Friday, 7 March 2008
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
There are many opposing ideas about the exact point at which one crosses the line into adulthood. Some say it's when you lose your virginity. Others insist it is the day you pass your driving test. They can't both be right, because I did one of those twenty years ago but have never managed the other to this day, and the only freakish adult/child hybrids currently known to British medical science are still Ant and Dec.
Getting older is a different experience for everyone. There are those who seem to retain their youth well into middle age without the use of radical cosmetic surgery. And there are others whose craggy looks and stroppy demeanour make them seem a couple of decades older than their actual chronological age. Step forward, Mr Wayne Rooney.
Ageing seems to happen more quickly at some times than at others. "You're only as old as you feel," people say. For most of my twenties, as I shrugged my carefree way between temping jobs and postgraduate degrees, I still felt about 17. Then after the last five minutes of the match on Tuesday night, when Town's hopes of a trip to Wembley were under relentless bombardment from Morecambe's hefty forward line, I felt about 90.
Indeed, my mood has continued beyond my years for the rest of the week. This weekend's match has not helped. When the two greatest evils of the modern game combine in one fixture, you're bound to come over a bit crotchety.
It's bad enough having to watch your team play against a shameless franchise operation instead of a legitimate football club, but when it's on a Friday night as well it's all you can do not to book yourself into the nearest care home for the elderly, develop premature dementia and spend the week explaining to the staff that it wasn't like that in your day and the world is going to Hell in a handcart, and all those other weary clichés that people recite from the Daily Express when they're a bit fed up.
At the same time, though, there are always things that make you feel young again. Springtime does the trick. A good night out never fails. And it's surprising how often I meet 18-year-olds who have projected their entire career structure, earnings and annual pension contributions on an interactive Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd like to see Justin Whittle back in the side and playing as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. Because the real indicator that you're properly grown-up is when you're older than every player in the team you support. And since Sir John McDermott retired, the Sarge is all I have left to cling to.
Getting older is a different experience for everyone. There are those who seem to retain their youth well into middle age without the use of radical cosmetic surgery. And there are others whose craggy looks and stroppy demeanour make them seem a couple of decades older than their actual chronological age. Step forward, Mr Wayne Rooney.
Ageing seems to happen more quickly at some times than at others. "You're only as old as you feel," people say. For most of my twenties, as I shrugged my carefree way between temping jobs and postgraduate degrees, I still felt about 17. Then after the last five minutes of the match on Tuesday night, when Town's hopes of a trip to Wembley were under relentless bombardment from Morecambe's hefty forward line, I felt about 90.
Indeed, my mood has continued beyond my years for the rest of the week. This weekend's match has not helped. When the two greatest evils of the modern game combine in one fixture, you're bound to come over a bit crotchety.
It's bad enough having to watch your team play against a shameless franchise operation instead of a legitimate football club, but when it's on a Friday night as well it's all you can do not to book yourself into the nearest care home for the elderly, develop premature dementia and spend the week explaining to the staff that it wasn't like that in your day and the world is going to Hell in a handcart, and all those other weary clichés that people recite from the Daily Express when they're a bit fed up.
At the same time, though, there are always things that make you feel young again. Springtime does the trick. A good night out never fails. And it's surprising how often I meet 18-year-olds who have projected their entire career structure, earnings and annual pension contributions on an interactive Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd like to see Justin Whittle back in the side and playing as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. Because the real indicator that you're properly grown-up is when you're older than every player in the team you support. And since Sir John McDermott retired, the Sarge is all I have left to cling to.
Labels: age, ageing, football league trophy, mcdermott, morecambe, rooney, time, wembley, whittle
Friday, 25 January 2008
Another right-back, another planet
The Mariners, it would be fair to say, have never had much to do with the Premier League. A GTFC director might have phoned them up 15 years ago to ask how big your ground has to be to get in, and the girls on reception laughed and made up a number, which is why the Fentydome is ending up expandable to 20,100 seats, but that's about it.
For a giddy week or two in late 1995, when Ivano Bonetti briefly satisfied our Grimbarian need for an instant solution to decades of neglect and apathy, Town sat in the upper reaches of the second flight and anything looked possible. But anything was possible: by the end of the season we were 16th and the goalkeeper seemed to be chucking the ball in his own net on purpose.
We've rubbed shoulders with plenty of Premier League clubs in the cups. But Town's victory over Spurs in 2005 showed how little they know of us. Tottenham fans' blogs afterwards described their experience at "Blunden Park" as "the result of a lifetime for Grimsby". Which it was, as long as you're younger than 35 and you don't count our cup wins against Everton (1979 and 1984), Newcastle (1982), Middlesbrough (1989), Aston Villa (1991), West Ham (1996), Leicester (1997), Norwich (1998) and Liverpool (2001).
True, the Mariners proudly boast a dozen or so seasons of top-flight history either side of the Second World War – which is a dozen or so more, of course, than any other club in the Lincolnshire and Humber area. Unfortunately this is not recognised in the new official version of football history, which maintains that the game was invented in 1992 by Sky TV.
But those who really know football know that the top division is very far from the be-all and end-all. And if you want to see clearly what the Premier League stands for today, then look no further than the champions Manchester United, who decided that the banner displayed at Old Trafford to commemorate next month's 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster wouldn't be complete without the logo of their corporate sponsor AIG.
If United have built themselves a parallel universe from the one Town inhabit, it's all the more pleasing to see their manager – together with two other Premier League bosses – backing this newspaper's renewed campaign to have John McDermott made an MBE. And as Shrewsbury arrive at Blundell Park tomorrow it's a timely reminder of his final game, back at Gay Meadow last May.
Macca would have been a Premier League player if he hadn't said no to Bradford, Ipswich and Sunderland. But this is exactly why he deserves the award. There are hundreds of Premier League players – and there's only one John McDermott.
For a giddy week or two in late 1995, when Ivano Bonetti briefly satisfied our Grimbarian need for an instant solution to decades of neglect and apathy, Town sat in the upper reaches of the second flight and anything looked possible. But anything was possible: by the end of the season we were 16th and the goalkeeper seemed to be chucking the ball in his own net on purpose.
We've rubbed shoulders with plenty of Premier League clubs in the cups. But Town's victory over Spurs in 2005 showed how little they know of us. Tottenham fans' blogs afterwards described their experience at "Blunden Park" as "the result of a lifetime for Grimsby". Which it was, as long as you're younger than 35 and you don't count our cup wins against Everton (1979 and 1984), Newcastle (1982), Middlesbrough (1989), Aston Villa (1991), West Ham (1996), Leicester (1997), Norwich (1998) and Liverpool (2001).
True, the Mariners proudly boast a dozen or so seasons of top-flight history either side of the Second World War – which is a dozen or so more, of course, than any other club in the Lincolnshire and Humber area. Unfortunately this is not recognised in the new official version of football history, which maintains that the game was invented in 1992 by Sky TV.
But those who really know football know that the top division is very far from the be-all and end-all. And if you want to see clearly what the Premier League stands for today, then look no further than the champions Manchester United, who decided that the banner displayed at Old Trafford to commemorate next month's 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster wouldn't be complete without the logo of their corporate sponsor AIG.
If United have built themselves a parallel universe from the one Town inhabit, it's all the more pleasing to see their manager – together with two other Premier League bosses – backing this newspaper's renewed campaign to have John McDermott made an MBE. And as Shrewsbury arrive at Blundell Park tomorrow it's a timely reminder of his final game, back at Gay Meadow last May.
Macca would have been a Premier League player if he hadn't said no to Bradford, Ipswich and Sunderland. But this is exactly why he deserves the award. There are hundreds of Premier League players – and there's only one John McDermott.
Labels: bonetti, fentydome, ferguson, manchester united, mcdermott, premiership, shrewsbury, sky, sponsorship, tottenham
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