I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ANT & DEC-“We’re on the Ball” (2002).

Evidently, for nearly every football tournament since 1970, the English team has had a theme song.

Occasionally one of those songs will reach non-footbnall fans.  In 1990 New Order did “World in Motion” which New Order fans will know whether they like football or not.  One of the band members described the single as “the last straw for Joy Division fans.”

Who the heck are Ant &Dec?  They are TV presenters (of what I’m not sure) with really questionable haircuts.  I don’t know if they wrote this song or just sing it. I’m not even sure what the verses are on about as they seem to be irrelevant–filler until you get to the chorus.  A vibrant horn melody introduces the easily chantable:

We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball
We’re on the ball

The final verse is one that any football fan can appreciate:

Japan, Korea, here come England
It’s Neville to Cambell
Cambell to Rio
Rio to Scholesy
Scholesy Gerrard
Gerrard to Beckham
Beckham to Heskey
Heskey to Owen
To Nodd
5-1

Honestly I prefer Fat Les’ “Vindaloo,” which has a huge na na na part and this wonderful boast: “We’re gonna score one more than you.”

[READ: September 25, 2019] “We are the World”

Nick Hornby wrote his final music article for the New Yorker in 2001.  He then wrote this article about soccer and then stopped contributing to the magazine at all (until mid 2020, it turns out).

This article is all about the World Cup.  I’m sure there are many writers who can write wonderful things about the World Cup, but I feel like Hornby’s unbridled love for the game, combined with his quick wit and mild snark, make his World Cup writing excellent.

It’s always weird to read about things that happened nearly twenty years ago as if they were current. It’s even weirder to read about things that happened nearly twenty years ago that you didn’t care about, or possibly even know happened, from someone who cares very deeply about it.  “It is mostly pointless to try to convince an American readership of the joys of football (yes football) but it would be hard for anyone not to take pleasure in the rhythm of life in a football-mad country during the world cup.”

The world cup was on at 7:30 AM in England most days . England’s tabloids had to battle the World Cup for eyeballs and gave up: “On the morning of England’s game with Brazil the cover of the Daily Mirror showed only the flag of St George–England’s official flag–and the caption, ‘This page is cancelled. Nothing else matters.'”

He starts by talking about Emmanuel Petit, the man who scored the final goal of the 1998 World Cup to win for France. He was muscular and “irritatingly good looking.”  But in 2002, the French team was knocked out early without scoring a single goal.  “It would be gratifying to report that Petit had also put on sixty pounds and developed a severe case of acne in the four years since his victory, but life isn’t quite that neat.”

The narrative for the 2002 World Cup was of unexpected teams defeating favorites.  The host team, South Korea, beat two heavily favored teams Italy and Spain.  Italy was so upset over losing to South Korea, that the national network considered suing FIFA claiming that the referee decisions were “so blatant they could only be described as the product of serious fraud.”  Spain was also decided by some bad referee decisions. So bad that a British paper was so outraged on Spain’s behalf that it told English fans to root for Germany instead of South Korea in the next match (a shocking statement since “most English football fans would root for a Taliban team against Germany in a world cup match”).

An Argentinian paper said the whole World Cup should be considered null and void.

But Hornby commends the Korean audience all dressed in red, waving and cheering for every pass and shot. He says, “the footage of these enormous red carpets turning ecstatically and teemingly human when the home team scored the winning goal against Italy provided us with one of the most electrifying images of this or any other World Cup.”

The final match was reassuringly conventional: Germany vs Brazil.  One or the other of these two reams has appeared in every World cup since 1978 but they had

The final goal of the 2002 World Cup was by Ranadlo in a lackluster 2-0 victory over Germany.  He ends by saying that this World Cup was fun, “but who wants fun at the biggest and most important sporting event we have.”

I’m glad this was Hornby’s last article for the New Yorker as I don’t know if I could keep reading about football exclusively every four years.