SAM SNORT S current personal assistant a fiery flamenco dancer of Andalusian extraction called Maria must have been dipping her small but exquisitely formed toe in my personal medicine cabinet this week.
For how else to explain her confusion as she breathlessly rolled me over and told me the news in bed the other day: Senor Snort, Senor Snort, wake up! Terrible news! You know Screaming Stan Matthews? The famous football man who was carried onto the pitch in a coffin? He dead!
Pausing to metaphorically run a black flag up the great Snortian pole which was, as usual, up and about to greet the day well before its owner, I regarded my raven-haired foreign chum with an understanding smile, shook my head sadly and reflected once again on that old proverb about the mouths of babes .
Unfortunately, circumstances being what they were, and me being Sam Snort, this pleasant phrase immediately put me in mind of something else again, with the result that it is only now, a full 48 hours later, that I am able to properly ponder the curious implications of Maria s innocent words. Not to mention swap my draw-string pyjama bottoms for some snug-fitting jeans. (Maria herself, by the way, has returned in the interim to her family home in Seville where, it is said, she sits contentedly in a corner, a blissful smile fixed upon her face, muttering the single word gigantica over and over. Another satisfied customer, you might say.)
Leather & Lace
But I digress. What really struck me about the almost simultaneous deaths of Sir Stanley Matthews and Screaming Jay Hawkins was just how much things have changed since both men first came to prominence in the 1950s.
Back then things were pretty simple rock n roll was vile and sport was healthy but nowadays the roles are reversed to such an extent that there there can hardly be a parent in the land who wouldn t rather see their idiot teenage offspring favouring leather and lace over leather and laces, following Mvtley Cr|e instead of Crewe Alexandra and hailing as a suitable role model Ron rather than Keith Wood. (Although the latter would be mainly cos there s probably a higher probability of Ron Wood captaining a rugby team that does a bit better than one-in-a-row).
In the new millennium it s sport that s all sex n drugs n rock n roll, and rock n roll that s all personal trainers, high-fibre diets and rippling muscles (and that s just the girl groups).
How different it was when my great Uncle Alfie Sacky Snort used to tog out for Northampton Strollers in the old Third Division (North) just after the war. Sacky so-called not because he was a postman but because he d been sacked from his previous jobs for absenteeism due to alcoholism was an old-fashioned inside-left even in the the days when that position was in its infancy. Possessed of an explosive left foot it once blew up during a goalmouth melee injuring several players and a number of spectators Sacky was strong in the air, tough in the tackle and postively lethal in a crowded bar.
In 543 appearances for the The Strollers he scored a remarkable 542 times almost literally a goal a game! and would doubtless have been dubbed the Gary Lineker of his day if (a) Gary Lineker had been around back then and (b) Sacky hadn t also been sent off a record 476 times in his career.
When Sacky retired he left a huge hole not just in football but in the thigh of the last defender who d marked him. A modest, unassuming man, except when riled, he devoted the rest of his life to heroic drinking, smoking Woodbines, breeding whippets and running a string of massage parlours in the greater Macclesfield area.
Now, consider David Beckham wearing his wife s underwear and I think you ll see how badly things have degenerated in the world of football since my uncle Sacky was in his prime. As the great man himself said to me recently: Doesn t that young man know that if fellas are to wear womens undergarments at all it should only be on their heads and after the pubs have closed? And how very true that is.
Jungle Music
Meanwhile, rock n roll has simply travelled in the opposite direction. Frankly, as the man who used to put the gram in Grammy , I was appalled by last week s squeaky-clean barf-fest, as one act after another thanked the lord for services rendered and generally behaved like fucking latterday saints instead of sympathisers with the devil.
Once again, old Sacky Snort also known as Sacky , by the way, because like all the Snorts, he was good in the sack belied his age when he observed that the old jungle music seems to have lost its way a bit.
As he says himself: These days you d have a better chance of seeing a drive-by shooting at a reserve game in Doncaster.
And how very true that is too. Now, if you ll excuse me, I d like to return to eating my blotter.
Your ever-lovin Samuel J. Snort Esq.