The Trip to Italy (2014) – Review

“I sometimes think that one day I will be–and so will you–on a slab. You’ll have a little tag around your toe, and somebody will be there embalming you. Ever think that? ‘Cause its gonna happen. Unless you’re lost at sea and we cannot find you–which is unlikely–you will one day lie on a slab.”

In its own right, Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip to Italy (2014) is a worthy exposé of Italy’s exquisite countryside. Documenting lyrical hills, the storied Mediterranean Sea and the peerless Amalfi Coast; the journey through one of the world’s most beautiful regions is cinematically gorgeous.

Patience

When viewed as the follow up to The Trip (2010), its a wonderfully crafted journey into the heart of the human condition: Focussing on flux, in particular. I believe that the best films are those that can’t be adequately told through a novel, and The Trip to Italy is a prime example.

Whilst there is always a danger in utilising the classic sequel trope of inverting the protagonists’ character traits, it can work when executed carefully. In The Trip, its the affable (but not as affable as people think ) Rob Brydon who plays the role of centred family man that knows his ups from his downs. Steve Coogan, meanwhile, plays his sparring partner as a man fast approaching 50, and more importantly, as a man who knows it. They’re the classic odd couple, with Coogan reluctantly inviting Brydon to travel through Yorkshire with him because his younger girlfriend has left him and all his other friends are busy.

The premise behind both films is that the viewer gains an insight into the mind of the protagonists through a week in their lives. In the first instance, we follow their Land Rover as it speeds down the highway and then traverses archetypal, winding lanes with half a dozen restaurant and hotel stops along the way. In the second, its a rented Mini Cooper – unashamedly picked due to their shared appreciation of Michael Caine and The Italian Job – that winds through visually arresting coast and vineyards alike.

One of the reasons the first version works so effectively is that Coogan doesn’t appear to particularly like Brydon. This is a man who has, by all opinions except his own and his sympathetic manager, passed his peak and is headed downward. Even though both characters are lightly fictionalised versions of themselves, Coogan’s previous drug habit and his waning notoriety amongst an audience to whom he was once described as ‘the next John Cleese’ are both features of the series. It ends with a tentative offer for Coogan to star in an American TV series as a pathologist, with Coogan rejecting it even more tentatively on the grounds of wanting to be in England for his children, to whom he appears to be a disappointment.

In the sequel, Coogan seems to have mellowed. He lounges in a panama hat and a pair of Ray Bans, and seems contentedly tired rather than perpetually agitated.  Pathological has been put on temporary hiatus – his backflip on starring in the show left to lie by those on screen – and the four years between drinks have given him an intangible readiness to relax. Brydon, on the other hand, last seen contentedly embracing his wife, has gone the other way. His star has risen in the UK thanks to his prolific panel show presence, and he’s casting his eyes towards Hollywood. His marriage, once a source of bliss, has become strained. Whilst his wife only appears on the other end of a handful of phone calls this time around, their infant daughter has become difficult to handle, and wife appears to resent husband for leaving the family to jaunt through Italy. His impressions have begun to grate her, and his zeal for conversation is rebuffed. Their brief conversations resemble Steve and Mischa’s painfully disjointed phone calls from the first film.

Its with this change in mind that Rob has his head turned by Lucy – deckhand on Patience, the boat that carries them through the Bay of Poets – another significant historical point; being the waters that Lord Byron would swim across to meet fellow exile Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The works of Shelley and Byron operate as the axis for the direction of the lads’ travels, replacing Robert Coleridge and William Wordsworth from the first journey. They postulate on everything from the whimsical relationship between the pair, to Edward Trelawney’s petty insistence that he knew them well enough to build a tourism empire in their names.

The Trip to Italy is punctuated regularly by moments of emotional significance like this. Arguably the most powerful moment of the first film is when Coogan stands in front of the bathroom mirror, totally alone and trying vainly to imitate Brydon’s Small Man in a Box routine; before failing and watching the tears sparkle in his own eyes. At the same time, Brydon is engaging in a typically low-key and failed attempt at phone sex with his wife through the voice of Hugh Grant (“I am, again, bottomless…just letting it off the lead, letting him run around the carpark and seeing if he sniffs our anything interesting”). In another, as Rob rambles about the brilliance of Michael Sheen – an actor it turns out beats Coogan to roles on a regular basis.

“You have to admit he’s brilliant”

“I’m fucking brilliant”

In film two, its Brydon’s turn to tell himself that he’s not good enough to star in the Michael Mann film his agent has suggested, as Coogan dozes in the next room with the stereo on and a copy of the works of Byron resting on his chest.

Coogan’s rendition of ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ from Hamlet, deep in the Naples catacombs, is another highlight. He corrects Brydon’s boisterously incorrect attempt at the soliloquy with an authentic piece of acting that genuinely stands out. “Where be your jibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flights of merriment – wont to set a table on a roar”. He then bursts into an unmistakably organic smile, and raises his hands in surrender to futility.

“Do you have children” Brydon asks Lucy as they sit together on the doleful, rocky cove where they embark for dinner.

“No”, she responds, “but I wish I did”.

Its a powerfully melancholic answer, equal or perhaps greater than the opening quote from this article. The reason it works so well is that it doesn’t try to be too transcendent – its hardly the first time these words have been used on screen – but manages to mean so much through its lack of ambition. It’s the juxtaposition between Rob, his head turned by her exotic seafaring ways, and the way she visibly shrinks as she says it. Just as Rob and Steve have debated over the course of their travels, but particularly amongst the Yorkshire Moors – there is no correct way to be.

There is no perfect choice to be made; no answer to happiness. Whether you’re viewing it from the perspective of your early 20s like myself, or you’re on the other side of 40 like our protagonists: Winterbottom’s lens exposes you to a reality that seems like it should be forbidden. A nihilistic, yet deeply meaningful take on the meaning of life that – keeping in mind Lucy ends up in Rob’s hotel bed that night – would have never made it to air in the days when the BBC acted as Britain’s moral compass. There is no way of knowing the meaning, or whether there is one at all. Its both confronting and comforting, and is what makes this seemingly carefree jaunt through the fineries of life seem far more significant than it may otherwise be.

 

English football; beautiful decay

Picture this: Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson staring into the distance with the Kop at his back and the wind in his hair. His eyes are a picture of melancholy, and his right bicep is conspicuously flexed where it meets his armband. He’s just driven through a scattered Manchester United defence to face David De Gea, and then scuffed the finish with a comical flourish. Everything about him that can be changed screams Stevie G, but the intangible fact that he simply isn’t as good hovers infallibly above. Gerrard would have buried the finish, Gerrard was a class above – Henderson’s Liverpool, and Sunday’s opponent Manchester United, are heading in the opposite direction.

A negative transition

Despite the lack of recent success, there’s still been a certain panache to fixtures between Liverpool and United. The most successful team of the pre-Premiership era against the side whose dominated the new league since its inception. Until now, the fact that the Reds haven’t won a title since 1991 hasn’t seemed to matter. The atmosphere at Anfield is always turbocharged before kickoff, and never more so than when United rolls into town. If the Merseyside Derby is ‘friendly’, than this makes up for the crosstown niceties by being anything but. When the Liverpool supporters rise for a rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, most visiting supporters take it in and watch. When they sing it before this fixture, its met with the defiant and repetitive chant of ‘United, United, United’. The roar as the whistle is blown is closer to a World Cup knockout fixture than it is to a Premiership match. There’s always the sense that something might happen.

That sense endured until yesterday, and then something snapped. Whether it happened when it became clear that United had no intention of actually playing entertaining football, or when Jurgen Klopp named a midfielder up top and left Belgian battering-ram Christian Benteke on the bench is irrelevant. Something was lost last night. The grandeur of the fixture was met with some of the drabbest football seen this season. An early bout of handbags threatened to get something started, but then it lapsed into nothingness again.

The most exciting passage of play in the first half, excluding a few of Anthony Martial and Emre Can’s more valiant efforts to kickstart something in spite of their teammates’ malaise, was the introduction of Cameron Borthwick-Jackson after Ashley Young decided he had had enough. Not only did it give the commentators the chance to tell us that he shares the title for the longest name in Premier League history (26 characters!), and that he drives a Vauxhall Corsa which sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the Aston Martins at United’s training ground; but we got to sample his unorthodox running style as he entered the field of play. Its not his fault, because he’s built like a twig and, at 18 years old, should be refining himself in reserves matches in front of 10 people on Wednesday evenings rather than in front of 45,000 at Anfield. In Alex Ferguson’s day, it was Paul Pogba that couldn’t get a starting berth in his teens: a ridiculous decision that has cost United, though it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he was still manager. In Van Gaal’s, its Borthwick-Jackson and Paddy McNair – young men who look so raw that it would feel unfair to even start discussing whether they’re actually good enough to play at this level – that hold up the side when injury hits. Ferguson recalled the retired Paul Scholes during times of crisis, Van Gaal will be struggling to recall the last time United actually looked like owning a match for the majority of the 90.

Pogba couldn’t get a game under Ferguson, so he left for Juventus and became the best midfielder in the world

It was a harking back to when English football knew it was grim. Roast lamb, congealed gravy, in-laws for lunch, Thatcher… Except they were all driving Vauxhall Corsas, the players weren’t sat in five jackets each on the bench (it actually was a bench), and there was the sense that everyone involved had a reason and a duty, rather than an obligation, to care. Or at least enough pride to pretend that they did. The players still walked out to thumping music on Sunday, the Kop still sung their anthem; but this is where the theatre stopped, and the decaying reality of English football began. Because neither side looked like it was taking the rough and ready all too seriously, nor did they look as though they fancied putting on an exhibition, even in light of the fact that all but two of the 22 starters, Jesse Lingard and Ander Herrera the exceptions, were capped internationals. It was the old first division football without the bark, and Premier League football without the bite. The worst of both worlds.

The Ballon D’or 11’s much publicised failure to include any Premier League players was a shock to some, but to many others it was a familiar indication of a downwards trend that shows no signs of resurrecting. The league has lost Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez in recent years, and replaced them with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez. Fine players at the forefront of Arsenal’s title bid, but the reality of their departures from Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively can not, and must not, be ignored. They were the castoffs; the expendable individuals that Spain’s big two felt they could do without. Whether they always make the right decision is questionable, as Barca misfit Yaya Toure might attest, but also inconsequential. In the battle for relevancy, English football is falling fast.

World class, rejects

Marouanne Fellaini is what £30m buys in the Premiership these days. The Belgian is an excellent footballer, with the exception of when the ball is at his feet. Or Adam Lallana, the £26m man who, with every appearance he makes in red, calls into question why Liverpool didn’t take the cheaper option and exhume Harry Houdini if they were looking for someone to disappear. The 27 year old has managed four goals and eight assists in his 37 league starts since moving from Southampton, with none of the former and just two of the latter coming this campaign. I fear that even the hallowed magician would struggle to stay hidden for the 76 minutes that Lallana managed on Sunday.

“Manchester United, yet to register an effort on target” called a glib Jon Champion midway through the second half, as the camera panned onto a miserable looking Van Gaal, looking snug in his parka on parka on parka, “and now they’re struggling to muster a corner taker.”

The deadlock was broken on 78 minutes, when Fellaini’s post-bound header was finished on the rebound by United captain Wayne Rooney. He crashed it into the net with all the frustration of somebody who’d had to watch 78 minutes of this match, and still had 12 to go. In the process, he eclipsed Thierry Henry’s Premier League record of most goals for one player at one club. A grand record, in the least glorious circumstances.

Ultimately, the most poignant moment of the match was saved until its last throes. With injury time approaching and his side down a goal, Klopp brought on QPR loanee Steven Caulker to play up top. Yes Klopp, the world’s most fashionable manager, using the skeleton in the closet of old-school English managers; what to do when you’re just not sure – lumping the centre half at centre forward. It didn’t work for Klopp. It never works.

The last of the old breed, we just didn’t know it at the time

Still, as sad as it is to watch the fall of two clubs that we’ve loved to hate, and hated to love to envy; there have been reasons for optimism. Eddie Howe, every bit the old-school manager sans the restrictive stubborn streak, has led his unlikely Bournemouth side into mid-table in their first season of top flight football. In front of 12,000 fans, the Cherries still have players that were part of the campaign to stop them from entering administration and shutting up shop just six seasons ago in the fourth tier. Or West Ham United’s enigmatic collection of Frenchmen looking for a EURO berth, headlined by the enchantingly excellent Dimitri Payet, who have led them into a European qualification spot. Mark Hughes’ Stoke City is another worth mentioning. They’ve taken two outcasts from Barcelona, one from Bayern Munich and another from Inter, and turned the Premiership’s version of a school yard bully into an oddly attractive and thoughtful unit.

I don’t need to waste column space on leaders Leicester City, or rather I just don’t have enough of it. Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy’s exploits this season have started a story that will be spoken of for years to come. Whether they can muster the title, or even just a top four spot, is irrelevant (to everyone but Leicester supporters) – because they’ve been the strongest signal yet that a change is coming.

Dier, Alli, Kane – forward thinking

Another still is Tottenham, perennial top four bridesmaids that sit just a point off fifth but have had so much written about them in such positive tones. They play expansive, entertaining football and are led by a youth-team striker, a division three teenager and converted centre back who’ve come together to form the spine of a team that takes itself seriously and tries to play decent football. No James Milner or Ashley Young, players who’ve been in the modern trade long enough to see what a falsity it is; just young English footballers, barely out of school, with a bit of an idealistic streak that we can only hope is still present in the next generation. After watching Sunday’s debacle, I’m not convinced there will be.

Humans of New York

This man sums it up perfectly: Everything.

Life, loss, and Phillip Joel Hughes

Test cricket is meant to be all about legacy.

Players are meant to work their whole lives for a spot in the national side, and then spend a decade building their personal legend before moving on to the rest of their days.

For Matthew Hayden that was cooking, for Shane Warne it was poker, for Glen McGrath it was fundraising.

Boffins and tragics are meant to spend hours at a time, be it at the pub, on the internet or watching a game from the stands, debating which players deserve what platitudes and reminiscing about great matches, great days, great sessions, great innings and great overs.

Phillip Hughes will not experience any of that.

Sure, in the years to come, we’ll be reminiscing about the spark that went out, the fuse that too early blew.

But we’ll be doing it with tears in our eyes. Not tears of nostalgia, or long forgotten raw joy, but tears of grief for a story that never reached its logical conclusion.

The traditional way for a cricketer to be referenced on the score sheet is for their first and middle initial to be written before their last name.

SR Tendulkar, BC Lara, SR Waugh, DG Bradman, WG Grace.

Aside from the brave statement issued by the equally courageous Michael Clarke, all the public have heard from the grieving Hughes family is that they would prefer their son be referenced as Phillip, rather than Phil, in posterity.

He was meant to be a champion. Whatever you thought of his batting and often inconsistent performances, Phillip’s early debut at just 20 years of age was supposed to mean that time would be on his side.

Indeed, when Phillip faced his final ball, he was five days short of his 26^th birthday.

Now, that legacy will never be realised.

Yes, we will remember him. We’ll remember his two centuries in South Africa and his brave innings alongside Ashton Agar when the latter fell just short of a debut century at Trent Bridge in 2013.

Whilst Agar’s innings has already gone down in Ashes folklore, Hughes’ measured, mature and thoughtfully accomplished knock can not, and will not, and has not, gone unacknowledged.

On what has been a fairly tough week for myself on a personal level, I can’t help but reflect upon both the gift and the futility of my heartbeat and the time that I hopefully yet have on my side.

For Phillip Hughes, the spirit of #408, his legacy will be one of what could have been. What should have been. For him, and for us.

He died doing what he loved. His last conscious moments were at the crease, that patch of hallowed dried grass in front of three vulnerable stumps where he had spent most of his life: honing his craft for the rewards that will now never come. Let it be known that, before he fell, he was playing the kind of cricket that will be remembered as his hallmark: Unorthodox, brave and ambitious.

The same goes for Sean Abbott. Here was a man doing his job, and doing it well. The sad loss of Phillip Hughes, and the tragic circumstances that have led to it, should not mean that Sean is held in any way responsible. Indeed, a great tragedy would for us to another career cut short like Phillip’s was. Lets get behind him, show him that we care, and hope that in time he can learn to cope with his grief and carry Phillip’s spirit with him.

Phillip Hughes will never know a life after cricket. He will never be given the chance to commentate, to go home and share a career’s worth of achievements, to forge a career and a legacy like so many talented people before him. He will always have a place in the game, but rather than a comma, there will be a full stop after his name.

But we will remember him, and so will the future custodians of the game of cricket.

PJ Hughes, 63. Not out.

For eternity the spirit of Cap No. 408 #RIPPhilHughes

— Adam Gilchrist (@gilly381) November 27, 2014

Season Preview 2014/15 – Tottenham

Season’s greetings everyone!

With a memorable World Cup still visible in the rear-view mirror, it doesn’t really feel like football has been away for that long.

To me, it only seems like a few weeks since Tim Sherwood gave a massive middle finger to the ‘supporters’ who spent months criticising him for not doing the equivalent of drawing blood from a stone; and actually told a fan to sit in his seat and do it himself.

He’s out, another bloke is in and here we are.

It’s been a refreshing winter for your writer. There’s been plenty of pints between the final kick of last season and the first of this one to drown out the sorrow of such a disappointing and unstable year – so consider me ready for whatever 2014/15 will bring.

Lets get this underway then, because the game starts in 42 minutes:

Predictions:

Positions:

Premier League: 5th

FA Cup: Quarter finals

League Cup: Final

Europa League: Quarter finals

Players:

Player of the season: Hugo Lloris

Youngster of the season: Erik Lamela

Top goalscorer: Roberto Soldado (please)

Most assists: Christian Eriksen

Most improved: Etienne Capoue

Most disappointing: Aaron Lennon

Surprise package: Ryan Mason

Best signing: Eric Dier

With all that out the way, I’ll begin by addressing the new manager. Mauricio Pochettino, or Poch as I’ll henceforth call him, did a stellar job at Southampton last season. He had an incredibly solid squad, but he brought many of its members in and made them gel into an imposing unit. It’s a testament to his work that Katerina Liebherr has managed to so substantially improve her everyday savings account with the pillaging of a squad that finished 8th last year. Luke Shaw (£31m), Callum Chambers (£16m), Dejan Lovren (£20m), Adam Lallana (£25m) etc. have gone, but I wonder whether Poch will be their biggest loss of all. It looked like Jay Rodriguez and Morgan Schneiderlin would be heading our way to complete the exodus, but despite the dummy spit of the latter, it seems like Ronald Koeman may actually have 11 men to field tomorrow at Anfield.

I didn’t watch much Soton, or indeed Premier League football, last season – such was my disillusionment at the state of affairs at Spurs (see my later rant on our fans) – but they say that a hallmark of Pochettino’s management is his organised, high-tempo style of play. The players seem to have liked him at all his previous clubs, not that it means much (see AVB and Gareth Bale’s bromance) in fairness – but maybe our whole squad will buy in.

On the squad; we now have 31 first team players, or something like that, and it looks like some will have to go. We’ve signed three young defenders in Dier, Ben Davies and DeAndre Yedlin (arriving next year), and it appears that time is about to be up for some of your writers favourites. The cool Benoit Assou-Ekotto already has one wheel of his smartcar out the door, whilst my man Michael Dawson is about to be hounded out by the people who claim to be supporters of this football club. I use the word supporters reluctantly, because they’ve spent all summer on the official Facebook page whinging about everything from homegrown prospects Danny Rose and Harry Kane penning new contracts to the admin having the temerity to show pictures of Dawson still training at the club.

Even still, despite how much I love Mr Tottenham, I can see that it’s unviable to have five first team centre backs in the squad if young Dier is good enough to be a starter. Jan Vertonghen is clearly first choice, but who stands next to him is the mystery. Still nursing the hangover from never having to play left back again, Superjan will quickly sober up when he realises that his prospective partners at centre half amount to the always injured Younes Kaboul, the technically proficient but aerially useless Vlad Chriches, Dawson whose deficiencies are well covered and the untried Dier.

Poch wanted to bring in Mateo Mussachio from Valencia, and it looked all but done until the third party owners that plague mainland Europe reared their ugly heads and scuppered it.

I don’t think we need any new signings, and I’d be happy to cut BAE and Nacer Chadli, and loan Tom Carroll or Mason, and leave it at that – but we’ll soon see what the boss wants. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll also see how happy Daniel Levy will be to open his wallet on the final day of the month.

Best XI:

Lloris

Walker Kaboul Vertonghen Davies

Capoue Dembele

Lamela Eriksen Townsend

Soldado

Vorm, Dawson, Naughton, Sandro, Lennon, Holtby, Adebayor

I realise that I’ve labelled Dier as our best signing and not even included him in the side, but he’s one for the future.

Finally, just on the the years to come, the fact that our academy finally seems to be churning out prospects excites me greatly. I’m a big believer in a British core, and the signings of Davies and Dier will be joined by Andros Townsend, Mason, Rose, Carroll and Kane as first team members.

As far as the season proper goes, I’m not expecting much – and I’m loving it. I couldn’t give a monkeys whether we finish top 4 anymore, and I feel like most fans agree with me at this stage. The way I see it, we aim for first every season, not fourth, but we try get there by having fun and engaging the supporters.

If Poch can get these boys smiling and playing with the Spurs flair that I grew up to love – I’ll be happy.

Come On You Spurs.

Save Dave Moyes

Save Dave Moyes: Why United Chiefs Need to Act Quickly to Avoid a Catastrophe at Old Trafford

As rival supporters gleefully revel in the fallout from Sir Alex Ferguson’s abdication, David Moyes has every right to ask himself the true motivation behind the United stalwarts decision to identify him as his successor.

At the beginning of the season, I predicted that Manchester United would finish outside the top 4.

It’s true, you can ask my brother for proof because he wrote it down in a document entitled ‘Dean Goldstein’s outlandish claims’.

We got into a wicked fight about that one, and I’ve never tired to remind him of it since the fact.

Despite my prophecy, I’m taking no discernible pleasure in United’s sudden plight. Perhaps I’m softening in my old age, I’m almost 19 after all, but I just don’t see where the gratification lies in watching this disorganised squad stumble towards mediocrity.

It’s no real secret that Man United fans have been insufferable in the Premier League era, and why shouldn’t they have been? They’ve seen 13 league titles, a plethora of stars from home and abroad in their famous red kit, and have enjoyed life under a stable, intimidating and successful boss.

Ferguson is perhaps the greatest manager we’ve ever seen, certainly the best since the Premier League was formed, and it says something that he remains despised by every rival supporter base despite his exit from the game.

The question for Moyes and United, however, is whether he has truly hung up his cones and whistle. When he retired, Ferguson revealed a long bucket list that was waiting to be completed; including a visit to the world’s finest vineyards and a trip to our very own Melbourne Cup.

Despite all this, he has taken his seat in the Old Trafford grandstand next to Sir Bobby Charlton at every United home match. He even sits behind Moyes’ own children.

He was not amongst the troupe of famous faces that rolled into Flemington on the first Tuesday of November 2013. The closest Ferguson’s name came to the Melbourne Cup was when Mark Bosnich suggested that his former manager, who was famous for swiftly isolating members of his own squad when he sensed discord, wouldn’t have the stomach to meet him face to face in Australia.

Humourously, despite Ferguson’s questionable treatment of fine players like Jaap Stam, David Beckham and Roy Keane (not to mention now Juventus starlet Paul Pogba), it’s almost universally agreed that Bosnich’s exorcism is one of the few cases that the Scot actually got right.

It’s truly the harshest form of retirement: Leaving the building without turning off the light. Every time the ball rolls into David De Gea’s net, the cameras forgo David Moyes’ inevitable march towards the 4th official and aim instead towards the stand where Ferguson watches on like a hawk.

Chewing, chewing.

Fergie watches on as Chelsea rolls his former charges; he attends away days now too (source:Daily Mail).

At least viewers get to see Sir Bobby’s funny hat, because it’s a scene that the world is seeing with frightening regularity.

Moyes has truly struggled in the lime light. It’s a very poorly kept secret that Jose Mourinho fancied the Manchester United job, but despite this, Ferguson and the board were set on continuing the 28 year legacy with another weathered Scotsman. Mourinho was supposedly seen as too much of a risk, a high maintenance ego with an itchy desire to prove himself the world over.

How cruel that Mourinho has admitted his desire to settle down at Chelsea with his ‘young, beautiful eggs’ – a rather strange reference to his diverse collection of young players (don’t blame yourself if you weren’t aware of their existence – most of them are on loan at Vitesse).

Nobody really listens to Jose Mourinho anymore, and he likes it that way. He speaks in an indiscernible tongue whereby he’s everyones friend, unless you’re one of those who isn’t his friend, and where he doesn’t want to sign a striker in spite of the fact that he clearly wants to sign a striker. ‘Juan Mata is vital’, he pleads every week, ‘how do you not recognise this, what does it matter that he’s on the bench’. ‘I want to sell him, and it’s totally up to me whether I do or don’t, but he’s categorically not for sale’*.

*Quotes may not be real, but they’re pretty close.

Most good people gave up listening long ago, but nobody has ever really doubted his ability to manage a football team. That’s why, despite some very average results in the eyes of an expectant supporter base, the pressure has shifted seamlessly from the now departed AVB of Spurs and straight to Moyes.

Clearly nobody told David that the British press loves nothing more than to hate their own, because he’s conducted himself in a manner that nobody thought was possible in the wake of a humble decade at Everton.

Moyes has faltered clumsily between both the notion that Manchester United remains the biggest club in the world, but also that he is being treated unfairly by a media who are expecting too much from a side that currently sits 7th.

To be fair to the embattled Scotsman, Sir Alex left him with less of a squad than a ragtag group of footballers with no identity. Despite last seasons title heroics, which owed to the currently injured Robin Van Persie, this group of players look bereft of passion, direction and pride. They’re anything but Manchester ‘United’, right now.

In years gone by, players in the ilk Wes Brown, Park Ji Sung and John O’Shea were back up squad members. Starters on the bench at best who were fiercely loyal to their manager thanks to their massive, and probably undeserved, medal cabinets. Could a player like Brown have possibly won 5 Premier League, 2 FA cup and 2 Champions League medals without Ferguson’s often controversial backing? In another world, he would have been grafting away at an ordinary club, and he knew that, hence his desire to throw his weight behind his boss whenever it was called upon.

Ferguson, a man who was nearly sacked after an initially dicey start to life in the United dugout, understood what so few managers seem to grasp in the 21st century. Loyalty to the less gifted members of your squad will lead to an equally faithful group of players, always helpful when the boardroom and media begin to question your managerial credentials. Quite simply, a King who is kind to the underclass will be a prosperous ruler.

Moyes doesn’t enjoy this luxury, because Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia, Tom Cleverley and Chris Smalling are playing every week when they really don’t deserve to be. Not that he hasn’t brought it upon himself in a manner, benchwarmers Wilfried Zaha, Alex Büttner and Fabio can’t wait to leave the club and have no loyalty towards their manager.

To his credit, it must be said, Moyes has managed to put past feuds with his once Everton proidgy Wayne Rooney behind him and help the England star find his finest form. Despite an outstanding Premier League goalscoring record, one can’t help but hark back to a time when a fresh faced Rooney took to Goodison Park, and later the arenas of Portugal in EURO 2004, as a 16 year old with the world at his feet.

However, his consistent bouts of petulance, a famous goalscoring drought in his early 20’s, and a less-than-stellar off-field record, have left Rooney an excellent United player rather than England’s hero-successor to Alan Shearer.

Despite even this, Moyes’ embarrassing handling of the transfer market has been another factor in United’s decline. Whilst much of the will they, won’t they rhetoric is owing to the spectacularly poor performance of new chief Edward Woodward, Moyes has never seemed clear about the type of player he wants since he arrived at Old Trafford.

The expensive panic-buy of his former charge Marouanne Fellaini has failed to pay dividends, and a number of global superstars have reportedly rejected a chance to talk to United about a move.

Moyes’ attendance at Juventus’ match against Cagliari last weekend is a neat representation of United’s woes in the last two windows. Does he really believe that Arturo Vidal will leave Antonio Conte’s Italian champions, and runaway leaders this season, for his United side? If I were Vidal, I’m not sure whether i’d laugh or cry at the suggestion of abandoning my duties of linking up with a back 4 marshalled by Giorgio Chiellini in favour of one led by Jones or Smalling.

Even worse for him is that his formerly loyal Everton fans, now enjoying watching a rocking Roberto Martinez led side, have begin to wonder what all the fuss was really about in his 12 years at Goodison.

It’s time that Moyes was honest about where United really stands in world football. Rather than chasing Vidal, Pogba, Ilkay Gundogan or Mata, he needs to refocus his attentions on players like summer target Ander Herrera of Atheltic Bilbao.

Despite only enjoying a reasonable reputation at this stage of his career, Herrera would be well worth a £30m outlay because he’s young, technically excellent, and hungry to prove himself. What better challenge than helping an ailing United return to the top?

Bilbao is naturally reluctant to sell, but surely they would find it very difficult to turn down Woodward and Moyes if the pair finally quit postulating and actually turned up with a cheque in hand?

When club icon Sir Matt Busby finally left his post as Man United manager in 1969, he retained both an office at the training ground and an audience with the board. Legend has it that United staff and players knew when he was in the building due to the heavy, distinctive smoke that billowed from his clay pipe. His successor, Wilf McGuiness, lasted just 18 months before his predecessor returned to the dugout.

It’s public knowledge that Sir Alex Ferguson has an ego, so wouldn’t it be neat if his successor failed and 75,000 fans in need of a saviour were tided over by their ‘reluctant’ hero. If he was to return from the blackness, it’s an almost foregone conclusion that the momentum he would generate in the red half of Manchester would see a revitalised playing group charge back into the Champions League spots.

He’s out there, after all, and he’s not far away.

Chewing, chewing.

Where the Heart is: The Homes of Football by Stuart Roy Clarke.

http://homesoffootball.co.uk/ – Stuart Roy Clarke’s website, featuring a small gallery, a feature film and the link where you can buy his book.

http://inbedwithmaradona.com/gallery/2013/11/10/where-the-heart-is-by-stuart-roy-clarke – The link to football subculture website ‘IBWM’, where I first discovered Clarke’s work. Check it out.

British football photographer Stuart Roy Clarke belongs to a valuable genre of unique artists.

To paraphrase his words in an interview, Clarke never wanted to start small and become big – he wanted to explore both extremes and everything in between.

Clarke cites the Hillsborough disaster of 1988 as the main motivation for him starting his gallery. For those who don’t know the story, 96 Liverpool fans were killed when a heaving away crowd at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium collapsed a stand through sheer weight of numbers. Administrative and police errors led to the loss of life, and also to the loss of something once considered critical to European football: Standing room. The disaster was the catalyst for the introduction of seated-only football grounds around Britain, and this coupled with the might of the Premier League’s pounds has seen a light go out in the terraces of England’s elite clubs.

This is where Clarke steps in with his collection, a moving museum of more than 100,000 photos captured on film paying testament to an era that has gone by.

Edit (20/01/14): Clarke generously permitted me to display his photo.

Aptly named ‘The Homes of Football’, Clarke’s gallery juxtaposes images of the worlds biggest matches, attended by tens of thousands, with those of non-league games where the players outnumber the crowd. He manages to perfectly capture the charm of the sport within Britain, where almost every postcode has a football side or 3, and the mass appeal of the sport itself around the world. All it takes is a ball (or something shaped like one) and a set of goals (who hasn’t played football in the park with their jackets masquerading as posts) – anybody can play, anywhere.

What perhaps makes Clarke’s collection so brilliant is the emotion he captures within his photos. Nobody will ever be able to justify why football turns mild mannered people into manic supporters – but Clarke manages to capture the inherent humanity that makes the sport what it is. From a picture of two elderly Newcastle and Sunderland loyals sharing a handshake across a dividing line of police, to a snow-covered reporter speaking to a single camera at Wycombe, to a ramshackle wooden shed doubling as a club store in Alloa – Clarke uses his camera to show us how far football obsession stretches.

Despite boasting probably the most competitive domestic league in the world, English football culture has become the target of European elitist comparison. Britain has never really played by anybody else’s rules – it values graft, loyalty and desire more than technique, but somehow still expects to win World Cups. Whilst the great Barcelona and Spanish sides of 2008-2012 will go down in history as perhaps the finest of all time – Britain has consistently rejected the chance to reform its culture at a grass roots level.

Fronted by Barcelona’s infamous La Masia academy, continental youth development has exploded to yield a generation of technically and tactically able players in Europe. Once considered Holland’s little brother, Belgium is reaping the rewards of their youth reformation with the emergence from nowhere of one the worlds best teams. Featuring the likes of Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany and Romelu Lukaku – neutrals now rate Belgium’s side as on par with, or better than what the Netherlands can currently boast.

Despite this, probably my favourite image that I have seen in the gallery so far is a weathered brick wall at Blackburn’s Ewood Park with the word ‘TOIL’ painted in large white letters (above). Whether that’s a message of what is expected from the players, or simply the first part of the word ‘toilet’ is unknown, but it perfectly encapsulates what crowds of Britons who brave freezing, dark afternoons to attend matches demand from their charges. This image connects perfectly with another picture; this one of a mud-caked and rain-drenched Burnley player leaving the field of play after 90 minutes. Both images were snapped in 1991.

Both of these pictures tie in with the image (above) that is quintessentially British football. Terry Butcher in 1989 against Sweden, his England shirt stained with blood from a wound on his forehead after he continued to head the ball away from the goalmouth.

Stuart Roy Clarke’s images symbolise what football is truly about to me, and I hope my readers enjoy them too.

Bridget and Alex Jones

Call me morose, but during my first week of university a month ago – I looked around at how big the cohort was and realised that not everybody streaming into class would live a full life. Coming from a school where everyone knew everyone and going into a 20k+ stronghold was a huge change and that was one of the thoughts that popped into my head. Tragedies happen every day, but the fact that this one happened in the way that it transpired is sickening. I know that it could have been any of myself or my friends under that wall at that time, I was at uni during those winds and I could barely move – even as a solidly built guy. I feel completely ill, and devastated; and I wish the Jones family well in the future. A long life to all of Alex and Bridget’s family and friends – there is no braver way to go than protecting your loved ones from harm. May they always be together from now on.

 

To the other unidentified woman who passed on, my sympathy to your family. I hope they are comforted with the right answers and can heal in the future. 

Hoist that Grand Old Flag

Maybe I should be working right now. In fact, I know I should be working. I have 3 exams in the next week, but I don’t care.

This tanking fiasco has ruined my week, again…and its time to resolve it once and for all.

Here’s an opening statement for you: Melbourne tanked in 2009. Of course they bloody well did…it’s just a fact. They threw the game against Richmond in Round 19, they belted Fremantle the next week and then lost to eventual finalists Carlton and grand finalists St Kilda to secure a priority pick.

The football world knew this, just like they knew that Fremantle, St Kilda, Hawthorn, Collingwood, Carlton, West Coast and even Greater Western Sydney have all dabbled in what are now seen as the dark arts of list management. Whilst they may not have had a buffoon like Chris Connolly threatening jobs in the Football Department; each of these clubs made enough suspect moves in their respective years of cellar-dwelling to make them worthy scapegoats for investigation.

With Andy Demetriou swearing black and blue throughout his reign that tanking didn’t exist and his right hand man Adrian Anderson (who reminds me a bit too much of Squealer the propaganda pig in Orwell’s Animal Farm) characteristically shuffling next to him in agreement: One has to wonder just how serious this AFL investigation must be to have driven the superb media agenda against the football club.

I don’t really buy the idea that the AFL forced clubs into exploiting the priority pick system, nor do I think that the alleged tanking by Melbourne is akin to Pakistani-style match fixing. If you were a stupid enough organisation to reward teams for losing, a stupid enough club to systematically exploit the system or a stupid enough punter to bet on Melbourne to win a football match in 2008 or 2009: You’re simply a fool.

I’m a passionate Melbourne man, there’s no need to hide it; which is why I propose this:

Whilst the afore mentioned clubs undoubtedly and very much frantically delete strings of emails from their computers and records of meetings from their databases, the Melbourne Football Club must be in discussion with the AFL to resolve this in a manner to best suit both sides.

Tanking is morally abhorrent, threatening jobs is completely illegal: In a court of law, however, and represented by that famous coterie of theirs, the Demons may find themselves victors. The only people to allegedly come forward so far to give evidence are sacked coach Dean Bailey, discarded reserve Ruckmen John Meesen and Paul Johnson, and, notoriously, former Demon turned Blue Brock McLean. Easy enough to discredit the statements of former, disgruntled, employees. Ricky Petterd, sacked as recently as Monday, was on Melbourne radio on Wednesday to assert that Melbourne didn’t throw games. Why does his statement, and its surety, hold any less weight than those listed above?

Maybe he just didn’t feel the same ‘vibes’.

Whilst Caroline Wilson, Mick Warner and Mark Robinson tap furiously on their poor keyboards to turn the playing of defenders as forwards, an approach which established David Neitz as a Melbourne icon and led to Colin Garland winning Melbourne’s only game against an established side last season, into a heinous crime – I think there is a better approach.

Lets avoid character assassinations of the dead, lets avoid investigating half the competition: Lets make a deal.

Let Melbourne keep their 2012 draft picks. Lets not lose sight of the FACT that Jack Viney has done absolutely nothing wrong to lose the chance to play with his fathers football club; this football department was not the same one that tanked football matches.

Hand Melbourne a fine, around the $1-$2 million mark; allowing all that money they had taken in from their gala dinner this season to evaporate…along with the promise of a ‘warchest’ that delivered the likes of Chris Dawes and David Rodan.

Strip them of their first round and second round draft picks in 2013, and a spot in the Pre-Season Draft for two years.

Make a statement that tanking will not be acceptable, but don’t punish the scapegoat too severely.

As a Dees man, I could accept this as a punishment. I would welcome this punishment.

After Jeff White kicked that infamous winning goal against the Bulldogs in Round 22 2005, he was asked by Christi Malthouse to explain what had changed to give Melbourne their ‘never say die’ attitude in the back end of this season.

The 2012 Melbourne team had no such motto. Even when the Dees supporters were cheering their team on unconditionally throughout a shocking year – I attended 11 games – the prospect of being awarded richly for the Tom Scully compensation picks still hung in the air like a rotten banana in a school bag.

Its time that attitude was murdered: Burned to the ground. The ONLY priority should be winning; there should be no reward for losing. As Mark Fine said on SEN on Thursday night, no club tanks to go from Pick 8 to Pick 7. but only to significantly profit from the draft.

Players like Cale Morton, Addam Maric, Jordan Gysberts and Lucas Cook: Top 20~ picks who have all left in recent years should be waning enough to Melbourne that their inability to develop youth is a big enough problem for them to steer clear of high picks.

Melbourne should pick up Oliver Wines with Pick 4 this year, Jack Viney with 27 and Josh Toy in the Pre-Season Draft and thank their lucky stars that they can do so.

They need to go into 2013 with the assurance to these elite kids that nothing but the best attitude will be tolerated in training and on game day. They need to enter the year knowing that the likes of Connolly, Cameron Schwab and Dean Bailey have been removed from football if their involvement is as serious as implied.

They need to know that the Melbourne Footy Club has been down long enough, and that whilst names like Smith, Barrassi, Flower, Stynes and Neitz are no longer on the field: They need to be emulated and they need to be bettered.

The grand old flag must stop hanging limply on the MCG roof and start standing proudly. 154 years of history, thousands of generous and dedicated supporters and the original tenancy of the MCG must mean something more than shattering losses and the promise of next year, maybe.

3AW Melbourne – Progress for Progress’ Sake

All of 5 minutes ago, Derryn Hinch (@HumanHeadline) of 3AW announced his sacking from the broadcaster, and his usual 4-6pm timeslot. This shock move, of course, occurring in the same week that Steve Vizard was given a two week contract to fill in for Dennis Walter in the afternoon.

The big question for me is, simply, why?

For as long as I can remember; I’ve woken up to the debates between Ross Stevenson and John Burns, travelled listening to the opinionated Neil Mitchell, arrived home to the end of the relaxed Dennis Walter program and pulled into the driveway to Hinch’s opening monologue in the late afternoon.

Despite what many may think about listening to the same lineup all ones life, its neither monotonous nor boring. Each member of the lineup manages to keep their listeners on board with a diverse, relevant and interesting range of discussions that involve the input of the audience.

Its the reason for the failure of Steve Price’s MTR; listeners have had no need to change their talkback station.

My simple question is why change a winning formula?

For as long as Hinch has been a Human Headline, 3AW and its executives have stood by him. In the last two years, he’s been under house arrest for naming an accused paedophile and been out of work for months after a liver transplant. Further back, a series of indiscretions gave him his self-professed nickname and twitter tag.

Whilst he has a proficiency for breaking the law, I admire Hinch for not only his strong views, but his ability and willingness to back what he believes to be right.

Should paedophiles really be allowed to anonymously return to the community while other criminals are shamed?

Its a farce, and I was very much on Derryn’s side.

Just this week, Hinch announced, along with Neil Mitchell, their displeasure at the appointment of former Telstra boss Steve Vizard: The man who, in 2005, ran the company into the ground by dishonestly pinching profits.

I won’t pretend to know the full story behind Vizard’s controversial ban from the country’s largest telecomm provider, but his appointment reeks of a new era at 3AW: A not-so Brave New World.

Listeners want to be able to trust the people whose voices pierce their cars, homes, bedrooms and offices; and frankly, while Hinch was controversial, he’s not a liar like Vizard and he backs his own views in.

I’m not entirely sure where I sit politically in a landscape dominated by lacklustre federal leaders, but I know my weekdays are going to suffer from his sacking and the removal of his often controversial opinions.

General Manager Shane Healy’s comments that “life will not be the same without Derryn around, but we believe listeners will react more than favorably to the changes we have in mind”, are frankly a crock, and they will have to pull out a fairly impressive coup to keep their listeners as engaged as they have been.

In the words of the man himself: ‘As somebody once said. That’s life. Watch this space.’

I couldn’t agree more, Derryn.

Farewell and thankyou.