SPECTATOR SPORT
Another country
Frank Keating
THE England footballer, David Platt, this week told the Guardian's Rome correspon- dent that he was settling down well in Italy after his £51/2 million transfer from Aston Villa to Bari. 'I'm shouting English words at them without them having a clue what I'm saying. You can't shout "man on" or "on your own". But it's quite easy actually, and I'm getting the hang of it because the words are all the same — uomo, solo, vai dietro, avanti.'
Er, quite. But fair enough. And knowing him (whose father, by the way, works for the Guardian), I bet he'll be fluent by Christmas. Gary Lineker was another bright young man who took to Abroad with a will. When he flew off from Heath- row he was reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia as well as Teach Yourself Span- ish, and long before the end of his time at Barcelona FC he was doing effortless and unstoppable star-turn radio commentaries in the local lingo for, as they say, the full 90 minutes.
Others have not travelled so well down the years. The Welshman, Ian Rush, hot- footed it back to Liverpool a couple of years ago. Italy's like a different country,' he said, still perplexed, when we met him off the plane, adding that playing for Juventus FC was not half as appealing a way of spending the weekend as turning out for Mold Town United. Rush's com- patriot, John Charles, had triumphantly pioneered the path to Rome over 30 years before, but few follow with any success. One of the main reasons Jimmy Greaves gave for his famous midnight flit back to London from AC Milan was that the players' cafeteria served wine with meals and not bitter. Around the same time, Denis Law and Joe Baker returned pronto from Torino in 1962. 'Those Eyeties', said Denis, 'have wine as part of everyday life, but when Joe and I went out at night for one or two bevvies, they'd start throwing their arms about, shouting that beer was for alcoholics, and next day we'd be carpeted and fined by the club. A man can only live with that for so long.' No blame, for it was the bosses and small-town burghers of British soccer who have always been the blinkered bods. Remember how it took decades for the Brits to condescend even to enter the World or European Cup competitions. Only 21 years ago, after defeat by Pele's magical Brazilians, England's manager Sir Alf Ramsey was insisting in that Essex- mandarin whine of his, 'We have nothing to learn from these people' — although my favourite example of Sir h'Alfs h'insularity was in 1967 when his England team arrived at Prestwick before a match against the Scots at Hampden. They were greeted by a banner, 'Welcome to Scotland'. Our smouldering knight read it, pondered, and muttered, 'You must be effin' joking'. Everton's erstwhile manager, the lugub- rious Gordon Lee, once took his side to play Morocco. After they had booked into the plush hotel, a player asked him chirpi- ly, 'Well, what do you think of Africa so far, boss?' This isn't Africa, son, this is Morocco,' said Lee.
At least the players are prepared to try. One Brit hotshot, transferred to Italy for millions, was determined to crack the lingo. First night out he ordered, naturally, `bistecca e chips'. How would signor like his steak? Now what was the word for 'well done'? Finally the esperanto of soccer- speak came to his rescue, and he trium- phantly pronounced to the waiter he'd like his bistecca cooked bravo.
Well done. Nice one, son.
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