mostly red”, the red and white with a thin black stripe down the middle of the white one. Two variants of that existed, mostly black and mostly white. Then there were the ones with shit tassels whose stripes ran lengthways, or that one with the big round plastic United badge on. Or the silk scarves, many of which were tartan. How passionate were we back then, over a team that was basically shite?
Enter the 80s; habitual use of the class A’s, when the sulphate was very good. I remember being utterly twatted after an all-nighter. Lying before the gas fire having been awake well over 24 hours. Bloke knocked on the door and mumbled something about loft insulation. I left him to it. Next thing, my mother is kicking me awake, saying, “what the bleedin’ ‘ell are all these fellers doin’ sprayin’ stuff into the loft through tubes?!” Fortunately me ol’ man menaced them into giving us a massive discount. The same old man that administered CPR to me after I’d collapsed from alcoholic poisoning three years earlier, New Year’s Day, 1982. The same one who’d scraped me off the pavement after ingesting psychotropic compounds or pumped my chest and inserted airways down my throat on more than one occasion. And he wasn’t the only one. I’ve been a bad son in a bad world.
My version of going to college was dishevelled and desperate. Days spent prowling the shelves of Prestwich library, scouring the catalogue for scant information on shamanism, mysticism, LSD and UFOs; fantasising about winning the pools. Spending my days scuba diving off the Bahamas, investigating the source of Atlantean myths. It never occured to me that I didn’t do the pools and scuba diving required lessons of a quite disciplined nature. The few tomes I gleaned from library and shops amounted to fuck all in the mid-80s. A Carlos Castaneda here, a Timothy Leary there…whipped under my snorkel and home for a gander. Sad Times at Radgepot High. I had more books than Sherrat and Hughes until my dad made me build a bonfire in the Clough and burn the fucking lot. I’d been keeping the flame alive with those natty library books but I never saw Rave coming and didn’t see much United, either. I was too busy tripping when a team from Székesfehérvár booted us out of the UEFA Cup. Time wore on, the bad drug daze left far behind, or so I thought…
Somewhere between the hangover of the early eighties and the plastication of Madchester we revisited and revived the psychedelic ski-jump. At first acid was as hard to find as hippie books, but soon anyone with half an inkling had shelves packed with Amazonian witch-doctorism and New Age CDs…..Mancunians inexorably shunting towards the euphoric descent into Rave, like a gaggle of poignant hooligans boarding Belle Vue Bobs. KLF began pumping through the Precinct pubs, tower-blocks blazing all around in a grey Salford soup. One dark Saturday thumbing some magazine a kid had left…I recognised the language…tons of DJs, with unexpectedly clever names, shamanistic-mystic…why the fuck didn’t we think of this…..I’m looking round at the heads, thinking, deary, deary me…..Bruiser’s there, rolling cigs from his Blackpool tin…supping that bitter that I shan’t describe….the world was changing…what did the KLF know of the Cloughward bonfire, the wilful destruction of British government property..? The Time Lords got to burn one million quid long after I’d done in my pile of books…but which was the greater crime?…they were an infinitesimal group of young people emerging at the fountainhead of a new thing.
Remember the rush, the barmy push for substance, mush? The owl-faced need for speed and sound, when acid house was underground, when Ecstasy was little known it was Sputnik or it was home-grown. Jog yer swede indeed and heed the embryonic seed, don’t plead or expect my heart to bleed for them what never rode the steed. That’s right it’s shite and I am tight, no sympathy for someone’s plight when past encounters they’d delight in taking flight when out of sight, leaving early on Saturday nights so long ago but now they know to act like they are one top pro. You were either there or not when molecules went through your snot to enter deep and creep up high and send you loping through the sky to spires distant full of ghouls in glow-stick tents with dancing fools who water-drank from poison pools and thought that strobe-lit rain was jewels. Did you follow pilot cars along the motorway from bars and did they guide you into dust upon which theatres full of lust enacted play an easy lay and ecstasy it lit the way? The winding roads of blinding wits the spotlight studded skies and pits with DJs puttin’ on the Ritz or – hang on, is this getting on your tits?
The afterbirth of Rave and its fluorescent shower of amniotic fluid settled on Madchester 20 years ago – spawning a can-do-it-yourself attitude in the city. United We Stand’s 20th Anniversary last month reminded me of where I was when the mag first came out. Usually in a drunken stupor, risking arrest for various stupidities, regardless of the day. But stupidities are allowed when you’re young and on a mission from Lucifer. A mission to spawn a goat culture that danced on bent furry legs. That tapped its hooves against the shield on United’s crest like a fallen angel flying on MDMA.
Drug society is really social Darwinism gone awry. Instead of those who best manipulate an environment it centres on those best suited to escape it through the administration of chemicals. Did you ever stop to think about those who embarked on careers, who went to work every day? Those who looked down on you for the drug-addled freak you possibly were? Sensible people, wholesome people. People with a five-year plan? Fuck them; people like that want slapping to death, really they do. Imagine that, slapping someone to death? It’s funny, really, once you find yourself pondering it. Slapping some cunt to death. It’s poetic, with a hint of, well, slapstick, about it. I mean, it’d take ages, which might be fun, depending on who you were slapping. But it could be messy. Not the kind of job people’d want to take on. You’d have to make it look desirable. Like Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence. Slapping someone to death could be hilarious, but it could also be very grim.
And there it is again; the violence. Part of the puzzle. The equation of love and fear that triangulates over working-class enclaves together with humour. That separates us poor demented folk from those with discipline, with structure; scuba divers and the career-driven. Professional shamen who made millions while the rest of us just got twatted on acid. Oh well…

It was late, cold. Through the Venetian blind I watched the cars crawl the boulevard. I licked my lips; thirsty time again. The faded pictures grinned down at me. Imprisoned behind dusty glass. Red shirts and white crew necks; Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, Georgie Best, Ralph Milne, Pat Crera- whoa, what the heck? Somethin’ definitely wasn’t right here so I figured I’d put it right the old fashioned way. I went to the mahogany liquor cabinet. Poured me a big stiff one. Blue neon winkin’ through the window an’ the mad reek of insanity. That’s when she walked in, large as life. Eyes like a monitor lizard, tits like a prehistoric kangaroo’s balls.

“Are you the private dick?” she gasped.

“I’m a dick, but that’s not so private in this town,” I told her. She sounded foreign to these parts. Irish, maybe. A looker. The kinda gal that could fall out of bed in Bumfuck, Idaho and be a millionaire in Beverly Hills by noon. Maybe from marryin’ some rich ogre or writing a book about wizards. Maybe not. The traffic was dying down and she sat on the leather couch without asking. I stood in shadow admiring the blue light playing over her facial contours; I’m a sucker for cheesy effects, and this was pure Mr. Spock-when-looking-into-his-viewfinder-on-the-bridge-of-the-Enterprise material.

“It’s my husband,” she gasped. Gasped a lot, this one. Face ablaze with metallic color. Then I noticed the belly on her. She was eatin’ for two. Another myth shattered, like acid flashbacks and wet dreams.

“Yeah? Doin’ what? Cheatin’? Divin’? Fowlin’? Time wastin’?” I hissed that last one out. Time wastin’, like I was accusin’ her of same. The tumbler was empty so I poured me another. Poured her one too, then remembered Junior. The Surgeon General wouldn’t approve. That gutless fuck.

“I dunno…he’s….acting all different.”

“Different how? Different I’m gonna come good this season, or different I wanna take off to Madrid and live happy ever after?”

“Why you! He’d never-!” She gasped again, or maybe panted under the weight of the ogre she was carryin’ inside.

“Oh, he kisses the badge, huh?” I asked her straight, gave her a wink.

She looked disgusted.

“That wasn’t no metaphor, lady. Is this guy loyal, or is he playin’ away?” I’d seen plenty of badge kissers come through this place. Always pledgin’ their lives, always leavin’ for Madrid when the fancy took ‘em. Broken hearted dames like this one in their wake. It was the way things were and not a damn thing you or me or Garry Birtles could do about it.

“No!” she said, “That’s not it at all!” That accent. It wasn’t Irish, it was somethin’ else. Sounded like John Lennon on coke. Good coke, the kind transsexuals sell to Nicaraguan ufologists at the Rio Carnival.

“So what is it, Dollface? C’mon, quit wastin’ my time here. I ain’t waitin’ till the ninety-seventh minute for a result. Spit it out.”

She chewed that over some and then said, “Well, he’s been sayin’ queer stuff. Like, he’s been sayin’ he’ll miss the-” She broke down, a mess, a big, sad, sexy Komodo dragon-eyed-with-massive-kangaroo-nuts mess. I poured some more medicine. Handed her a tumbler full. Loosen her up. She was startin’ to look and sound familiar, but I hoped I was wrong.

“He’s been sayin’ he’ll miss what, darlin’?” I asked, fightin’ to disguise the panic that was rising inside me. This whole thing stank of fish. And chips. Then the penny dropped. It was Wayne’s girl. It was Coleen. I grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Miss what, Coleen?!? What’s he bin sayin’?!”

“He’s sayin’ he’ll miss the vermin game to be with me if I go into labor!” she shrieked, disgusted and terrified by the game of life.

I sank to my knees and took a good hit of that cheap whiskey. These dames were like diamonds. They were hard but they always proved their value when the chips were down. And boy were they down. The color drained from my leathery mug and I held her some. Till the crying stopped. She was crying too. I hadn’t felt betrayed like this since my visit to the Doc last week. It was for a private matter so I won’t bore ya with details. The Doc didn’t like what he found, I can tell ya that. Gave me a thorough going over while I focused on his framed 1977 FA Cup Final photos to block out the pain. As I straightened up from off of the examination table he schlocked off his rubber glove and tossed me a box of Kleenex. “Here,” he said, “wipe the KY off with these and pull your pants back up. Don’t use too many. That’s all I got.” I could see he was appalled. I gave my cornhole a good wipe. Jeez, the Doc goes heavy on the jelly.

“You have ball cancer,” he said. “I’ll give you two, three weeks, tops.” The Doc tells it like it is.

“Christ, Doc, you serious?! I wanna second opinion,” I insisted, feelin’ plenty sore.

“OK. That’s one hairy asshole ya got there,” he said, pouting.

“I’m gonna be a goner before the Liverpool game, Doc?” I couldn’t believe this.

“It’s all that lead-based paint they used back in the 70s. Those railings you used to sit on in the Stretford End? Ball cancer.”

But that was yesterday and I had a job to do here. Wayne’s girl was in deep shit; I wasn’t the only one gonna miss the big showdown with the snakes. I had to save the day before I shuffled off this mortal coil. Maybe induce labor myself if I had to. I looked to my heroes for inspiration. Crerand smiled bitterly. Those sad lips and cheekbones silent and distracted. Charlton stared with goat eyes, taunting me. Law frowned like a polecat stalking a damn rat. Best…well, what can you say? Everything was a joke to that guy, even ball cancer. I looked at Coleen. She looked at me.

“What are we gonna do?!” Again with the gasping. She was scared. I was scared. Should I phone the Doc? Nah, better keep this in-house. Plus he’d want a cut of the action and a man dying of ball cancer needs all the dough he can get.

“Ya really would prefer Wayne plays at Anfield an’ him not bein’ there when you drop the rugrat?” It was a delicate question that needed asking. Women set these tests for guys and you can never be too careful.

“Those people are animals,” she gasped. “They’ve vandalized our families’ homes. That Peter Hooton is a complete wankeh! And they’ve used weapons of mass destruction on their own peop-!” I held up my hand to silence her.

“That’s goin’ too far Dollface. It was Saddam did that, not Hooton’s mob. Though the choice of box-cutters as weapons in the 9/11 business did make me wonder.”

This mixed-up scall gal was lookin’ for a white knight. All I had to offer was black turds from last night’s Guinness and a dose of Big C eatin’ away at my family jewels. I could split from this trip any minute and had to save the day before I went. If he’d been galavantin’ with loose dames that would have been easier to sort out. A slip of bromide in his half-time tea – but no, he’d lose his edge. Waste even more chances than usual. Plus, Fergie might launch the trolley at the whole team. That would be disastrous; a limp-dicked menagerie of gimps for the second half. My mind was wandering. This was going nowhere.

That’s when the door was smashed to smithereens and the man in question appeared, his moon head gleamin’ white like a peeled spud.

“Coleen! What’s goin’ on?!” He was blinded by rage.

“Siddown son, it’s like this,” I told him, passing a cracked mug of whiskey his way. “We’re concerned. You been talkin’ crazy talk. Sayin’ you’re gonna miss this big game…it’s a helluva thing, son, but Coleen here wants ya to play. What a gal, huh?”

“Bollocks! Scouse Mike can fill in for me. He’ll do the business like he did against the Bittermen. We’ll get fourteen minutes of injury time an’ one of the subsequent twenty eight corners we’re awarded will go in, deflected off Carragher’s napper!”

“This one’s at Anfield, son,” I reminded him. “And they get even more injury time there than we do at OT, but don’t be countin’ on a single decision goin’ our way this time. Not only that. Mike’s got a groin strain, but he makes it look like ball cancer. He’s fallin’ apart like a fake Rolex from a Bangkok market.”

His eyes rolled about like Ken Dodd on speed. “Whe- where’s Coleen, wharrave yer done wit’ ‘er?!” he demanded. I turned to look at her but there was only winkin’ blue neon on a cold leather couch. She’d vanished. And then we heard it…a wailing, coughing screeching bawl that only an ogre can produce. I looked out the window and I saw a huge bright star overhead. There were three men down on the sidewalk buzzin’ to be let in. I hit the button and resumed the search for the missin’ gal. The cry came again an’ then we saw it. Raised up in slime covered hands, dripping with the broth of life, gurgling and screamin’ like a banshee in the night. Coleen had startled when that door had gone in and pumped out the little milksucker through shock.

“Happy birthday, kid,” I said, through teeth clenched round a cigar and workin’ on a tumbler of whiskey. There was a knock at the door, well, what was left of it, anyway. It was the three men. They were bearing gifts and they looked familiar. One, a bit distracted by his private concerns, the other daring me to challenge his authority, the third amused but coiled like a predator. I sensed a fourth man had been with them, but he’d gone off for a drink. A wise move in my book. The little ‘un was screamin’ the joint down. Life is too short and a pain in the balls sometimes but it’s nice when things work out.