|
|
WINDOW PAINS 10-1-07
Calum Law
West Ham bids £500,000 for Mark Viduka - but it might as well be a fiver. For the purpose of the bid is not to elicit a serious response from Middlesbrough - the Hammers board know full well the offer is a derisory one - but to flag up a decisive shift in the terms of ownership. The bid is an act with a purely symbolic intent: like repainting the front door of your former council house.
Boro can no longer be said to 'own' that hefty Antipodean posterior in any meaningful sense; they own Viduka in the same way a crack whore can be said to own her body or an illegal immigrant their dignity - it's merely a kind of formal conceit. And the case of Viduka illustrates how the conventions that allegedly govern the conduct of transfers are viewed with an all-pervasive contempt.
The Middlesbrough management have remained tight-lipped, merely stating that they have no desire to listen to offers and hope to negotiate a new contract with the forward. And yet if reports in reputable broadsheets are to be believed, Southgate and co are in a state of collective denial, since Viduka has already told them he will not sign a new deal.
It would be interesting to know exactly how long - after Viduka's heart-to-heart with Boro's representatives (which Boro of course have yet to confirm took place) - it took West Ham to table their insulting offer. And you don't need to be Hercule Poirot to work out from whence the revelations emerged.
For just as Estate Agents depend upon a sense of restlessness among homeowners, so too football agents vis-a-vis their clients; and if the selling club is refusing to face facts then their supine bargaining position shall be illuminated in a public and humiliating way.
Few arenas are as nakedly and unabashedly Darwinian as football during the Transfer Window. It's reminiscent of what playtime used to be like as, out of earshot and eyeline of authority, pecking orders were efficiently and mercilessly re-calibrated.
Thus West Ham, who a couple of years ago were forced to sell half the future England team, have suddenly shot up six inches and gained a new older stepbrother and a set of chest-expanders. Gareth meanwhile, is eating his packed lunch and trying to be invisible. Don't look now Gareth, Eggert Magnusson's about to offer you a biscuit you can't refuse.
As for Viduka, it's difficult to castigate him with any conviction. Though 31, he's seldom looked sharper, and unfortunately, he may well see the Boro fans' new-found hero-worship as being too little, too late. His market value is around £2.5 million and the 'rule of thumb' is that he can anticipate trousering most of that as a 'golden hello' should he leave on a free.
We can only hope that, assuming Gareth manages to find a secluded corner of the playground to withdraw to for the rest of break, the V-Bomber doesn't er... lose a bit of momentum in his final four months playing for the 'Gate. We need the House Points.
Vanished Gains
As Jean Baudrillard might say: 'we're all semioticians now'. We all like to imagine ourselves adepts in the decoding of marketing jargon; the buzzwords, come-ons and psycho-linguistic trickery employed to make us commit to the act of buying.
However, for every instance of New Improved Labour or pan-fried Chicken where the shtick is successfully eluded, an equal number slip beneath our radars. So it was, in contemplation of the brand Middlesbrough F.C., I realised I'd developed a certain emotional dependence upon a 'trigger' word that in recent years has adhered itself to that brand. I realised the brand was no longer speaking to me as potently as it had (oh dear!) and the reason was that, (despite never fully believing in its veracity) I'd become addicted to the word 'ambition'.
So often squalid when attached to a person, the word becomes incredibly seductive when applied to your middling nondescript football team. Ever since we signed Juninho it's been a familiar incantation, from Chairman down - so commonplace you wouldn't be surprised to see it on the club badge. Repeated signings would stay on-message and, though we naturally translated 'Boro are a club who match my ambitions' as 'Boro's genorosity matches my greed', we still acquiesced in the flattery.
Nobody of course wielded the 'A' word more keenly than the old Ginger Bogbrush, but midway through last season it became clear that, for McLaren, 'ambition' was now very much a personal matter.
And so it is that his final match in charge now seems like Ambition's zenith rather than another significant staging-post in our giddy ascent. Though Eindhoven is an unlikely place to experience vertigo, there's the feeling that Sevilla's rapier thrusts punctured not just our defence but our self-belief - our ambition to reach (and exceed) those heights again.
Have we heard the last of Ambition? The next three weeks may well provide an answer.
Down Four Drains
Those of us prone to take heed of omens, portents and the like would've felt a twinge of alarm this week when it was reported that Boro were in for a West Brom midfielder; only to experience a surge of relief when our target turned out to be Zoltan Gera.
Instead it fell to West Ham fans to confront the sense of impendent doom which comes with the news that Nigel Quashie is soon to don your team's colours. Hearing that Quashie (who has experienced relegation with four different clubs) has signed for you, must be the football equivalent of one of His Majesty's Redcoats handing you a pint of ale and saying: 'drink up, this one's on me.' If you subsequently bring in Dave Bassett as General Manager your fate is probably sealed.
Even Quashie, a robust and not unskilful schemer, must've begun to wonder if he labours beneath a uniquely malign zodiac. And (though he's known for his unobtrusive modes of entry) who'd have believed the Grim Reaper went by the name of Nigel.
NOW HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE NEW HOLGATE FORUM
BACK TO CALUM LAW INDEX
|
|
|
|
