Off Screen - A MAN U DON'T MEET EVERY DAY

Coke snorting, kung fu fighting, bribery and corruption, a white knuckle fight to the finish, winner takes all . . . it’s not the premise of a new Hollywood blockbuster, it’s just another football season.

Sometimes I envy sports writers: they have something real to vent their spleens on. Movies may try to overload your senses with thrills, mess with your emotions and cram as much sensation as possible into two hours in a darkened room, with all of human life being fired into the back of your retinas, but they can never match the emotional swings and adrenalised thrills generated by your average ninety minutes watching the team you support (as long as you don’t support Arsenal or anyone in the Irish leagues). As Bill Shankley said, football’s not a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.

I am a lifelong Manchester United fan, so films will have to take a back seat this fortnight. I’m still reeling from the Doomsday incident, as it may well become known unless God (who is also, I am certain, a United supporter) sees fit to visit a plague of locusts on Blackburn and strike down Alan Shearer with several variations of the pox. OK, I confess, like most Manchester United supporters (including God), I have never been to Old Trafford. In fact, I have only been to Manchester once, late at night, whilst accompanying a crack dealer on business and (perhaps suprisingly in the light of recent developments) we didn’t see any footballers. But you don’t have to have any connection with Manchester to support Man U (or play for them, as half of the Irish team will testify), you just have to have grown up somewhere with crap football, like Ireland.

When I took an interest in soccer in the ’60s, Man U had Best, Charlton and Law, and I’ve been saddled with all their antecedents ever since, on the basis that you are not allowed to change your team, no matter how bad things get (pity most of my friends, who hooked onto Chelsea when they won something in the early 70s and have spent the rest of their lives regretting it).

What I want to know is, what is all the bloody fuss about Eric Cantona giving a mild but well deserved kicking to a yob in the crowd? I was sitting watching the game on television, and, while those around me (Chelsea supporters, whose sole avenue for enjoyment is gloating on the failures of others) yelled that he was finished, my own reaction was dismissive. I thought it was just another entertaining display of sporting temperament, the kind that keeps us riveted to our screens. I could already see the next Nike campaign: a picture of the yob’s bare chest with a perfect row of studprints down the middle.

CONVICTED MUGGER

Gary Lineker appeared on television to describe it, in his sanctimonious, teacher’s-pet, I-may-not-know-much-but-I’ve-never-been-booked-and-your-mother-loves-me voice, as the most disgraceful act of physical violence perpetrated by one man upon another since David used a rock on the unarmed Goliath (and even then, David was fighting for his life), which is why Gary gets to advertise Walker’s crisps and Eric gets Nike. Still I refused to take it seriously. Then I saw the British papers the next day, and I knew we were in trouble. Cantona, most commentators suggested, should be frog-marched out of the country and handed back to the French forthwith. If they’d have him.

The problem with sports commentators in Britain is that they all grew up reading Roy of the Rovers and still cling desperately to notions of fair-play, gentlemanly conduct and all that outdated tosh, which is why English cricket teams get regularly walloped by the gamesmanship of those Aussie yobboes (see what happened when, after six years, they tried a bit of it themselves), the English football team gets knocked out of the World Cup by second rate, dig-deep battlers like Norway, and members of the English rugby team get head-butted by their French rivals while the ref is looking the other way. Frankly, in the rest of the world, clean-cut heroes went out just about the same time Marlon Brando came in, wearing a sweaty t-shirt and mumbling out the side of his mouth. I mean, can you imagine Brando with his chest out, chin up and a stiff upper lip? He would have looked ridiculous: “I coulda have been a contendah, instead of a second rate supporting actor, which is what I am, let’s face it.”

“Contend-er, Marlon, darling. Could have been a con-ten-der. Elocution, dear. Elocution!”

Ever since the anti-hero superseded the hero in the late Fifties, the public has been riveted by outlaws. I mean, face it, who would you rather see: Frank Bruno as Buttons in a pantomime or Mike Tyson, straight out of prison and taking on every heavy weight contender at one go, with his left arm tied behind his back? I never watched snooker to see Steve Davis precisely pot the black, I watched in case Alex Higgins got a rush to the head and cleared the table before falling over and going to sleep under it. And I don’t watch football to see Alan Shearer knock in another goal from an inch perfect pass from Chris Sutton, I watch it to see Eric Cantona miraculously float one in over the head of the goalkeeper, argue with the linesman when he is called offside and punch his own captain in the mouth when he tries to calm him down.

Excitement. Risk taking. Fear. Danger. Adrenaline. That’s what it is all about. I mean, we hype these people up to be the gladiators of our age, to go out into the field every weekend and do battle for the honour of their club and the glory of their supporters, to win at all costs. They are expected to go on the boil and play with steam coming out of their ears for an hour and a half. Nothing less than 110 per cent is acceptable. And then when one of them pops his cork, the powers that be start tut-tut-tutting and saying that behaviour is really not called for. Questions should be asked in the House. Bring back hanging!

In keeping with the British way of doing things, Crystal Palace supporter Mathew Simmons told The Sun that, before the Frenchman’s entirely unjustified assault upon him, he had merely politely exhorted him to leave by calling out, “Off you go, Cantona - it’s an early shower for you.” Toodle pip! Strangely, what the people around him heard was something like “Fuck off back to France you fucking French wanker,” as the convicted mugger ran down to front of the stadium to spit on the player. Much of the post match commentary has centred on the fact that putting up with such abuse is part and parcel of a footballer’s job and Cantona should have known better than to react. I’ve been thinking about that. What other profession expects its participants to tolerate such mistreatment?

Have you ever been to the theatre and heard someone shouting out, “You can’t act! You can’t sing! Bring on the understudy for Christ’s sake?” (Actually, I have, but things quietened down once the Hot Press theatre critic had been removed by the management). What do you think would happen down on the shop-floor if the workers ganged up on anyone whose productivity levels were slipping and started shouting “Out! Out! Out!”?

vicious shoot-out

I have been trying to imagine how it would feel if, as I sit writing this column, a crowd of strangers peered over my shoulder, shouting things like “Ya wouldn’t know a subjunctive if I rammed it up yer arse, mate!” “Put the full stop there! Put the full stop there!” “Give the column to someone else, Ed, he’s crap!” “Call that a simile? I’ve read better metaphors in Jeffrey Archer!” “Yer shite! Yer shite! You can read but you can’t write! Yer shite! Yer shite! Yer shi-i-i-i-ite!” This is not as hard for me to conjure up as you might think, since I live in a household with two pubescent boys.

Their interjections may be mild compared to the above but sometimes all they have to do is ask me if I want a cup of tea to send me into a raving fit. “You made me forget the rest of the sentence! I was on the verge of a fucking great insight there! How am I supposed to work with all this bloody noise?” I have never yet karate kicked one of them, but then they have never told me to fuck off back to Ireland you fucking Irish plagiarist, though judging by the progress they are making now, that day is not far off.

Still, Eric Cantona’s splendid display of his martial arts technique may have got him banned for the rest of the season, scuppered Manchester United’s league prospects and exposed his suburban house to media ridicule (how can you affect to admire Rimbaud and live in a house with gathered lace curtains, a fake Georgian door surrounded by bloody stone cladding and what looked suspiciously like crazy paving in the garden? Thank God someone had the foresight to hide the gnomes) but it could have one positive repercussion. Quentin Tarantino was on a promotional tour of Britain during all the furore, so hopefully he will have found himself caught up in football fever and the result will be the first decent soccer movie. I mean, so far, all we’ve got is the stodgy Arsenal Stadium Mystery and the laughable Escape To Victory (with Sylvester Stallone in goal and Michael Caine as top scorer). I am hoping for something more along the lines of Natural Born Footballers.

Arsenal Godfather George Graham (Christopher Walken) finds his supply of kickbacks threatened by an FA enquiry. He ropes in his sidekick, coke fiend Paul Merson (Gary Oldman), for one last sting: they will bribe their way to victory against a resurgent Manchester United, and clean up at the bookies. In an alcoholic haze, Merson pays goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar (Robin Williams) £2,000 to throw the match, overlooking the fact that Grobbelar plays for Southampton. On match day, they have to fall back on plan B. They hire a wise-cracking hitman (Bruce Willis) to take out Eric Cantona (Jean Claude Van Damme) if Arsenal are in danger of losing.

Still level with only three minutes left, Cantona is about to score. Disguised as a yob in the crowd, the hitman aims a lethal gob at Ian Wright (a delightful cameo from Denzel Washington) who collapses to the ground, covered in saliva. The ref (Harvey Keitel, Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of the self-abusive bad referee) is in on the deal and sends Cantona off for the offence. As he leaves the pitch, the hitman rushes down to the front to finish his job. But just as he stokes up the phlegm at the back of his throat, Cantona spots tell tale signs of spit on his chin, puts two and two together, and leaps over the stand to karate kick his would be assassin into submission. The sound of two blocks of wood cracking together resounds through the stadium with every blow. The hitman confesses, and with only 10 seconds to go, Cantona runs back onto the pitch. Roy Keane (Brad Pitt) puts a long ball forward to wonderkid Ryan Giggs (Macaulay Culkin) who whips in a pass to Eric.

The Frenchman scores a miraculous winning goal. The linesmen dispute it, but realising it is all over for them, Arsenal pull out their Uzis and prepare to go down fighting. Fortunately, United never leave the dressing room unarmed. A vicious shoot out takes place. The crowd riot. Everybody dies. Bruce Grobbelaar nicks the cup while no one is looking.

Fuck yez all, anyway. We’ll win the league without Eric.