The other Franco

OLAS 459, April 24th 2009

I bumped into my neighbour Dave last Sunday, who threw me a googly a couple of hours before Arsenal and Chelsea were due to lock horns in the semi final of the FA Cup. Dave is a Spurs fan and he knows I’m West Ham, so he says to me: “Who do you want to lose today – Arsenal or Chelsea? I’m finding it tough myself.” Well, what do you do in a situation in which there is no lesser evil? A bit like who would you rather eat a pizza with – George Bush or Prince Philip? I was a bit thrown. “How long have you got?” I asked him.

Dave admitted that in the end he wanted Chelsea to lose – breaking the habit of a lifetime of always wanting Arsenal to lose, whoever their opponents were, and even if they were playing tiddlywinks. Ultimately, I took the opposite stand – I wanted Arsenal to lose, but for the best and most pure and humane motives - not out of pure hatred - just a tactical assessment for West Ham. It’s bad enough facing Chelsea today with half our reserve and under-11 team. Even worse if they come here smarting from defeat in the cup semis. Well thanks to Fabianski having a moment of madness, running to the edge of the area like the greyhounds who used to chase the rabbit at Walthamstow, and leaving Drogba a simple chance, Chelsea come here relaxed and happy and not smarting in the least. Just how we like them.

And while we are on the FA Cup, all power to Everton for dumping Man U’s spotty, super-annuated arseholes out of the tournament. OK Everton are a top club themselves now, but it was still a victory for the underdog over the rich and powerful, a win against the odds for those below stairs over the arrogant aristocracy.

Back in our mini league for seventh place, it’s all hotting up and you can feel the perspiration. We did ourselves a massive favour last outing at Upton Park with a deserved victory over Sunderland who strangely find themselves as the Geordie pacemakers these days. Neither side were in inspiring form but the hunger and commitment of our youth players – especially Tomkins and Junior Stan who bagged the goals – made the difference. The icing on the cake was Spurs going down at Blackburn, (at not on) which meant we could face what was bound to be a tough trip to Shite Hart Lane with a healthy six-point gap between us. Now Harry Redflap always used to complain about being “down to the bare bones” but here, our bare bones were down to their whatever bare bones get down to.

With no expectation of us getting even a point there, and knowing that in the general course of my existence I was bound to bump into some Spurs fans among my friends soon, I was glad that this game coincided with a short break we had arranged to Barcelona. It’s a terrific place.

One of the nicest things about going away is that opportunity to get away from some of the stupid and petty attitudes you encounter at home. The only trouble is that, if you’re unlucky, you might meet them on the way. So we’re in the queue at airline security at Heathrow – the bit where they make you take your belt off, empty your pockets, dispose of dangerous bottles of drinking water, which might harbour small amphibious terrorists, and take your shoes off to submit them to careful examination. They may be examining your sole, but it feels like these bastards are interrogating your soul. Anyway, while we are waiting, we get chatting to the family in front of us. He’s got a Welsh accent and he asks us where we’re from. When we say “London”, he comments “We used to live in London but (turning to his dopey looking cross-eyed kid), Jack would have had to learn English as a second language, to Urdu or something. So we moved to Northampton.” Effectively their response to multicultural London was Jack-off. The conversation ended there. I made a mental note to avoid Northampton, although I did remember that the nickname they gave the local football team many moons ago was “Cobblers”. How very prescient.

Barcelona is a very chilled-out place – fantastic and weird architecture, good cafes, great art – and very easy to get around. They have a tube system that even tells you where you are going and how long till the next stop. None of those announcements that, “due to planned engineering works this weekend there is no service on the Northern, Victoria, Pickled-willy, District, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Victoria or Central lines – on all other lines there is a good service.”

In Barcelona people are football-mad, and with good reason, as they have a fantastic team that will always be competing to win whatever silverware is up for grabs. My respect for them increased when I delved a little bit into their social and political history. Barcelona are the team that General Franco hated –the club’s president was murdered by Franco’s forces in 1937 and a fascist bomb was dropped on the club’s offices in 1938. Their great rivals, Real Madrid, were Franco’s team of choice – and Barcelona, the city, was a centre of resistance. In the Gothic Quarter the results of fascist bombardment and bullets have been preserved as a historical reminder.

I like Barcelona’s attitude to shirt sponsorship too – resisting countless attempts by big ugly corporations to celebrate their exploitative practices by having their names plastered all over their shirts. When they did finally accept a sponsor, it was UNICEF – the UN body working to support children’s rights across the world, especially in the most disadvantaged settings – including of course the right to play. While I was visiting I bought a shirt with Barca’s third colours - two shades of turquoise – that are not far from our own sky blue.

I don’t normally like shopping but in Barcelona it feels more like a pleasure. We were walking down one of the city’s main shopping streets when we come to a window with lots of Adidas football gear. The carefully understated slogan printed on the window stopped me in my tracks: “impossible is nothing”. It got me thinking about how we could turn round some of our football slogans and songs. We could bellow at the visiting fans: “an ambulance – your going home in” or the referee: “what you’re doing – you don’t know” – or even to ourselves “Blowing bubbles – I’m forever,” while 200 miles from London now doubt they’ll be singing “Alone – You’ll never walk.” Not sure they will catch on though.

An unlikely draw up at Villa, with an even unlikelier goal by Tristan – who never seems to move unless he really has to – sets us up nicely for today’s big East-West encounter. Chelsea haven’t given up on the championship and will rightly expect to blow us over. Even their defenders probably have more nous up front than our two fading stars in the sunset of their careers. Making a virtue of necessity, Zola has put a lot of faith in the youth to give us energy, inventiveness and improvisation. Junior Stan is relishing his opportunity and Mark Noble’s returning to better form each game. I hope today Zola will give Freddie Sears an opportunity from the start to show that he’s worth a run too as first choice till Cole gets up again from hibernation. One of our best performances this year was at Stamford Bridge where we frustrated Chelsea, hit them on the break and came within a whisker of winning it at the end. My head says we will lose by three goals but my heart tells me it will be so much closer than that. And, as they say in Barcelona: “lo imposible nada es” - “Impossible is nothing”.