Beat The First Man

Ugh, my delicate ear canals are already infested, as if with waste lard clogging up the drainage system of so many “fish and chip shops” with the cachinnating from the ill-bred North Western regions. Today’s 8-2 result on the part of Manchester versus Arsenal FC has brought a boorish, troglodyte shower of derision in which no stone of abuse is unturned, no aitch left undropped, all of which reminds of the fabled Norwegian commentator following the 2-1 victory achieved by that Scandanavian outcrop, home to Munch, in 1981, against England. In this instance, it would have resounded something like as follows. “Decent coffee! Inside lavatories! Bookshops! Meals whose liquid accompaniment is something other than ketchup! The best Prime Ministers! Baths, empty of coal! Literacy! BBC4! Bartok! Closed sewers! Awareness of the existence of Ivy Compton-Burnett! Couthness! Hygiene! Twenty pound notes! Football pitches that aren’t coated in grease! Aubergines! Your boys took a hell of a beating!” Yes, the base may crow, but the last laugh, as ever, is upon themselves. When contemplating Mancunian stock, rarified decency compels one to hesitate from referring to them as “genetic inferiors”, but having decently hesitated for a few seconds, one goes ahead and does so. Dear gosh, would not any competent genealogist have to delve more than two generations into the ancestry of Wayne Rooney before finding at least one root vegetable? Of course, from the eyrie of intellectual superiority one has been deservedly granted by providence, it is quite easy to perceive today’s result for what it was. This was not “football” in the muddy, hacking, Saxon sense it is understood by those, who in their feudal obtuseness, see football as but a feud. This was something of a higher, postmodern order. This was a calculated, balletic act of sarcasm, chorographed by M. Wenger with the panache one would readily expect from the Diaghilev of the dugout that he is. Let me explain – or, to put it in a manner which would be comprehensible to the average Mancunian, “laahht mi’ explaahhnn a muckle”. There had been much talk in the press, both broad and yellow, that M Wenger’s team were in for a hiding this day – as if, somehow, the order of things established many centuries ago could be in one association match be at once overturned and the descendants of King Egbert of Mercia (771-839) be appointed to the throne. It was to puncture such folly that M. Wenger quite deliberately planned today’s “defeat”. The sub-text of today’s result was as follows. “Oh, yes. Manchester United are so, so superior to Arsenal. Oh, yes. Why, they’re so brilliant and fantastic and marvellous they could probably put eight goals past Arsenal, no problem. Ho, ho, yes, indeed, I should blithering coco.” Has the football world failed to grasp the concept of irony? It was in such a spirit that Manchester Utd’s forwards were able to dance through Arsenal’s midfield and defence at will, with midfielders like Rosicky, in a preplanned spirit of wry detachment “failing” to track back. Why, had it not been too broad and unsubtle, he would have done the “air inverted commas” as he let Ashley Young scamper unhindered towards the penalty box. But at Arsenal we do not deal merely in mocking the crude with our untamed wit. In the performances of Ramsey, Arshavin, Coquelin, we saw an implicit allusion to the poet WB Yeats, specifically his observation in The Second Coming. “Things fall apart/the centre cannot hold.” I would assume that even a Wigan fan would have been able to grasp the textual reference so clearly implied in our performance (I use the word in the Arts Council sense) today? Thus, was the full spectrum of postmodernism realised by Arsenal; as irony, but also as tragedy. Not for a moment did those of us steeped in the nuance and cultivation of Arsenal in the late Wenger period cry out as follows; IN THE FUCKING NAME OF ANCIENT FUCKERY, HOW THE FUCK HAVE WE GOT TO TO THE FUCKING STAGE WHERE HITLER IN HIS FUCKING BUNKER IN BERLIN HAD A GREATER SELECTION OF FUCKING OUTFIELD PERSONNEL TO FUCKING CHOOSE FROM THAN WE’VE FUCKING GOT RIGHT NOW? WE’RE ONE MORE KNOCK OR FUCKING YELLOW CARD FROM FUCKING PAT RICE HAVING TO STRIP DOWN AND TROT OUT TO JOIN THE FUCKING BACK FOUR! AND TRAGICALLY, HE’D PROBABLY DO A FAIR BIT BETTER THAN THE FUCKING STUPID-HAIRED ASSORTMENT OF ARBITRARILY PICKED FUCKING EURO-CLOWNS WE’VE CURRENTLY GOT PATROLLING THE EDGE OF THE PENALTY BOX, GLASSY-EYED, ILL-COORDINATED CUNTS WHO MIGHT AS WELL BE ON FUCKING UNICYCLES JUGGLING ORANGES FOR ALL THE FUCKING USE THEY ARE RIGHT NOW! FACE IT, WE ARE A NATIONAL FUCKING LAUGHING STOCK RIGHT NOW! A FUCKING BATTERY FARM OF SYSTEMATIC COCKING USELESSNESS! WE FUCKING ENVY STOKE! IT WOULD BETTER IF WE CHANGED OUR FUCKING NAME FROM ARSENAL TO “ARSE”! AT LEAST AN ARSE ONLY PRODUCES SHIT TWICE A DAY, WHEREAS RIGHT NOW, WE’RE PRODUCING IT ALL THE FUCKING TIME! SORT IT THE FUCK OUT, OTHERWISE THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, I SHIT YOU NOT, WE WILL BE PLAYING FUCKING MK FUCKING DONS!” That, of course, would be base, vulgar and importunate. Read more at www.wsc.co.uk