Jerrychicken - The Diary

Football, soccer, nancyball - its for girls.

Tonight two English Premier League teams will contend for the European Champions League title in Moscow, I am reliably informed that these two teams will be Chelsea and Manchester Utd, how they chose these two for the final I know not for I have a zero interest in the game of football, soccer, nancyball, call it what you will.

But surely you cry, surely as a British male you MUST be a football fanatic for newspapers all over this land insist that it is so ?

No I reply emphatically, I stopped watching football, soccer, nancyball when the likes of Norman Hunter (Leeds Utd) and Tommy Smith (Liverpool) retired.

You see, when ah wor nobbut a lad we had in our infants school a series of small easy-reader books called “The Ladybird Book of….” with the subject title following the “of” bit, and one of the most popular of these Ladybird books among the lads of the class was “The Ladybird Book of Football”, and in the Ladybird Book of Football, on each page, was a description and photograph of how to play the game and some very simple tactics for us young lads to use.

One of these had a page all to itself and was called “The Shoulder Barge”.

I’ll repeat that for those nancyball supporters under the age of 40, “The Shoulder Barge”.

“The Shoulder Barge” was a legitimate tactic whereby Player A could literally “barge” Player B off the ball by judicious use of his shoulder - run alongside a player in possesion and shove him as hard as you like with your shoulder causing him to topple over and concede possesion to you.

Sounds surreal ?

No, its was a legitimate part of the game, there was a picture showing you how to do it in The Ladybird Book of Football and everything…

Norman Hunter and Tommy Smith took this to extremes of course and would often combine a kick up the arse with the “Shoulder Barge” for which they were penalised of course - neither of those players would last any longer than their first tackle in the game called “football” today.

Today football, soccer, nancyball, has become a no-contact game in the same way that basketball is, run alongside a modern day footballer and he is very likely to fall over and claim that you made contact with him, and the referee is very likely to believe him and penalise you under the rule of “running too close to an opponent”.

The whole ethos of football, soccer, nancyball has also changed, no longer is it necessary for a player to have the ability to kick or use his head to place the ball into the opponents goal net, for now the whole point of the game is to position yourself closer and closer to your opponents penalty area and then fall over claiming a penalty - and you are more likely than not to be awarded one too.

Tonight in the Champions League Final we will see two “English” teams of mainly foreign mercenaries attempt for the first period of the game to fall over enough times as to make the referee “book” their opponent, two “bookings” of an opponent and he gets sent off - this is the ultimate object of the game. Only late on in the second half will either team think about maybe having a go at putting the ball close to their opponents goalmouth and even then the over-riding thought when they get there will be to fall over first.

its very likely that at the end of the game there will have been no goals scored and so the authorities will authorise the use of “extra time”, an additional 30 minutes of falling over and rolling around for a bit during which the ball will sometimes go close to a goalmouth only for the player to fall over again.

At the end of “extra time” and with still no goals scored there is only one sanction left to the authorities - the “penalty shoot-out” and if they’d known all along that it was going to come to this they could have saved us all the bother and just had a “penalty shoot-out” right at the start.

The “penalty shoot-out” consists of one player at a time placing the ball right in front of one of the goals and attempting to kick said ball into said goal with only one small man with outstretched arms attempting to stop said ball before it reaches said goal, simple enough isn’t it, and for the first time in the game the penalty kicker will not fall over as he attempts this feat of footballing skill.

At some point during the “penalty shoot-out” one or more of the players will achieve the seemingly impossible task of actually missing the goal from right in front of it - “shooting fish in a barrel” and “hitting a barn door at four paces” have nothing on this achievement for which the players in question will receive the traditional chant of “wanker” from all sections of the crowd, and eventually by means of the “penalty shoot-out” the outcome of the game will be decided, one team will receive the trophy and then crouch on the pitch in a group and bounce up and down while singing a little song.

Its a game for girls - to play and to watch.