The Devil In Me

Hi Guys,

This is from the Guardian but I am sure you will all appreciate it. Let me know if you can add any to the list.

Cheers

Mark

The Joy of Six: great football headlines

From sunken Armadas to a ballistic Super Caley, we look at the moment-defining headlines that have become stories in themselves
1) THESE ARE THE WORLD CHAMPIONS (O Mundo)

Few headlines have been so dismally — but so spectacularly — incorrect as this. On the morning of July 16 1950, the early edition of Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Mundo carried a snap of Moacyr Barbosa, Augusto da Costa, Juvenal Amarijo, Jose Carlos Bauer, Danilo Alvim, Joao “Bigode” Ferreira, Albino Friaca, Thomaz “Zizinho” Soares, Ademir Menezes, Jair da Rosa Pinto and Francisco “Chico” Aramburu. And, alongside that photo of the Brazilian side due to face Uruguay in the final of the 1950 World Cup, ran the fateful legend: THESE ARE THE WORLD CHAMPIONS.

O dear O Mundo. In fairness, they weren’t the only ones to put the cart before the horse: the mayor of Rio had made a skitteringly useless attempt at a rousing Churchillian address on the turf before the match, hailing the Brazilian players as having “no rivals in the entire hemisphere” and claiming that “in less than a few hours” they would be “hailed as champions by millions of compatriots”. But soundwaves dissipate into the ether — the printed word doesn’t. “In less than a few hours”, Alcide Ghiggia would beat Barbosa at his near post; half of the apocryphal suicides that would later occur that fateful day in Rio probably happened on the O Mundo back bench, as the later editions of the paper had to be entirely reworked.

2) A NEW CONCEPTION OF FOOTBALL (The Times)

Has there ever been a more sweeping — yet accurate — statement than this? England had just been ripped a new aperture in their voluminous shorts by Ferenc Puskas and his Olympic champions, and here the Times reflected the addled confusion of a country unaccustomed to being beaten 6-3 at home by “the foreign invader”. The paper claimed that “within the framework of British football [England] were acceptable … they could probably win against Scotland at Hampden Park next April”. But this was grasping desperately at straws. Geoffrey Green’s account of Hungary’s third goal, which reported Puskas pulling the ball back and sending Wright skidding off the pitch “like a fire engine heading to the wrong fire”, is rightly remembered as the definitive snapshot of the match, but the description of Puskas’s soft-shoe shuffle found under this particular headline — “sheer jugglery” — wasn’t too shabby either.

“They shot with the accuracy and speed of archers,” the report added. “It was Agincourt in reverse.” The military metaphor spoke volumes; this was a nation watching in stunned horror as the last vestiges of its empire crumbled to dust. But despite it all, this headline still had the grace to be magnanimous – and celebratory.

3) SEAMAN SINKS ARMADA (The Observer)

Ah yes, the military metaphor. Lack of Empire has had a strange effect on the sports desks of this country, who can’t stop banging on about the time we used to regularly dust Johnny Foreigner round his jowls with a pair of leather gloves, before throwing said gloves to the dusty ground, challenging him to a duel, and inserting into his person a length of cold steel. It’s an attitude that puts the Great into Britain.

Actually, no it doesn’t, it’s kind of pathetic, really. This one — reporting England’s spawny win over Spain at Euro 96 — harks back to something that happened in 1588, for goodness sake. Having said that, though, it’s the exception that proves the rule, containing as it does a semblance of wit and a hoary old pun, two essential ingredients of any great modern headline. Lovely work, and anyway a war riff was pretty much unavoidable, seeing as Barry Davies had been on the telly before the match banging on about Terry Venables popping down to Plymouth Hoe for a spot of carpet bowls.

Sadly, this particular victory set up a meeting in the semi-final with Germany, the prospect of which led Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan to attempt a spot of satire a mere 24 hours later: ACHTUNG! SURRENDER! “For you, Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over!” Empire was not the only thing lacking here, was it Piers?

4) OH, ENGLAND, WHAT A START! RUN, RUN, RUN! THIS IS NOT ENOUGH! (Sunday Express)

Subeditors are often at their best when sticking the boot into a misfiring England side, as bons mots such as IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, GO or SWEDES 2, TURNIPS 1 testify. But this — part of an elongated whine after England’s opening 0-0 draw with Uruguay at the 1966 World Cup — beats them all for sheer desperate panic. Will you calm down for Christ’s sake!

5) SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS (The Sun)

“John Barnes moved closer to the axe after Celtic suffered their biggest humiliation in their 112-year history.” As first lines go, the Sun’s report of Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s 3-1 win in the Scottish Cup at Parkhead in 2000 is powerful enough (even if it does ignore the 5-1 shellacking Celtic suffered at the hands of Neuchatel Xamax in 1991). But of course it is the lovely picture of Paul Sheerin jigging around that everybody rememb … oh alright, it’s the headline: SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS.

So pleased were the Sun with themselves that they wheeled their Julie Andrews-based zinger out again last year when Don Cowie scored the winner for Caley against Gordon Strachan’s side in the SPL (Thistle having turned a two-goal deficit into a 3-2 win): SUPER COWIE GOES BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS.

In truth, though, the gag could most charitably be described as a homage, given that the Liverpool Echo had beaten the Sun to the pun(ch) by nearly three decades, reporting a 1970s Ian Callaghan masterclass against Queens Park Rangers thus: SUPER CALLY GOES BALLISTIC, QPR ATROCIOUS.

6) ROONEY MARK TWO MAY INVOKE IRISH GRANNY RULE (Irish Independent)

Anyway, that’s your lot, ladies and gentlemen, we’re sure you’ll agree the entertainment has been near the knuckle but not halfway up the arm, if you’re taking the car home please do drive safely, you’ve been a lovely audience, we’ll be here all week, try the scampi.

Can Rooney take over the old Roy Keane role?

I have had several queries on this subject and I think it is time we had a look at the in’s and out’s of the proposition.

Keano has never been directly replaced. He was “the outstanding midfielder in his position of his generation” in the words of Sir Alex and to find another was always going to be tricky. His last two years at the cub saw us alter our formation to accommodate him in the team and it didn’t work well enough for us to win championships. For two years after he left the search continued. When Owen Hargreaves arrived we all thought we had a similar style of player to fill the role except, we had won the league again anyway. Why was this? Because our style of play has adapted in the short time since Keano’s retirement and a player of his ilk is no longer essential to the make-up of the team.

Much like a firearm in the Midwest it is always better to have a midfield scrapper and not need one than need a scrapper and not have one but now, actually, we have two. Hargreaves, when fit, can marshal a further forward sweeper type role in front of the defence and Anderson has all of the Scrappy Doo like qualities you would want from a combative central player. We just don’t need them every game. Our midfield is a Rubix cube of options and we can choose them to suit our opposition.

Can Rooney directly replace Keane? Yes he could. Much in the way Duncan Edwards was good enough to play in any position on the park, Rooney is also such a natural footballer that he could play in goal and be selected for England. But it still isn’t his best position. After trying to morph Alan Smith into Keane a few years ago I suspect that Ferguson has given up on trying to put the circular tube through the square hole for now. Rooney, was born to score goals.

This was a belting match to watch and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I didn’t support United. Whilst you could say that we lacked focus in the second half and took our feet of the pedal that would be doing a disservice to Everton. They came at us like animals after the break (trying harder against us than they did against their neighbours…) and were very good value for the point. Giggs’ form is outstanding at the moment but VDS is getting wobblier and we look breakable from the halfway line back.

There are certain things you need to win the league in England. You need a firing strike-force, a solid defence and preferably a steely-shinned midfield general too. An accomplished and uncompromising manger doesn’t go amiss either, but most importantly, you need to ‘want it’. The team that wins the league invariably has a habit of fighting to the death, for chasing long lost causes and for never saying die, not even saying ‘alright we’ll call it a draw’.

The one United player who surely understands all this is Ryan Giggs, and he has been the team’s outstanding performer in the last few matches. This despite him being the same age as the rest of the squad put together. There is not a United fan alive who doesn’t appreciate how much of a pleasure it is to watch them at times. The club always plays to win, and to win with flair. None of us like Ronaldo’s fondness for falling over but my God the boy can play. Every single time you attend a game he does something that makes the cost of the ticket worthwhile. And they ain’t cheap anymore. But we are not Newcastle circa 96 and something is amiss at the moment.

Our quivering start to the campaign can be attributed Van Der Sar’s need to visit an optician. May’s hero has been no steady Eddie this season (anybody see the game at Anfield?) and this has unsettled the rest of the defence. The stats show us looking quite respectable, but our confidence at times when defending reminds me of my GCSE physics exam. And that wasn’t a happy memory. We need to start blooding Foster more often immediately, because if you add the Proton ‘VDS’ to the Neutron ‘Ferdinand or Vidic injured’ then our defence starts to resemble a black hole, anything could get through there. But I don’t think that is why we are likely to be behind Hull as we approach Christmas, the problem lies deeper.

In the last two close seasons Ferguson has gone on record as saying “I will look in the player’s eyes and see if it’s still there. That hunger you need to win.” He knows it is important because our club has a history with this sort of stuff. After the 68 European Cup Final players burst into tears all over the pitch – something had to give after the effort to reach that goal. George Best lamented at the time “everybody was saying ‘that’s it, we’ve done it’ and I was only 22″. There was a sense around the place that the highest plateau had been reached. Six years later we were relegated.

After 99’s triumph the squad spent two years cruising through the league and falling over teams like Bayer Leverkeusen (LEVERKEUSEN!) in Europe. Fergie’s holy grail had been attained and the bite left once more. Three years later we had our lowest finish for a decade and then went on a four year dry patch in the league.

So what is it that courses through the veins an OT when the European Cup comes home? Do the squad do the playing equivalent of rolling over and lighting up a post-coital smoke? Does Fergie turn into a teddy bear who wouldn’t dream of getting angry at the players who just gave him his favourtie trinket? I doubt it, but there is malaise is our team at the moment and there are precious few other excuses why that might be. This is a shame because never before have we had a squad young enough to carry on the torch. The problem is, do they want it enough?

We are scoring and the strikers are starting to gel nicely together so there are no complaints. It did, however, take us a bit too long to break down this team and we look far from awesome at the moment. Perhaps that is an ungrateful assessment but we are European Champions and should have more of an aura about us than we currently do. The result from Anfield took the edge off an otherwise successful day but we can do no more than keep winning our matches.

The following is an edited transcript of Newcastle interim manager Joe Kinnear’s first official press conference yesterday

JK Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]?

SB Me.

JK You’re a cunt.

SB Thank you.

JK Which one is Hickman [Niall, football writer for the Express]? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you’re saying I turned up and they [Newcastle's players] fucked off.

SB No Joe, have you read it, it doesn’t actually say that. Have you read it?

JK I’ve fucking read it, I’ve read it.

SB It doesn’t say that. Have you read it?

JK You are trying to fucking undermine my position already.

SB Have you read it, it doesn’t say that. I knew you knew they were having a day off.

JK Fuck off. Fuck off. It’s your last fucking chance.

SB You read the copy? It doesn’t say that you didn’t know.

JK What about the headline, you think that’s a good headline?

SB I didn’t write the headline, you read the copy.

JK You are negative bastards, the pair of you.

SB So if I get a new job next week would I take the first day off? No I wouldn’t. If I get a new job should I call my boss and tell him I am taking the first day off?

JK It is none of your fucking business. What the fuck are you going to do? You ain’t got the balls to be a fucking manager. Fucking day off. Do I want your opinion. Do I have to listen to you?

SB No, you can listen to who you want.

JK I had a 24-hour meeting with the entire staff.

SB Joe, you are only here six weeks, you could have done that on Sunday, or Saturday night.

JK No, no, no. I didn’t want to do it. I had some other things to do.

SB What? More important things?

JK What are you? My personal secretary? Fuck off.

SB You could have done the meeting Saturday night or Sunday. You could have had them watching videos, you could have organised them.

JK I was meeting the fucking chairman the owner, everyone else. Talking about things.

SB It is a valid point that was made in there. A valid point.

JK I can’t trust any of you.

Niall Hickman Joe, no one could believe that on your first day at your new club, the first-team players were not in. No one could believe it in town. Your first day in the office.

JK My first day was with the coaches. I made the decision that I wanted to get as much information out of them.

NH But why Monday, no one could believe it?

JK I’m not going to tell you anything. I don’t understand where you are coming from. You are delighted that Newcastle are getting beat and are in the state they are? Delighted, are you?

NH Certainly not. No one wants to see them get beaten, why would we?

JK I have done it before. It is going to my fucking lawyers. So are about three others. If they can find something in it that is a court case it is going to court. I am not fucking about. I don’t talk to fucking anybody. It is raking up stories. You are fucking so fucking slimy you are raking up players that I got rid of. Players that I had fallen out with. You are not asking Robbie Earle, because he is sensible. You are not asking Warren Barton? No. Because he is fucking sensible. Anyone who had played for me for 10 years at any level … [but] you will find some cunt that …

Other journalist How long is your contract for Joe?

JK None of your business.

SB Well it is actually, because we cover the club. The club say you are here to the end of October, then you say six to eight games which would take it to the end of November. We are trying to clarify these issues. We are getting no straight answers from anyone. How long are you here for. It is a dead simple question. And you don’t know …

JK I was told the length of contract. Then I was told that possibly the club could be sold in that time. That is as far as I know. That’s it finished. I don’t know anything else. But I have been ridiculed. He’s trying to fucking hide, he’s trying to do this or that.

There follows an exchange regarding the circumstances under which Kinnear had met the owner Mike Ashley and executive director (football) Dennis Wise.

Steve Brenner (football writer for the Sun) We are all grown men and can come in here and sit around and talk about football, but coming in here and calling people cunts?

JK Why? Because I am annoyed. I am not accepting that. If it is libellous, it is going to where I want it to go.

Newcastle press officer What has been said in here is off the record and doesn’t go outside.

Journalist Well, is that what Joe thinks?

JK Write what you like. Makes no difference to me. Don’t affect me I assure you. It’ll be the last time I see you anyway. Won’t affect me. See how we go at Everton and Chrissy [Chris Hughton, assistant manager] can do it, someone else can do it. Don’t trust any of yous. I will pick two local papers and speak to them and the rest can fuck off. I ain’t coming up here to have the piss taken out of me. I have a million pages of crap that has been written about me. I’m ridiculed for no reason. I’m defenceless. I can’t get a point in, I can’t say nothing, I can’t do nothing, but I ain’t going to be negative. Then, half of you, most of you are trying to get into the players. I’m not going to tell you what the players think of you, so then you try and get into them in some way or another, so I’ve got a split camp or something like that, something like that. It’s ongoing. It just doesn’t stop.

Journalist It’s only been a week.

JK Exactly. It feels more like a year.

Journalist It’s early days for you to be like this.

JK No, I’m clearing the air. And this is the last time I’m going to speak to you. You want to know why, I’m telling you. This is the last time. You can do what you like.

Journalist But this isn’t going to do you or us any good.

JK I’ll speak to the supporters. I’m going to tell them what the story is. I’m going to tell them. I don’t think they’ll interpret it any different, I don’t think they’ll mix it up, I don’t think they’ll miss out things. I mean, one of them last week said to me … I was talking about in that press conference where you were there, I said something like “Well, that’s a load of bollocks …”

Journalist “Bollocks to that” is what you said.

JK Bollocks to that. And what goes after that?

Journalist That was it.

JK No it wasn’t, no it wasn’t. What was after it? I don’t know if it was your paper, but what went after it?

Journalist I don’t know.

JK It even had the cheek to say “bollocks to Newcastle”.

Journalist I didn’t write that.

JK That was my first fucking day. What does that tell you? What does that tell you?

Journalist Where was that? Which paper said that?

JK I’ve got it. I can’t remember. It was one of the Sundays, not a Saturday. It was a Sunday.

Journalist But you didn’t say that to the Sundays, you said that to us. That was during the Monday press conference.

JK I’ll bring it in and show it to you. Why would I want to say that?

Journalist Are you saying that someone has reported you saying “bollocks to Newcastle?”

JK Yes. Lovely.

Journalist I don’t know who’s reported that.

JK I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring it in.

Journalist That’s obviously going to damage you. That’s not a good thing. But I don’t think someone’s done that. We have to have some sort of relationship with you.

JK So have I. But I haven’t come in here for you lot to take the piss out of me. And if I’m not flavour of the month for you, it don’t fucking bother me. I’ve got a job to do. And I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. I’m not going to spend any more time listening to any crap or reading any crap. Stick to the truth and the facts. And don’t twist anything.

Journalist You know, you know the game …

JK Of course I know, but I don’t have to like it.

Journalist Today we’ll print the absolute truth, that you think we’re cunts, we can all fuck off and we’re slimy. Is that fair enough?

JK Do it. Fine. Fucking print it. Am I going to worry about it? Put in also that it’ll be the last time I see you. Put that in as well. Good. Do it.

Much, much later after long discussions over whether Kinnear had promised Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan would be returning to the club

Press officer Let’s get on to football. Let’s have an agreement that everything said so far, if anyone has got their tapes on, it’s wiped off and we’re not discussing it.

Journalist But that’s what Joe has said he thinks of us.

Press officer I’m saying don’t push it. Let’s accept what’s been said and try and move on.

Journalist: Move on to not doing any more press conferences?

PO: No, to doing something now.

Journalist: What, one press conference only?

(Silence)

Journalist: Any knocks?

PO: Come on, let’s go football.

Journalist: What are your plans for training in the next three days? How’s the training going?

JK It’s going very well. No problems at all.

Journalist Enjoyed getting back in the swing of things?

JK Absolutely. I’ve loved every moment of it.

The judge has predicted we’ll win so obviously we’re doomed.
Sorry guys, no way out of that one.

Fratton Park is a place we haven’t had a great record over the past few seasons so to get a win with such a threadbare squad is quite satisfying. After seeing Chelsea and Liverpool record such ludicrously flukey results we would have been under more pressure in the Monday night doldrums slot. The players responded and the movement of our play was much more polished than it was at the same stage last season, lest we forget some of our more skillful players are still on the way back. We’ll just keep doing our jobs and see what happens. It was a bit of a comedy goal but what price odds on Darren Fletcher for the Golden Boot now? All in all this was a United performance that calmed the nerves a bit. They were slick today but can get slicker and soon the goals should start going in.

We all need to calm down a bit here. As I keep stressing the situation has not changed. Ronaldo gave an interview and said that he agreed with Sepp Blatter and it has been twisted into ‘Ronaldo Wants Out of Slavery Shocker’, by those stout chaps in Fleet Street who want to fill up a few more pages in their newspapers.

What Sepp Blatter said was in direct support of player power and freedom of movement. I think you will find that every single professional football player on the planet would agree with him. But if Ronaldo says he agrees with him we all read..’Ronaldo Wants Out of Slavery Shocker’ and are led to believe that it is gospel. It is not.

The man who decides who goes in and out the door at Old Trafford is Scottish, and probably in a very bad mood right now. I once met a sage old man in the pub who informed me with great confidence that Blatter was in fact a complete prat and that he should not be allowed to speak in public at all. I, of course, thoroughly disagreed with his opinion (it would be libelous not to), but thought his point of view was interesting.

Ronaldo has had his head turned by all of this interest and he stands nothing to lose by making a few cryptic comments here and there, it might make him a bit more money. He does have a wandering eye, now some people use this as reason character assassinate him, I think he’s a 23yr old bloke so be realistic and try to remember the 23yr old Giggs. Fergie will sort him out when he gets back. Besides, the guy has been out of the country for ages now and probably doesn’t even realise what a fuss he has stirred up.

Honestly, I can’t wait for the games to just get going. When we are subjected only to the ‘football machine’ and not the matches themselves I start to wonder if I enjoy football or just suffer from it. This saga is overwhelmingly disappointing and it is not going to end yet. Did we even get a full day to enjoy winning the European Cup before all of this started?

Could it simply be the weather? For a man who spends the majority of his professional life wearing a pair of shorts, is the opportunity to do that in you spare time as well such a draw?

After this morning’s press leakage (which I am led to believe emanates rather bizarrely from a Brazilian tabloid) the mood has gone immediately to one of resigned acceptance. How much money can we get? We didn’t really need him anyway, etc. etc.

He would not be the first genius winger to ship off early to the Iberian peninsular but Ronaldo seems to want to go for slightly different reasons to the ones George chose.

At the moment I am slightly peeved to be honest with. With no England failures to cloud my summer I was expecting another couple of months of basking in glory.

Let’s just wait and see…