Manchester City having lost 4-0 to Wigan, the England cricket team having collapsed and my own forty years of patience with the England football team having expired, there is not much left in my life. However, this at least fires my amazement and dismay. Tottenham's Jermain Defoe bit West Ham's Javier Mascherano. Weird enough. However, the last great consoling thing about football is not what happens on the pitch but the fabulously deranged excuses provided by the managers afterwards. Here is Tottenham's Martin Jol, who described the incident as 'a comical nibble'.
'He was nibbling his arm - there will be no mark. Ask Mascherano if he has got a mark. It is part of the game. They kicked him three times from behind in 10 minutes and he wanted to show his frustration in a nice, comical way.'
Sweet and yet, somehow, fantastically disturbing.
Monday, October 23, 2006
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I don't know what I'm more impressed by: the remarkable feat of sublimation by the young player (and to do it with a comic flourish) or the way in which the manager interpretated it. I must start watching football again. It has everything: the skill, the drama, the philosophical analysis and the canabalism.
ReplyDeleteAnd the haircuts, Neil, you are forgetting the haircuts.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazes me is Caborn's desire to get his name in the papers at every conceivable opportunity.
ReplyDeleteGreat to finally get through - couldn't access your comments the last two days, Bryan. You're right about the excuses and it's these which fan the flames and allow the sort of thing to continue.
ReplyDeleteI loved also the 'deranged', yet highly amusing, 56 year old Neil Warnock; suggesting last weekend that Dermot Gallagher, 42, shuold retire becuase of his old age and being unable to do his job.
ReplyDeleteSheffield United have one win in 8 attempts this season