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.
