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Pond Scum: I Never Bounced a Ball or Swung a Bat
By Steve Finbow
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It was August 30th, 1997, and I was in Manchester, England, visiting a friend who was over from Santa Barbara. My girlfriend, my friend's girlfriend, and her sister were with us, and we were all staying at his parents' house in the south of the city. We'd been out that night, not, alas, to the Hacienda, which had closed two months earlier and was being sold off brick by brick for charity. In the mid-to-late eighties, my friends and I had spent many a night at the Hacienda, and I wanted to go back for old times' sake but instead we went to a yuppiefied beige bar in Salford. We had a good evening, got a taxi back, and bought doner kebabs the size of small lifeboats. Arriving home around midnight, we hunkered down in front of the TV with our reeking kebabs and cans of cold beer.
Art by Nicholas Allanach
CRAP! Princess Diana in car crash horror! I don't know if this is true but I remember it vividly – the newscaster reported that she was in hospital with a broken arm. My first thought was, 'She's dead.' My second thought was, 'Shit! That means they'll postpone the Liverpool versus Newcastle game.' I had tickets and was planning to get the train around lunchtime, have a few beers, watch my team, and then head back to London. We watched the news and, as nothing seemed to be happening, apart from a JG Ballard novel becoming real on the TV in front of us, decided to go to bed. Around five am, my friend's girlfriend and sister (both American) were banging on my bedroom door, screeching, 'Hey, Steve, you were right. Lady Di is dead.' 'Told you,’ I said. 'Bollocks,' I said to my girlfriend, who appeared about as alive as Di. This was a problem – no football (soccer).
The
death of Diana caused a shift in the British psyche. No longer a stiff
upper lip, more a quivering bottom one. Although Diana will go down in
history as a nugatory figure, her death highlighted the bloated solipsism
of the royal family, as the events of 9/11 unmasked the USA’s ulterior
paranoia and xenophobia. Hunter S Thompson's response to 9/11 was similar
to my response to Di-day - "In this case, however, the next casualty
was Football. All games were cancelled last week. And that has Never happened
to the NFL. Never. That gives us a hint about the Magnitude of this War.
Terrorists don't wear uniforms, and they play by inscrutable rules."
What's interesting to me here is the importance of sport to Americans
and Brits, particularly football – gridiron and/or soccer. For the
remainder of this column, with sphincter-clenching deference, 'football'
means gridiron and 'soccer' means football.
It is said that soccer is a game played by gentlemen and watched by thugs.
Maybe that was so at the beginning of the last century. Today, it is a
game played by millionaires watched by thuggish wannabe millionaires;
hence the clothing – Aquascutum and Burberry. American football
appears to be a game played by thuggish millionaires watched by incipient
thugs. The links between war and sport are obvious – I would argue
more so in football than soccer. Football has blitzes, bombs, and aerial
assaults. It's all about defence and offence. It has its battlefield generals
– the quarterbacks. It has its cannon fodder – the tackles,
ends, centres, and guards. Soccer has its militaristic attacks and counter-attacks.
If sport is a metaphor for war, why do we become outraged when any act
of war means the postponement of our "sport"? We need sport;
we need rules to keep our aggressive behaviour in check. Terrorists (or
paparazzi) play by "inscrutable rules". In other words, they
play unfairly. Only the West can provide us with a fair representation
of mutual aggression.
In order to secure and defend my ground, I have every right to conquer yours. --Cortes’s Maxim
Why is it that riots and hooliganism are becoming more prevalent in American football? And why, over the last few weeks, has hooliganism erupted in soccer stadiums in England. I think it's the fault of the war. Which war? Iraq? Afghanistan? Palestine? Sudan? The Ivory Coast? Take your pick. Camus declared, "All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football,” but Nabokov’s insistence that "[t]he goalkeeper is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender. Less the keeper of a goal than the keeper of a dream," or, Sartre’s, "In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team," seem closer to reality – the goalkeeper defending the (American) dream; the opposite team seen as evil and un-American.
If I believe your race or culture threatens mine, I have the right first
to threaten you back, then to remove your threat by violence. --The Klansman’s Maxim.
To support a team is to identify with it. It is a form of local patriotism. The more patriotic the people of a country become, I would argue, the more the outcome of the game affects the level of violence in and after the game. Patriotism equals fanaticism equals mistrust of the other equals violence. The institution of the team equals the institution of government. Most riots after American football games have been by the winning team's fans. Is this a need to project the government's desire for a victory in Iraq? In this weekend’s Observer, a marine in Fallujah quoted the lyrics to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)":
'Cause
we'll put in a boot in your ass
It's the American way.
In the 1960s and 1970s, youth rioted against government, against war, against oppression. In the 2000s, the rioting is a mirror image of events in Palestine, Liberia, and Fallujah. I would argue that the incendiary nature of the American government has fanned the flames of violence among the American people; after all, it isn't just a phenomenon of American football, there have been riots after baseball, hockey, and basketball games. King mob. The individual disenfranchised in a society that votes en masse for a government that uses violence as an answer to provocation. The only way for the individual to have a voice is to join the mob. Join the mob. Join the rioters. Join the army. Join the killers. Join the dead.
I stopped going to soccer matches when I realised I was watching the fights on the terraces rather than the game. I used to play soccer, until one game. Four minutes in, I got the ball on the halfway line, controlled it, turned, and it was as if a sniper had drawn a bead on me, CRACK! I dropped to the ground in agony. I had snapped my cruciate ligament. No more soccer for me. Cool scar, though. Monday night in the Kettle of Fish Bar in Manhattan was football night. I supported the Giants. It’s coming back to me now, the beery chants, the cheery aggression, and I can here a spectral cadence, ‘9! 11! Right! Right! Right! Hut!’
Your homeland ought to belong to me, so I have the right to defend it against you. --Hitler’s Maxim.
(All
maxims from William T. Vollmann’s Rising Up And Rising Down.)
Click here to read previous Pond Scum columns.
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Steve Finbow writes out of London, England. He has worked for the poet Allen Ginsberg, the writer Victor Bockris, and the artist Richard Long. His fiction, essays, and short plays appear, or will appear, in Eyeshot, 3am Magazine, Yankee Pot Roast, uber, Locus Novus, InkPot, Dicey Brown, The Guardian Online, and Pindeldyboz. He is currently working on a novel (Yeah, right). He can be contacted here.
©
2004 Me Three