Still been watching quite a bit of football. The weather has cooled down now which is a pity really because it is better watching the games when it is hot, hot, hot, there ain’t no doubt about that. Just sitting there in the lounge with a pair of shorts on and a cold bottle of beer in my hand, the rest of my life stretching off into infinity…Hopefully we’re also just about coming to the end of the hay fever season as well. Had enough of stinging eyes, itchy nose and serious bouts of sneezing now and I just want it all to end. I take the pills of course but the side effects of those fuckers is that they leave you a little drowsy and when you wake up it’s as if you’ve been coshed over the nut by the hammer air of the night.
Still got good memories of the Andy Shepherd show in Soho that I took Tamdin to a couple of days, it was a great night. Then the next evening I enjoyed one of the best matches of the World Cup so far when Australia edged out Croatia to qualify for the next phase. It was a night of high excitement and catastrophic referring but in the end justice was done. I think that I had a glimpse of why it is the Aussies can fall so in love with their sporting heroes as to say that their side went for it hell for leather would still only end up being something of an understatement. They were quite simply awesome as they threw themselves forward in a relentless onslaught of the Croatian goal in order to get that all important equaliser. Just like when watching the Ghana v Czech Republic match from a few days ago there was something almost transcendental about the football as if in this particular match we were witnessing the essence of what it is to have Aussie spirit and tenacity stripped bare and there for all to see; in pretty much the same way we saw the further glorious potential of football when played by Africans when they are on song and shed of inhibition. In the last regard if the Europeans have the technique, the South Americans have the skill and style then surely what the Africans have is a freedom and wild abandon that is somehow purer than the rest. It is instances like these that make me watch the World Cup, and like I said before I am convinced that it is the only game that man has so far come up with that would be played by aliens. It really is that universal. If aliens landed on earth and saw a few games it really would not be long before they would consider getting a side together for a bit of a kick about, providing of course they came with peaceful intentions and had arms and legs.
On a darker side to the World Cup there was the horrible injury suffered by Michael Owen, the English striker, the other night, when he twisted his knee and had to crawl off the pitch. It now looks like he is going to be out for a period of nine months and by the looks of him it might even be longer for the mental scars to heal. Personally I feel there is a strange karma around Michael Owen. He is of course a tremendously rich and famous footballer but a couple of years there was an incident in which he was involved with which was both strange and sad, as well as being very under reported in the British media. He had had a load of building work done on one of his properties that he owns and then a dispute had arisen between him and the building contractor which had resulted in Owen refusing to pay for the work that had been done and even instructing his lawyers to bring a case against the contractor, alleging the work had in fact not been done at all.
As a consequence of the non-payment by Owen the builder went bust as he had covered the costs in advance of the materials that he had used on the work. That and the stress of possible court action by Owen led to the builder committing suicide leaving behind a wife and family. It all seemed extremely sad and whatever the rights or wrongs of the case it seems pretty damn awful that someone as rich as Owen was happy to see someone lose everything because he didn’t think the job had been done to his satisfaction. So that was weird incident in his history and as I said it was not a big deal as far as the media was concerned, in fact I just saw it as an item buried away on a page of the BBC News website. So maybe something is now coming back to haunt Owen from beyond the grave. Needless to say if you have no belief in such things then you can dismiss this as a load of old rubbish in fact I don’t even know if I really believe it myself but I do find unsettling when I think of what the conduct of Owen might have been over all this that led to another human being taking their own life.
It could be that the family have cursed Owen, indulged in a little of the back arts. Who knows? Rubbish? Yeah maybe but look at how things have panned out for Owen over the last year or so, a dodgy move to Newcastle United (one of the most contemptible sides in English football) from Real Madrid, then after a mere 17 games for the Magpies a broken foot that kept him out of action for six months and then on his return from such a long lay off a horrifically twisted knee that could very well see him out of action for a whole lot longer. Maybe there are a few demons that he needs to face, real of imagined. Can any of us truly say that we know how these things work and how the course of life runs as it does? No, I don’t think so but at the same time we have to accept we are players of a perfect finished plan. Anyway all this has been a bit of a diversion from whatever it was that I was going on about…oh yes, it was football so I suppose there is most definitely a connection, just not in the usual way that you would find it. That’s the way it goes sometimes when you are on a rap, all kinds of things can come out. Let’s end more or less where we began. Well done to Oz, they are through to the last of the World Cup for the first time in their history and in my opinion they have every chance of going further as they play Italy next who might very well not fancy it after they seen have a couple of videos of how the Aussies have so far gone for it in a way that teams like England can’t even dream of.
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