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COMB-OVER, NOT ROLL-OVER 23-2-07
Calum Law
Jose Luis Borges memorably described the Falklands War as 'two bald men fighting over a comb.' As far as the bookies are concerned, Boro's ongoing tussle with the Baggies now resembles two impotents' tug-of-war with a prophylactic.
Whichever caponized weakling prevails, its fate is apparently sealed - neither is 'coming' home with the Cup (sorry). Several exchanges quote Boro at 33-1, which with our recent form in knockout formats ought to tempt the odd punter. However, West Brom - 'a Premiership club in all but name' according to Gareth, and the second highest scorers in the English League - can be widely backed at 80-1. Home victories to Boro and Reading then a semi-final against Plymouth may be all that is required to see them in to the final.
Manchester United on the other hand must travel to the Premiership's sixth-placed team. They then may face a tricky encounter away to a side that boasts five victories in its last twelve against them. To win the trophy they'll still have to face Arsenal or Chelsea, and quite possibly both. VC Bet is prepared to offer you the staggeringly generous price of 9-4 against them negotiating this daunting obstacle course.
What the hell is going here? Unless I just died and went to heaven, bookies don't give money away, yet West Brom arguably caused the Boro defence more problems than did Chelsea the previous weekend. Are they really such a hopeless proposition?
Bookmakers appear to have bought in to the latest received wisdom that it is no longer possible for a team outside the elite to win the F.A. Cup. The roll call of recent winners appears to confirm this - yet had last year's competition ended two minutes earlier, they might be a little less dismissive of the potentialities of the unfashionable sector.
What's truly worrying is the creeping attitude of defeatism from managers. It is to be hoped that Steve Coppell and Mark Hughes deign to send out their strongest teams for the replays against Manchester United and Arsenal respectively, since if teams who sit healthily in the top half of the Premiership really don't believe they can win the F.A. Cup, you have to ask what is the point of football at all? The League fair enough, but the Cup? '11 versus 11'? 'All on the day'? 'Anything can happen'? Clearly not.
What of the 'romance' of the famous old Challenge Cup if this kind of arid rationalism creeps in. Challenge? The only challenge they appear to be rising to is a contest to see who can roll-over in the most submissive fashion.
If so then the BBC may well face prosecution under the Trades Description Act, for the F.A. Cup appears to contain roughly the same amount of 'magic' as Paul Daniel's toupee - which is to say (pardon me) 'notalot!'
Naturally the Beeb, along with the rest of the media, will profess a belief in magic only as far as the semi-final, by which stage it will be praying for a final involving two of the Big Three. Yet such heavyweight match-ups invariably provide cautious, attritional contests. Far more enticing is the presence of outsiders - such as West Ham last year - expected to lose, who nonetheless refuse to play dead.
It is this unwillingness to acquiesce in the role into which you've been cast which epitomised the last genuine underdogs to claim the trophy nineteen years ago, and it's the fervent wish of this column that Boro (or failing that some other 'no-hopers') can discover the cussed streak that made Wimbledon such an awkward proposition.
In a year when the Big Three have all displayed clear vulnerabilities, it may be that that kind of implacable self-belief is all that's required: the 'blue pill' that subverts the presumptions of the Alpha specimens - and their handmaidens in the media.
They say you find romance in the unlikeliest of places. But you surely never will if you simply stop looking.
Move over Mr Leg-over
They don't come much more Alpha of course than Simon Jordan, this column's favourite Chairman (after our Dear Leader natch), who has reopened his war of words with the porn barons of Birmingham City. In retrospect, we can be glad that Gareth got out of Crystal Palace when he did - his tender heart might not have coped with all this talk of impaling oneself on dildos.
Nevertheless, you have to salute Senor Naranjo, as he's known in Marbella, for the thoroughgoing elan he brings to the nurture of his enmities. Almost certain to remain the only man to work the phrases 'anal frenzy' and 'furry fuckers' into the sports section of the Observer, he's wasted on dull little pornographers like David Sullivan. It'd be great to see him take on someone worthy of his bellicose, not to say poetic, talents; Mourinho for instance.
Amidst the cheap, if entertaining, jibes is a serious point. They're 'operators not fans' he said of Sullivan and the Gold brothers. They looked at five other clubs before settling on Birmingham - they actually support West Ham! They should stop 'pissing and moaning' if they don't like it, and sell up.
'Try another flavour', as Adam Ant put it. And this kind of peripatetic patronage is becoming something of a trend. Mandaric goes to Leicester, Ken Bates to Leeds and ex-Palace Chairman Ron Noades is at Brentford.
It's seems their egos can't live without owning a football club - any football club. It's like having a train set or something, and to the football fan (whose loyalty is indivisable) it's most bizarre. Thank God our club would appear to be safe from this kind of hobbyist. Imagine if we suddenly got Freddie Shepherd.
Mind if he thought Geordie lasses were rough......
(Joke!)
Bend over, Wild Rover
Sticking with blubbery Geordies, there's frequently much energetic debate on the Message Board as to who's the greatest player to pull on a Boro shirt. Though obviously he seldom displayed it whilst wearing the sacred garment, in terms of pure talent, you'd have to say it was Paul Gascoigne.
After recently fetching up in Boston, China and Kettering, the lonely troubled genius has a new destination - space. The latest chancers to try and exploit Gazza's gullibility are a team of filmmakers: he's helping co-script a sci-fi movie - into which he'll then no doubt be inveigled to insert an unintentionally-comic performance.
Poor Gazza. It's hardly original, but it's long been the pet theory of this column that his never-ending troubles might have a pscho-sexual root. Perhaps Ground Control is only ever going to re-establish contact if someone steers him towards a tastefully-furnished pink planet somewhere.
NOW HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE NEW HOLGATE FORUM
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