Thursday Thrap
You talk like Marlene Dietrich/And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire/Your clothes are all made by Balmain/And there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair
I want my ITV
European football is not what it was. Even with the group stages there was a change in strength from one country to another. Italy, Spain, Germany and England all had their time. We all predicted that the Champions League would result in a concentration of talent in the top teams in each country who could guarantee qualification, and thus outstrip the spending power of the others on a level not seen before. What some of us hadn’t predicted was that the concentration of talent would become further concentrated. Real Madrid and Barcelona are so far in front of anyone else that there really is no point considering anyone else for the Champions League. All the best talent, with perhaps 10, at most, exceptions are playing for these two teams. Not content with the Champions League cartel, they have their own in Spain. It’s just as cynical as Calciopoli. Whether Manchester United or City can catch up is barely of interest. One organisation bullies its fans into sitting down, paying their cash, and leaving quietly. The other has oil-greased purse strings, and it’s unclear how FFP will take effect upon them, to see if they can make the Great Leap Forward. Maybe there’s a great wave of young, exciting talent that isn’t going to end up in Spain in two years, and we’re in the dead time just waiting for it, but right now the drab feeling is pervasive, a misery fog. It shouldn’t always be about money, but it is. I miss the Uefa Cup. I miss the Cup Winners’ Cup. Give me my European football back.
AN
Vengeance
The last few days have seen the Telegraph publish a couple of blogs, both special in their own way. One was suggesting that voting should go to those who make a financial contribution to the country (i.e. those cast onto the unemployed heap no longer count, democratically speaking) and that corporations are given a vote, on account of the money they pay by tax. Now, forgetting that everybody pays VAT, and the poorer a greater relative proportion of it, this is staggering. That a rightwing paper should be quietly calling for the dismantling of democracy in order to get the corporations into government no surprise. It’s a more open form of lobbying, if anything. What should come as less of a surprise though, is when a few commonly minded people get together, and form the British Red Army Faction. We’re coming for you. And you. And you.
AN
Good
If the rumours are true, and a Labour MP has headbutted a Tory, we can only give praise to Ed Miliband for this new, populist policy. Labour are back on track.
AN
Stoke
The way football’s gone, if you don’t support a big club you will never see your team win a trophy, let alone qualify for Europe, so Tony Pulis’s decision to do a Megson and rest nine first-team players for Stoke’s trip to Valencia tonight should be regarded with the utmost contempt. True, Stoke are dreaming if they think they can overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg at the Mestalla – but isn’t that what football should be about? The impossible coming true in improbable fashion? Apparently not. Apparently it’s about sticking two fingers up to long-suffering fans who have spent their hard-earned cash to travel to Spain on a work day, only to see a bunch of reserves get humiliated, just so you can be absolutely certain you can use their money to make more money from the Premier League next season. Pulis was already reprehensible enough for the style of football his teams play, but this is too much – perhaps that baseball hat is constricting his brain. See these wanker signs, Tony? They’re for you.
Photo courtesy of Well Offside