Admittedly, not my own podcast – but this week, I was chuffed to be asked to do the twofootedtackle football podcast, as hosted by Chris Nee and Gary Andrews (very fine chaps both). Granted, I felt somewhat out of my depth as Chris and Gary discussed the finer points of the Dutch Eredivisie (to be honest, as a Nottingham Forest fan, I was also quite out of my depth talking about the upper reaches of the Championship) but I think I almost managed to hide my relative lack of knowledge. Mostly by being sarcastic about Alan Shearer.

I’ve listened back to it, and I think it sounds really good. Most importantly, it contains a great many rather wonderful (i.e. dreadful) puns – we took inspiration from the erstwhile Scaryduck’s post of songs for footballers, and ran with the theme. One of the puns is represented in pictorial form at the top of this post for your amusement.

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes (search for ‘twofootedpodcast‘), or you can get the mp3 direct from twofootedtackle’s post here. Do have a listen.

One thing I should note: at one point, it sounds very much like I’m implying that the USA have never beaten England at football. This is, of course, not true (1950 and 1993), and wasn’t what I meant. I merely meant to say that the USA have traditionally been a bit rubbish at football. Which they have.

I also regret forgetting to mention my pet theory that Southampton’s slump of the past few years, ending in their recent relegation to League One and the very real threat that they will cease to exist as a football club, all stemmed from the moment they unveiled that statue of Ted Bates:

But I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince anyone of that.

The main point, for me, is that Murray’s allegations against Usmanov are extremely serious – they go far beyond the generic “businessman with a slightly murky background” that British football authorities and supporters have happily turned a blind eye to whenever the wallet’s fat enough. For such a person to gain control of any British football club – not to mention one of its greatest clubs – would be a disgrace to the entire game. But then, we’ve already allowed an (allegedly) human rights-abusing kleptocrat to buy Manchester City without us kicking up much of a fuss, so perhaps nobody cares that much.

None of which is to say that Murray’s allegations are true. He offers little more than assertion as evidence for many of the claims; and there is such a clear intent on Murray’s part to damage Usmanov’s reputation that, even if the majority of the allegations were substantially accurate, he could still have a very strong libel case against Murray. But Usmanov has refused to pursue this route – despite Murray’s repeated requests that Usmanov let the allegations be tested in court. Instead, he takes the bully’s shortcut.

British law is already heavily weighted on the side of plaintiffs in libel actions; to allow them an even easier route to shutting down speech, that offers minimal opportunity for defence or redress on the part of those being silenced (including innocent bystanders who get caught in the cross-fire), is deeply dangerous. And to extend that to cover not only the making of allegations, but the discussion of the very existence and nature of those allegations, is flat-out ridiculous – especially when something as important as the tattered remnants of our national sport’s integrity are at stake.

MINOR ADDENDA: By the way, as regards the specifics of the situation at Arsenal… the more I read about this, the more convinced I am that a silly little joke theory I came up with last week is actually true. Dein is using Usmanov to push the Arsenal board into the arms of Kroenke, his first choice. He deliberately chose the worst possible person he could find to mount a mock-takeover, so that his original takeover plan would suddenly look far more attractive. I still don’t think Arsenal need it (£200million!) but it would make my opinion of Dein a little better…

You might be familiar with the Curse of Northern Rock: the bank, big sponsors of sport in the North-East, used its three biggest stars in a series of adverts a while back. Johnny Wilkinson, Steve Harmison and Michael Owen. It didn’t escape people’s notice that, the instant they appeared in adverts for Northern Rock, each one of them was suddenly hit by long-term recurring injury crises from which they utterly failed to recover. Most amusing was the pre-World Cup ad featuring Owen on a luggage carousel, with the tagline “Can we have him back in one piece please?” The answer, underscored by the percussive clanking noise of Owen’s cruciate ligament going to shit, was “er, no.”

But now that Owen’s fit again and back to scoring form for both Newcastle and England, it’s quite clear what’s happened: a lump of curse has been removed from him, and – like a salmon drawn upriver to the place it was born – it has returned home. Curse material is clearly a finite, tangible thing (perhaps much like the gooey black witch-substance of Western African traditions) that exists in fixed amounts, cannot be created or destroyed, and has a strong homing instinct. As such, with Owen fit, Northern Rock now has a large portion of curse lurking in its vaults.

What does this mean for the future of the bank? Well, with Wilkinson crocked again and Harmison unable to recapture any sort of form, they’re probably okay for the short-term future, and the people queuing to get their money out are over-reacting. However, there is a clear potential threat of Wilkinson coming back in time to take part in the Rugby World Cup. If this was to happen, Northern Rock would then be in possession of two-thirds of the original curse-substance it distributed – possibly enough to precipitate a full collapse. And if Harmison ever manages to bowl straight again, the resulting calamity for Northern Rock and its inevitable domino effect could be enough to destabilise the entire economy.

The solution is clear: Northern Rock must immediately launch a new advertising campaign, thus giving the curse a new home. I think some posters featuring Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce high-fiving thumpy midfielder Joey Barton would be an ideal solution. It has the potential to save the entire British economy from falling into a decade-long recession; more importantly, Allardyce and Barton are tossers and it would be very funny.

Following this lead, I hereby declare this day, August 29th, Everybody Lie For The Benefit Of Sunderland Day. Every year on this date, now and henceforth, I call on all like-minded individuals to come together and, in the manner most befitting to each person themselves, to lie through their teeth in an attempt to make Sunderland more happy.

I’ll kick off:

“I don’t see how a place that gave the world Bryan Ferry and Lauren Laverne can possibly be described as ‘Britain’s Least Creative City’.“

Pakistan have refused to return to the pitch because they were accused of ball tampering. Then the umpires refused to return to the pitch, on the understandable grounds that the match was over.

In the light of these shameful and petulant actions, I am left with no alternative but to announce that I AM REFUSING TO BLOG ABOUT THESE INCIDENTS. I apologise if this upsets any fans, who I know paid a lot of money to be here today, but I must take a stand. I would have loved to blog these refusals, but sadly the actions of Wayne Rooney and the Pakistan cricket team have made that untenable. This is a matter of principle; a line must be drawn in the sand. I refuse to be held hostage by their refusals.

I sincerely hope that we will be able to resolve this situation, and return to blogging about refusing sportsmen in an amicable manner. But until then, I remain firm: there will be NO BLOGGING about sportsmen refusing to do things until they stop refusing to do things. I refuse to lower myself to their level of refusing to do things, so I won’t do that.

So there.

“It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I’m ignorant. I don’t even know what the word means.”

Which, on face value, is a fairly astonishing example of Geoffrey Pullum’s bugaboo du jour, linguification: the rhetorical practice of taking a non-linguistic claim, then turning it into a completely different (and often false) claim about language, presumably on the grounds that it intensifies the first claim, or sounds fancier, or is funnier.

There’s several things that strike me as bizarre about this. Firstly, the claim that he doesn’t know what the word terrorist means. Now, this could be a subtle political jibe at the difficulties Western governments have defining terrorism in a way that includes all the things that their enemies do, but excludes all the things Western governments would like to keep on doing. If so, congratulations are due. But, reluctantly, I admit that it probably isn’t. Instead, it just seems really weird. The whole “I don’t even know what X means” snowclone (along with its “can’t even spell” and “can’t even pronounce” variants) seems best applied to words that at are at least slightly obscure or technical – not something in such common usage as “terrorist”.

(By the way, am I the only one who thinks that the “I don’t even know what X means” is very different in its common usage to the “I don’t know the meaning of X” snowclone? It strikes me that the first is usually a protestation of innocence based on ignorance, while the second normally refers to abstract concepts that the speaker is claiming don’t form part of their character. But no doubt some quick Googling would provide myriad counterexamples…)

But what’s really odd about this is that I can’t work out what the underlying claim he’s trying to make is. Obviously, he’s claiming he didn’t call Zidane a terrorist. But what’s the supporting claim, the elaboration that he could have used instead of professing not to know the meaning of the word? “I never use that word”? “I don’t use that word lightly”? “I don’t understand the concept of terrorism well enough to use it as an insult”? None seems to make much sense. It’s genuinely baffling. But perhaps help is at hand…

It turns out that there are several different versions of Materazzi’s comments being reported by various news organisations. Other versions include:

“I am ignorant, I don’t even know what an Islamic terrorist is; my only terrorist is her,” he said pointing to his 10-month-old daughter.

“I did not call him a terrorist. I am not a cultured person and I don’t even know what an Islamist terrorist is.” He added: “For me the mother is sacred, you know that.”

Obviously, in the twin processes of translation from Italian and the usual journalistic pick-and-choose polishing that quotes get given, the result has got slightly mangled. Sadly, I don’t even know how to pronounce “Italian”, so I can’t track down the original langauge version to find out which version most closely matches the original.

Regardless, the non-linguified claims are equally odd – both in terms of their plausibility, and as to what on earth Materazzi was trying to convey by denying knowledge of Islamic terrorism. The closest I can come is “I’m not very up with world affairs, and so I would never have connected the fact that Zidane is of Algerian Muslim origin with the notion of global terrorism until somebody explained it to me after this whole media shitstorm kicked off.” Or something.

But even then, the original linguification remains a puzzle – even if it wasn’t Materazzi, somebody (be it a translator or a journalist) thought that “I don’t even know the meaning of the word” was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to say. When it really, really wasn’t.

But I also blame the hero culture of English football; the superheroisation of Rooney, with its signature tune of “Wayne can play anywhere you ask him to” (no he can’t, as has been obvious for at least a year); the naive belief that Lampard was “due a goal” because he was “still making good runs”. All teams have their talismans that the coach is afraid to drop, but English football sometimes seems unique in its desperation to have no plan B, its insistence that everything rests on the undroppable few we have solipsistically elevated to the rank of World Beaters In Waiting.

Anyway:

“This was England’s strongest performance so far, against a Portuguese team that passed the ball prettily but rarely penetrated the English defence. While Beckham and Lampard were anonymous, and Joe Cole was subdued, Ashley Cole and Gary Neville provided a threat down the wings, and Hargreaves and Gerrard made marauding runs. But still, Rooney looked isolated and frustrated alone up front, and very few clear-cut chances were created. Indeed, it was only after the introduction of Aaron Lennon and the subsequent loss of Rooney that England posed a genuine, sustained threat to the Portuguese goal. Once again, blind chance seemed to have more tactical nous than Sven.

It would be nice to think that Hargreaves’ tireless, man of the match performance was a vindication of Sven’s faith in him; certainly, it was the perfect response to his numerous, mindless critics. But if anything, it highlighted what could have been achieved had Sven actually had faith in him, instead of spending years playing him out of position as a last-minute spoiler substitute. That, even after those endless, tinkering friendlies, England still went into this tournament with a midfield that lacked any shape, tactics or coherence – when a solution was sitting right under the noses of Eriksson and McClaren – is a damning indictment.

Likewise, as the match went into extra time, it became increasingly apparent that Sven never had any intention of letting Theo Walcott play in this World Cup. With only two substitutes used against a tiring Portugal, Crouch isolated up front, and the excellent Lennon showing their defensive vulnerability to pace, it was madness not to throw the dice and bring on England’s only other striker. Instead, Sven did nothing, content to let the momentum shift away from England. Eventually, with two minutes remaining, he brought Carragher on for his supposed expert penalty-taking skills. It was the last ever decision that Eriksson made as England manager, and the level of judgement it showed stands as a fitting summation of his reign.”

Theo, 17, had been promised that not only would he have a holiday in Germany, but that he would actually get to go to the tournament.

However, once he was in Germany, Theo discovered that there had never been a place available for him at the match… (cont. on page 94)

As we remember in awe the silky skills, deft wizardry and blistering pace demonstrated last night by the Champions League’s latest star, it’s perhaps time to pause, reflect, and remember the other great sporting squirrels of our times:

“As they teed off on the 10th hole, Ron Nimchuk and Fred Paranchych could only shake their heads at the menace lurking in the shadows of the evergreens lining the picturesque fairway.

A band of quick and determined thieves has taken residence at the Riverside Golf Course in Edmonton’s lush River Valley.

Squirrels. Yes, squirrels.

The squirrels, which focus on the 10th and 18th holes, which are side by side, usually snatch balls as they roll to a stop. Some players have lost more than one on the same hole…”

All of which would have been little more than a nice silly season article for the Globe & Mail, if it weren’t for the fact that the story was accompanied by the single greatest sporting photograph ever taken: