Cup fever
Jeffrey Bernard
I remember when it became alright to like football. It was when the posh papers began to use writers instead of sports reporters. Cricket was already accepted by knowing intellectuals. Alan Ross was writing up matches for the Observer and a young man called Cowdrey was reported to have played an innings as though 'his bat had been steeped in port'. In no time at all, the disease had spread to Stamford Bridge and the £10-a-week yobs who made up the front five—forwards in those days, not strikers— were said to have played one afternoon 'with a rhythmic plasticity reminiscent of a Mozart quintet'. I think I was there and it seemed to me to be more like five navvies tuning up for a bash at Stockhausen, but it doesn't matter. The game caught on and suddenly the crowds weren't all Andy Capps. Thinking men had come to love it, and when I say thinking men I mean the bold pioneers of liberal thinking in the 'fifties. They smoked Gauloises, lived in sin, drank wine and worked in films.
It was a better game before all that. Referees kept quiet and one of the delights of Saturday afternoons was watching fullbacks hack lumps out of forwards. The forwards, of course, were a very different kettle of fish too. There was 'Lightning Heels' Mortensen and Nat Lofthouse, 'The Lion of Vienna'. They had a hard sort of glamour. They were black and white and there weren't any instant replays. Their shorts came down to their knobbly knees, they didn't appear on chat shows and they didn't have nervous breakdowns when the going got good. If they pulled birds you didn't read about it, and it must have been a miracle.
Tom Finney was a plumber from Preston, he used Brylcreem and sometimes you saw him on Movietone Newsreels but not even he would have thought of himself as being more than someone who was very good at playing football. Now, the lads who play on the `park' are the elite of sport. Prima donnas to a man, they invest their earnings in boutiques, eat chicken sopresa, crack under the strain of success—Oh, God, grant me a crack under that—and get adopted as friends by star media men. I can't even go to my club now without seeing Jack Charlton with a glass of plonk in front of him and a green salad at his elbow. Actors like to wear famous sportsmen on their sleeves, just as Byron liked 'Gentleman' John Jackson. They're the snobs, not me. I'm just getting long in the tooth. Sometimes I daydream and the coloured picture dissolves into the old black and white of reality and here they come like ghosts from the past. Stanley Matthews, Gordon Richards, Bruce Wood
cock and Denis Compton. The breathless hush was in the close last night.
For days on end, as Cup Final day approached, people kept using 'Are you going to the Cup Final, then?' as a conversation opener. The answer was always No. Had Ipswich Town been a finalist, and had 1 in that event got a ticket, I might have thought about it. But no. For one thing getting to and leaving Wembley in the comPanY of one hundred thousand people is something I can do without, and for another thing I'm not keen to be knocked flat by a
gang of exuberant fans. So I opted for the box.
The morning was remarkable for the quietness of the fans I saw. I'd walked down to Mayfair to get my copy of Timeform for Ascot that afternoon feeling annoyed that because of the Cup only one race was being televised, and there they were wandering aimlessly with their red rosettes like soldiers on leave in a foreign town. We were tuned in to the BBC waiting for the gems from David Coleman. The crowd sang a verse of 'Abide With Me' like some People used to sing the Horst Wessel song and then came the first of the Colemanisms. 'Well, they've revived the singing of "Abide With Me" and it's been utterly justified.' Brenda arrived dressed in turquoise, her husband shook hands with the players, I
lost £2 on the three o'clock and the game started.
At once I noticed a lack of tension in the 1:Poin. I was sitting next to an American lady who was as tight-lipped and ashenfaced as any Ron Knee, but with boredom. After a few sorties from the Manchester United team she drawled something to the effect that we British weren't very competitive. I tried to explain that both the red and the Yellow teams on the field were trying their hardest to win but she sneered into her drink.
Nothing that the pitch of Coleman's voice could do did anything to save the game for me. Interesting for the dedicated ran Maybe, I found it dull. We tried ITV for the second half and I longed for a Denis Law or a Bobby Charlton. The lady next to me said 'Jesus Christ,' and poured herself another drink. By the time Southampton scored the day had fallen flat. We switched channels again and again hoping it would make a better game but the real game came after the end. The interviews were down to expectations. A commentator said, 'There he
ns, crying emotional tears,' and the
American lady said, 'Jesus, you mean to say You have unemotional tears over here?' Watching the happy winners supping milk after collecting the Cup I found myself thinking that their bonuses for winning w.ould probably be enough to open boutiques, visit discotheques and crack under 1.1), e unfamiliar strain of success. No doubt 1: be seeing them on the arms of telly stars 12 my little club I thought and just what will me Posh papers say tomorrow? Whatever they say they'll be too nice. What I would have said is that Manchester United played
with a lack of authority reminiscent of Charlie Kunz attempting the unfamiliar three against four in the Chopin F minor Study. Never mind, next year it could be great, I told the American lady, if Ipswich get to the final.
'Jesus,' she said. 'You mean farm boys play this game too?'
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