Post by flatandy on Feb 12, 2009 10:31:43 GMT
BOLD ENGLISH BULLDOGS SCRATCH AWAY SPANISH FLEA 0-2
The Spanish suffered what is known in vulgar parlance as a “reality check” in this confrontation with their footballing, physical, social and genetic superiors the English this night. Certainly, they have been in boastful mood of late, having won some spurious continental trophy of some sort over the Summer period. That no team from the British Isles appears to have contested this competition, however, shows it up for the worthless, oversized bauble it is. No doubt they are also the cricketing champions of their geographical region, having seen off stiff competition from the Portuguese, Italians and Albanians. It is of laughably little matter. Tonight, they would understand that there is a reason why the backbone of the average Spaniard is some 30 degrees shy of the happy ideal enjoyed by the more evolutionary erect English. This was Homo Sapiens versus Homo Spaniardum.
The game took place in Seville, though the acclaimed barber of that city has some explaining to do if the coiffure of the Spanish team is anything to go by, which reminded of some of the worst excesses of Crufts (Most Preposterously Primped Poodle category) in the more licentious years of the late 20th century. Tonight, however, there was several minutes delay before these benighted foreigners took to the field. There was John Terry, chest puffed, nostrils flaring, hooves scraping, champing at the bit, heading up the England eleven in the tunnel. The Spaniards, however, took no little while to emerge. There can only be one explanation for this; swarthy, abject terror. One imagines a representative of the English FA bursting into the dressing room of these cowering, curly haired recalcitrants and bellowing at them to emerge from under their tables, like an apoplectic Basil Fawlty screaming at Manuel to help him deposit the pyjama-ed body of a recently deceased hotel guest into a laundry basket, on pain of a damn good thrashing.
Ironically, it is England who could have delayed their entry to the field by 20 minutes, finished a game of crown green bowls at their hotel and still carried the day. It is an interesting historical fact that Sir Francis Drake was not considered a particularly notable or adept military man by English standards. Had he been born in the 17th as opposed to the 16th century and taken part in a domestic campaign such as our own, splendid English Civil War, he would probably have found it hard to find a place in either side. However, given that the task of defeating the Spanish Armada was such a footling one, it was charged to him, lowly ranked underling that he was. So it was this evening. This being only Spain, we did not bother sending out our first rank players. Had this game taken place a week later, during half term, we might have sent out our schoolboys or even Ladies' XI, but this being what is known as a “school night”, both had homework studies and maternal duties respectively to attend to.
As it was, we did, whimsically, select players from the regions, including a brace from a team known as Aston Villa whom, Seppings informs me, play their football in the West Midlands district and are considered enthusiastic players, in a capering, amusing sort of way. Hence the inclusion of one Agbonlahor, whose expression during the formalities – squinting, quizzical, mouthbreathing – gave the impression of one who would require directions from the touchline onto the pitch. One congratulates him on his effort to sing the national anthem, much as one congratulates a dog that, after patient training, is fitfully able to bark the word “sausages”. As for the Spanish anthem, it was sheer, orchestrated abjection. It was conducted at the brisk, marching pace of an Army Division exiting their barracks in formation at the double, but then, upon being informed that they were going to war against the Maltese, returning with equal speediness back to their quarters to lock themselves in the latrines.
The match itself showed the gulf between the English and Spanish way of conducting themselves upon the field of play. There is a fine line between deft interplay and grown men making a series of passes at one another which is homosexualist in the extreme. Regrettably, the Spaniards breached that line constantly. Not like our own boys, who delivered the ball to one another with a manly vigour, the equivalent of a hearty, phlegm-loosening slap on the back which reverberates through bowels and testicles alike and affirms English manhood. Thus did Johnson pass to Heskey, Terry to Downing.
The anomalous scoreline at half time can be attested to be a series of shabby decisions on the part of the referee, a Frenchman, no less. It was either a crass blunder or an act of imprisonable corruption on the part of the authorities to appoint an official from the same continent as the Spaniards, similarly mired in the sewer of palm grease that is their common element. Small wonder that England were unsettled, culminating in, of all things, an error by David James – an event as rare as a lapse in good taste on the part of the Royal Family. “Where were you the night David James dropped the ball?” fans shall ask of one another decades hence.
Come the second half and the big guns were trundled out in the form of Peter Crouch, Frank Lampard and David Beckham, enjoying his 108th cap for England. Among those they replaced were Jagielka, who has 107 caps to look forward to. Lampard's performance can be summed up in one word. Fewer, in fact. Further reinforcements came with the addition of Carlton Cole. For those who say, “For f**k's sake, just because some slow-moving, goal hanging lummox, whom the ball occasionally bounces off in the f**k**g six yard box into the net through no ingenuity of his own happens to be called f**k**g “Cole”, do we have to put him in the f**k**g England team?”, he provided the perfect riposte, by blasting a ball from six yards out directly into the press box, a magnificent riposte to his detractors. A few minutes later, the Spanish grabbed a late consolation goal and time was eventually called.
Two things emerge from this fixture. The first is that, as a nation who had the get-up-and-go to acquire an Empire within recent, living memory, should not have to suffer the indignity of being pitted against a nation such as Spain, who haven't even managed to conquer their own country outright as yet, let alone anyone else's. The second concerns John Terry. At times, during tonight's poncing performance from the Spanish, I thought not of John Terry but of John Bull, tormented at the hands of so many effeminate matadors, spear dangling from his neck, writhing with fury and frustration, torso straining, thighs astride in valiant effort, thwarted and thrust and thrust through again . . . under these circumstances it is hard to keep a clean sheet. Seppings! . . .
The Spanish suffered what is known in vulgar parlance as a “reality check” in this confrontation with their footballing, physical, social and genetic superiors the English this night. Certainly, they have been in boastful mood of late, having won some spurious continental trophy of some sort over the Summer period. That no team from the British Isles appears to have contested this competition, however, shows it up for the worthless, oversized bauble it is. No doubt they are also the cricketing champions of their geographical region, having seen off stiff competition from the Portuguese, Italians and Albanians. It is of laughably little matter. Tonight, they would understand that there is a reason why the backbone of the average Spaniard is some 30 degrees shy of the happy ideal enjoyed by the more evolutionary erect English. This was Homo Sapiens versus Homo Spaniardum.
The game took place in Seville, though the acclaimed barber of that city has some explaining to do if the coiffure of the Spanish team is anything to go by, which reminded of some of the worst excesses of Crufts (Most Preposterously Primped Poodle category) in the more licentious years of the late 20th century. Tonight, however, there was several minutes delay before these benighted foreigners took to the field. There was John Terry, chest puffed, nostrils flaring, hooves scraping, champing at the bit, heading up the England eleven in the tunnel. The Spaniards, however, took no little while to emerge. There can only be one explanation for this; swarthy, abject terror. One imagines a representative of the English FA bursting into the dressing room of these cowering, curly haired recalcitrants and bellowing at them to emerge from under their tables, like an apoplectic Basil Fawlty screaming at Manuel to help him deposit the pyjama-ed body of a recently deceased hotel guest into a laundry basket, on pain of a damn good thrashing.
Ironically, it is England who could have delayed their entry to the field by 20 minutes, finished a game of crown green bowls at their hotel and still carried the day. It is an interesting historical fact that Sir Francis Drake was not considered a particularly notable or adept military man by English standards. Had he been born in the 17th as opposed to the 16th century and taken part in a domestic campaign such as our own, splendid English Civil War, he would probably have found it hard to find a place in either side. However, given that the task of defeating the Spanish Armada was such a footling one, it was charged to him, lowly ranked underling that he was. So it was this evening. This being only Spain, we did not bother sending out our first rank players. Had this game taken place a week later, during half term, we might have sent out our schoolboys or even Ladies' XI, but this being what is known as a “school night”, both had homework studies and maternal duties respectively to attend to.
As it was, we did, whimsically, select players from the regions, including a brace from a team known as Aston Villa whom, Seppings informs me, play their football in the West Midlands district and are considered enthusiastic players, in a capering, amusing sort of way. Hence the inclusion of one Agbonlahor, whose expression during the formalities – squinting, quizzical, mouthbreathing – gave the impression of one who would require directions from the touchline onto the pitch. One congratulates him on his effort to sing the national anthem, much as one congratulates a dog that, after patient training, is fitfully able to bark the word “sausages”. As for the Spanish anthem, it was sheer, orchestrated abjection. It was conducted at the brisk, marching pace of an Army Division exiting their barracks in formation at the double, but then, upon being informed that they were going to war against the Maltese, returning with equal speediness back to their quarters to lock themselves in the latrines.
The match itself showed the gulf between the English and Spanish way of conducting themselves upon the field of play. There is a fine line between deft interplay and grown men making a series of passes at one another which is homosexualist in the extreme. Regrettably, the Spaniards breached that line constantly. Not like our own boys, who delivered the ball to one another with a manly vigour, the equivalent of a hearty, phlegm-loosening slap on the back which reverberates through bowels and testicles alike and affirms English manhood. Thus did Johnson pass to Heskey, Terry to Downing.
The anomalous scoreline at half time can be attested to be a series of shabby decisions on the part of the referee, a Frenchman, no less. It was either a crass blunder or an act of imprisonable corruption on the part of the authorities to appoint an official from the same continent as the Spaniards, similarly mired in the sewer of palm grease that is their common element. Small wonder that England were unsettled, culminating in, of all things, an error by David James – an event as rare as a lapse in good taste on the part of the Royal Family. “Where were you the night David James dropped the ball?” fans shall ask of one another decades hence.
Come the second half and the big guns were trundled out in the form of Peter Crouch, Frank Lampard and David Beckham, enjoying his 108th cap for England. Among those they replaced were Jagielka, who has 107 caps to look forward to. Lampard's performance can be summed up in one word. Fewer, in fact. Further reinforcements came with the addition of Carlton Cole. For those who say, “For f**k's sake, just because some slow-moving, goal hanging lummox, whom the ball occasionally bounces off in the f**k**g six yard box into the net through no ingenuity of his own happens to be called f**k**g “Cole”, do we have to put him in the f**k**g England team?”, he provided the perfect riposte, by blasting a ball from six yards out directly into the press box, a magnificent riposte to his detractors. A few minutes later, the Spanish grabbed a late consolation goal and time was eventually called.
Two things emerge from this fixture. The first is that, as a nation who had the get-up-and-go to acquire an Empire within recent, living memory, should not have to suffer the indignity of being pitted against a nation such as Spain, who haven't even managed to conquer their own country outright as yet, let alone anyone else's. The second concerns John Terry. At times, during tonight's poncing performance from the Spanish, I thought not of John Terry but of John Bull, tormented at the hands of so many effeminate matadors, spear dangling from his neck, writhing with fury and frustration, torso straining, thighs astride in valiant effort, thwarted and thrust and thrust through again . . . under these circumstances it is hard to keep a clean sheet. Seppings! . . .
