SPECTATOR SPORT
Pure pantomime
Simon Barnes
ANTHONY POWELL describes the door- man at Dicky Umfraville's nightclub 'giving a dreadful leer like that of a very bad actor attempting to horrify a pantomime audi- ence'. Vinnie Jones to the life. Sport is a lot like pantomime, though it lacks that art form's essential subtlety. It is Jones's allot- ted task in life to come thundering up when the handsome, epicene hero's back is turned, eliciting horrified cries of 'Look behindjer!'
As• a matter of fact, in football they shout, 'Man on!', but the principle is what counts. And Jones celebrated Christmas by sneaking up behind the handsome, dreadlocked Ruud Gullitt of Chelsea, and, as the cries of 'look behindjer' rang out too late, dashed the dashing hero to the floor.
We all know how the script reads from there: Jones, exit stage left, pursued by a red card, amid the delighted hissing of the panto-loving throng. Scene two: Jones protests his innocence — why, he played the ball, did he not? And surely the handsome Gullitt was overacting? In injured innocence no one excels poor mis- understood, reviled little Vinnie Jones. Former hod-carrier. Diamond geezer. Owns 16 guns. If he hadn't been a foot- baller, he'd have been a gamekeeper.
This was Jones's 11th dismissal in a career of ten years. That seems an impossi- bly low figure, though I am assured it is cor- rect. A better stat.: the Gullitt incident was the third time he has been sent off this sea- son. And he is still serving a five-match ban from international football after being sent off when playing for Wales against Georgia, apparently under the strange delusion that he is a Welshman.
Jones is Watford-born and sounds every bit as Welsh as Eliza Doolittle. He plays for Wimbledon. In fact, he might be con- sidered the heart and soul of the club. Wimbledon specialises in taking the big boys down a peg or two, they are the poor relations at the feast, the unwanted hob- bledehoys that no one can get rid of. Against all the odds, they survive and win football matches. Everyone hates to play against them.
No one likes us, we don't care. This tradi- tional footballing anthem might have been made for Wimbledon, and for Jones. It is, of course, a lie. Jones has not rejected love by becoming a pantomime villain. He has sought it. The hard men of football are not loved by the masses, but they are adored by the loyal followers of a team. They are also loved by their team-mates. To see a star forward reduced to fear and ineffectiveness by your own hard man is a wonderful thing, and you love the team-mate who is doing the terrorising.
No one has made more of such a role than Jones. By sheer effort of will, he has turned himself into a traditionally ludicrous aspect of English life. There is a famous photograph of Jones man-marking, as it were, the young Paul Gascoigne. Jones, one hand behind his back, clasps Gascoigne warmly by the testicles, a grip of steel. Gas- coigne turns to camera with a face of comic bewilderment; Jones wears once again that pantomime leer.
There is a tendency among many figures in public life, perhaps athletes more than most, to become Mike Yarwood imperson- ations of themselves. Jones has always sought to live his own cliché to the letter. It is not Gullitt who can be accused of overacting, it is Jones, forever hamming up the part of himself. He once produced a video full of technical information on the best way to administer violent fouls. He once bit a journalist on the nose. Any- thing to be reviled and thus to be more greatly loved.
Everyone loves pantomime, and so every- one wants to enjoy Vinnie's act. That is why he was invited to Eton, to address the boys on subjects that will no doubt be useful to them in their future careers as politicians and the leaders of privatised industries. For Jones knows, as Gascoigne will testify, what happens to the hearts and minds of great men once you have got them by the balls.
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