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Football's Guilty Pleasures
Danny Last, from the blog European Football Weekends
talks about his footballing guilty pleasures.A guilty pleasure
is something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling a
trifle ofguilt for doing so. Should we fear others discovering our
lowbrow fascination with EasternEuropean floodlights and Real
Zaragoza's "deepest goal nets in Europe" or is that "guilt" toomuch
to bear!?
Well, if you promise not to tell, I'll sharesome of football's
guilty pleasures that
we've been discussing on EuropeanFootball Weekends lately. We'll
kick offwith a football shall we? TheStuart Surridge red and white
panelledball favoured by Ipswich Town andNorwich City in the 80's
was a rare thingof real beauty. Of course the AdidasTango was
rightly lauded butthe Surridge had me mesmerized. Itmust have been
Justin Fashanu's goalof the season for Norwich againstLiverpool in
1980 that set that particularball rolling. I had an inferior
plastic
version of it that that used to sting like anything on a cold
day up the rec when smacked intoyour legs.And now for the
classified (why classified I wonder?) football results read by
James AlexanderGordon. James = genius. For the full effect one had
to listen on the radio - preferably on arailway platform hundreds
of miles from home. The way his voice went up to signal asurprising
away win (Leeds United 2 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION 3) , down in
disapprovingfashion for a careless 3 points tossed away (Bradford
City 2 Brighton & Hove Albion 0) or theundisguised glee at the
3 points on his pools coupon afforded by Barnsley 2 Brighton &
HoveAlbion 2 was something to behold.
Wading through muddy pitches whilst listening to the theme tunes
to Sportsnight and theRadio 2 Sport on 2 Theme tune we find
ourselves at another guilty pleasure - Shoot
Magazine's (or was it Match? probably both) League ladders.
Wealdstone fanJohnathanTaffel tells me they weren't ideal when you
supported a non-league team. So hesimply turned the tabs around and
wrote the names of the Southern League teams on theback.
Panini stickers. Of course Panini stickers. In our youth, the
Italian work "Panini" meant moreto us than Rossi or Tardelli.
Walking around playgrounds or standing outside Spar with ourpile of
unwanted stickers of Coventry's Mick Coop - resplendent in his
chocolate brown kit - ina vague hope of finding that illusive shiny
Liverpool badge and the second half of theSwansea City team sticker
to complete our album.
Ski hats anyone? Why exactly did these go out of fashion as they
were by a country mile thebest ever genre of football headwear.
Immediately after exiting club shop the excited buyerwould
carefully separate the twin peaks (nod to Kyle MacLachlan) to
obtain the pleasingtriangle effect . Wasn't there some minor
obsession with the Scottish Premier around this
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time? Might have been something to do with Hammers legend and
darling of page 3 girlseverywhere Frank McAvennie? Whatever it was
it heralded the arrival of "half and halfers".
I blame the Goldstone Ground, Brighton for my mildly disturbing
infatuation with floodlights. Icould see those enormous pylons from
miles away as my Dad drove down theOld Shoreham Road to see the
Brighton aces. I'd stand on another guilty pleasure "The milk
crate" in the chicken run whilst he sipped on a cheeky beer,
which he'd strategically placed insaid crate without the knowledge
of Mum. Before Multimap and Internet route planners. Theonly way to
sniff a ground out from afar was to squash your nose up against at
train windowon the approach to Wolverhampton and keep 'em peeled
for those floodlights which were thesize of a bus and fantastically
pleasing on the eye. New stadiums have done away withtowering
floodlights.
Why new sets of goal posts no longer incorporate the "stanchion"
is a mystery to me. Whocould forget Trevor Brooking's famous goal
against Hungary in which the ball got lodged inthe stanchion. Who
doesn't immediately contemplate the amount of billowing one
couldproduce upon seeing a new goal net? Those dreadful tight goal
nets at The Dell,Southampton aesthetically ruined many a Matt Le
Tisser wonder-strike. The ball wouldsometimes ping straight back
out of said saving the goalkeeper the indignity of arching his
back in front of the masses of fans wheeling down the terracing
in cartwheels of delight.
The smell of cigars wafting across the posh seats, footballers
with beards and big hair, silkscarves, 8 panel beanie hats, the
orange ball and the artistic results of a groundsman'smower. These
are a few of the umpty thrumpty guilty pleasures of football and we
haven'teven started on Subbuteo accessories and those Striker
figures whose heads we used topound down in the vague hope of
catapulting one in the top corner. I'm off up to the loft tofetch
my Panini Albums down - got any swaps?
You can read more of Dannys work at
http://europeanfootballweekends.co.uk
