Part 5 (2/2)
LIAM BRADY
a.r.s.eNAL v NOTTINGHAM FOREST
5.5.80
For a year I had lived with the possibility of Liam Brady's transfer to another club in the same way that, in the late fifties and early sixties, American teenagers had lived with the possibility of the impending Apocalypse. I knew it would happen, yet, even so, I allowed myself to hope; I fretted about it daily, read all the papers scrupulously for hints that he might sign a new contract, studied his onfield relations.h.i.+p with the other players at the club carefully in case it revealed signs of bonds too strong to be broken. I had never felt so intensely about an a.r.s.enal player: for five years he was the focus of the team, and therefore the centre of a very important part of myself, and the consciousness of his rumoured desire to leave a.r.s.enal was always with me, a small shadow on any X-ray of my well-being.
Most of this fixation was easy to explain. Brady was a midfield player, a pa.s.ser, and a.r.s.enal haven't really had one since he left. It might surprise those who have a rudimentary grasp of the rules of the game to learn that a First Division football team can try to play football without a player who can pa.s.s the ball, but it no longer surprises the rest of us: pa.s.sing went out of fas.h.i.+on just after silk scarves and just before inflatable bananas. Managers, coaches and therefore players now favour alternative methods of moving the ball from one part of the field to another, the chief of which is a sort of wall of muscle strung across the half-way line in order to deflect the ball in the general direction of the forwards. Most, indeed all, football fans regret this. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we used to like like pa.s.sing, that we felt that on the whole it was a good thing. It was nice to watch, football's prettiest accessory (a good player could pa.s.s to a team-mate we hadn't seen, or find an angle we wouldn't have thought of, so there was a pleasing geometry to it), but managers seemed to feel that it was a lot of trouble, and therefore stopped bothering to produce any players who could do it. There are still a couple of pa.s.sers in England, but then, there are still a number of blacksmiths. pa.s.sing, that we felt that on the whole it was a good thing. It was nice to watch, football's prettiest accessory (a good player could pa.s.s to a team-mate we hadn't seen, or find an angle we wouldn't have thought of, so there was a pleasing geometry to it), but managers seemed to feel that it was a lot of trouble, and therefore stopped bothering to produce any players who could do it. There are still a couple of pa.s.sers in England, but then, there are still a number of blacksmiths.
We overrate the seventies, most of us in our thirties. We look back on it as a golden age, and buy the old s.h.i.+rts, and watch old videos, and talk with awe and regret of Keegan and Toshack, Bell and Summerbee, Hector and Todd. We forget that the England team didn't even qualify for two World Cups, and we overlook the fact that most First Division teams contained at least one player Storey at a.r.s.enal, Smith at Liverpool, Harris at Chelsea who simply wasn't very good at football at all. Commentators and journalists complain about the behaviour of today's professionals Gazza's petulance, Fashanu's elbows, a.r.s.enal's brawling but they chuckle indulgently when they remember Lee and Hunter sc.r.a.pping all the way back to the dressing rooms after they had been sent off, or Bremner and Keegan being banished for fighting in a Charity s.h.i.+eld Charity s.h.i.+eld game. Players in the seventies weren't as fast or as fit, and probably most of them weren't even as skilful; but every single side had someone who could pa.s.s the ball. game. Players in the seventies weren't as fast or as fit, and probably most of them weren't even as skilful; but every single side had someone who could pa.s.s the ball.
Liam Brady was one of the best two or three pa.s.sers of the last twenty years, and this in itself was why he was revered by every single a.r.s.enal fan, but for me there was more to it than that. I wors.h.i.+pped him because he was great, and I wors.h.i.+pped him because, in the parlance, if you cut him he would bleed a.r.s.enal (like Charlie George he was a product of the youth team); but there was a third thing, too. He was intelligent He was intelligent. This intelligence manifested itself primarily in his pa.s.sing, which was incisive and imaginative and constantly surprising. But it showed off the pitch too: he was articulate, and drily funny, and engaged (”Come on David, put it away” he cried from the commentary box when his friend and old a.r.s.enal colleague David O'Leary was about to take the decisive penalty for Ireland in the 1990 World Cup-tie against Romania); as I progressed through the academic strata, and more and more people seemed to make a distinction between football on the one hand and the life of the mind on the other, Brady seemed to provide a bridge between the two.
Of course, intelligence in a footballer is no bad thing, particularly in a midfield player, a playmaker, although this intelligence is not the same intelligence as that required to enjoy, say, a ”difficult” European novel. Paul Gascoigne has the footballing intelligence by the bucketload (and it is a dazzling intelligence, involving, among other skills, astonis.h.i.+ng co-ordination and a lightning-fast exploitation of a situation that will change within a couple of seconds), yet his lack of even the most basic common sense is obvious and legendary. All the best footballers have some kind of wit about them: Lineker's antic.i.p.ation, s.h.i.+lton's positioning, Beckenbauer's understanding, are products of their brain rather than functions of simple athleticism. Yet it is the cla.s.sical midfielder whose cerebral attributes receive the most attention, particularly from the sports writers on the quality papers and from the middle-cla.s.s football fans.
This is not only because the sort of intelligence that Brady and his ilk possess is the most visible, in footballing terms, but because it is a.n.a.logous to the sort of intelligence that is prized in middle-cla.s.s culture. Look at the adjectives used to describe playmakers: elegant, aware, subtle, sophisticated, cunning, visionary elegant, aware, subtle, sophisticated, cunning, visionary ... these are words that could equally well describe a poet, or a film-maker, or a painter. It is as if the truly gifted footballer is too good for his milieu, and must be placed on a different, higher plane. ... these are words that could equally well describe a poet, or a film-maker, or a painter. It is as if the truly gifted footballer is too good for his milieu, and must be placed on a different, higher plane.
Certainly there was an element of this att.i.tude in my deification of Brady. Charlie George, the previous idol of the a.r.s.enal North Bank, had never been mine mine in the way Liam was. Brady was different (although of course he wasn't, really his background was pretty much the same as that of most footballers) because he was languid and mysterious, and though I possessed neither of these qualities, I felt that my education had equipped me to recognise them in others. ”A poet of the left foot,” my sister used to remark drily whenever I mentioned his name, which was often, but there was a truth behind her irony: for a time I wanted footballers to be as unlike themselves as possible and, though this was stupid, other people do it still. Pat Nevin, particularly in his Chelsea days, became a much better player when it was discovered that he knew about art and books and politics. in the way Liam was. Brady was different (although of course he wasn't, really his background was pretty much the same as that of most footballers) because he was languid and mysterious, and though I possessed neither of these qualities, I felt that my education had equipped me to recognise them in others. ”A poet of the left foot,” my sister used to remark drily whenever I mentioned his name, which was often, but there was a truth behind her irony: for a time I wanted footballers to be as unlike themselves as possible and, though this was stupid, other people do it still. Pat Nevin, particularly in his Chelsea days, became a much better player when it was discovered that he knew about art and books and politics.
The Nottingham Forest game, a sleepy nil-nil draw on a sleepy, grey, Bank Holiday Monday, was Brady's last at Highbury; he had decided that his future lay abroad, in Italy, and he was gone for several years. I was there to see him off, and he did a slow, sad lap of honour with the rest of the team. Deep down I think I still hoped that he would change his mind, or that the club would eventually become aware of the irreparable damage it would do to itself if it allowed him to leave. Some said that money was at the heart of it, and that if a.r.s.enal had stumped up more he would have stayed, but I preferred not to believe them. I preferred to believe that it was the promise of Italy itself, its culture and style, that had lured him away, and that the parochial pleasures of Hertfords.h.i.+re or Ess.e.x or wherever he lived had inevitably begun to fill him with an existential ennui. What I knew most of all was that he didn't want to leave us all, that he was torn, that he loved us as much as we loved him and that one day he would come back.
Just seven months after losing Liam to Juventus I lost my girlfriend to another man, slap-bang in the middle of the first dismal post-Brady season. And though I knew which loss hurt the most Liam's transfer induced regret and sadness, but not, thankfully, the insomnia and nausea and impossible, inconsolable bitterness of a twenty-three-year-old broken heart I think that in some strange way she and Liam got muddled up in my mind. The two of them, Brady and the Lost Girl, haunted me for a long time, five or six years, maybe, so in a way it was predictable that one ghost should melt into the other. After Brady had gone a.r.s.enal tried out a string of midfield players, some of them competent, some not, all of them doomed by the fact that they weren't the person they were trying to replace: between 1980 and 1986 Talbot, Rix, Rollins, Price, Gatting, Peter Nicholas, Robson, Petrovic, Charlie Nicholas, Davis, Williams and even centre-forward Paul Mariner all played in central midfield.
And I had a string of relations.h.i.+ps over the next four or five years, some serious, some not ... the parallels were endless. Brady's often-rumoured return (he played for four different clubs in his eight years in Italy, and before each transfer the English tabloids were full of unforgivably cruel stories about how a.r.s.enal were on the verge of re-signing him) began to take on a shamanistic quality. I knew, of course, that the bouts of vicious, exhausting depression that afflicted me in the early-to-mid eighties were not caused either by Brady or the Lost Girl. They were to do with something else, something much more difficult to comprehend, and something that must have been in me for much longer than either of these two blameless people. But during these terrifying downs, I would think back to times when I had last felt happy, fulfilled, energetic, optimistic; and she and Brady were a part of those times. They weren't entirely responsible for them, but they were very much there during them, and that was enough to turn these two love affairs into the twin supporting pillars of a different, enchanted age.
Some five or six years after he had gone, Brady did come home, to play for a.r.s.enal in Pat Jennings's testimonial game. It was a strange night. We were in even more need of him than ever (a graph of a.r.s.enal's fortunes in the eighties would resemble a U-bend), and before the game I felt nervous, but not in the way that I usually felt nervous before big games these were the nerves of a former suitor about to embark on an unavoidably painful but long-antic.i.p.ated reunion. I hoped, I suppose, that an ecstatic and tearful reception would trigger something off in Brady, that he would realise that his absence made him, as well as us, less than whole somehow. But nothing of the kind happened. He played the game, waved at us and flew back to Italy the next morning, and the next time we saw him he was wearing a West Ham s.h.i.+rt and smas.h.i.+ng the ball past our goalkeeper John Lukic from the edge of the area.
We never did replace him satisfactorily, but we found different people, with different qualities; it took me a long time to realise that this is as good a way of coping with loss as any.
a.r.s.eNALESQUE
WEST HAM v a.r.s.eNAL
10.5.80
Everyone knows the song that Millwall fans sing, to the tune of ”Sailing”: ”No one likes us/No one likes us/No one likes us/We don't care.” In fact I have always felt that the song is a little melodramatic, and that if anyone should sing it, it is a.r.s.enal. Every a.r.s.enal fan, the youngest and the oldest, is aware that no one likes us, and every day we hear that dislike reiterated. The average media-attuned football fan someone who reads a sports page most days, watches TV whenever it is on, reads a fanzine or a football magazine will come across a slighting reference to a.r.s.enal maybe two or three times a week (about as often as he or she will hear a Lennon and McCartney song, I would guess). I have just finished watching Saint and Greavsie Saint and Greavsie, during the course of which Jimmy Greaves thanked the Wrexham manager for ”delighting millions” with the Fourth Division team's victory over us in the FA Cup; the cover of a football magazine kicking around in the flat promises an article ent.i.tled ”Why does everyone hate a.r.s.enal?” Last week there was an article in a national newspaper attacking our players for their lack of artistry; one of the players thus abused was eighteen years old and hadn't even played for the first team at the time.
We're boring, and lucky, and dirty, and petulant, and rich, and mean, and have been, as far as I can tell, since the 1930s. That was when the greatest football manager of all time, Herbert Chapman, introduced an extra defender and changed the way football was played, thus founding a.r.s.enal's reputation for negative, unattractive football; yet successive a.r.s.enal teams, notably the Double team in 1971, used an intimidatingly competent defence as a springboard for success. (Thirteen of our league games that year ended nil-nil or 1-0, and it is fair to say that none of them were pretty.) I would guess that ”Lucky a.r.s.enal” was born out of ”Boring a.r.s.enal”, in that sixty years of 1-0 wins tend to test the credulity and patience of opposing fans.
West Ham, on the other hand, like Tottenham, are famous for their poetry and flair and commitment to good, fluent (”progressive”, in the current argot, a word which for those of us in our thirties is distressingly reminiscent of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson) football. Everyone has a soft spot for Peters and Moore and Hurst and Brooking and the West Ham ”Academy”, just as everyone loathes and despises Storey and Talbot and Adams and the whole idea and purpose of a.r.s.enal. No matter that the wild-eyed Martin Allen and the brutish Julian d.i.c.ks currently represent the Hammers, just as Van Den Hauwe and Fenwick and Edinburgh represent Spurs. No matter that the gifted Merson and the dazzling Limpar play for a.r.s.enal. No matter that in 1989 and 1992 we scored more goals than anyone else in the First Division. The Hammers and the Lilleywhites are the Keepers of the Flame, the Only Followers of the True Path; we are the Gunners, the Visigoths, with King Herod and the Sheriff of Nottingham as our twin centre-halves, their arms in the air appealing for offside.
West Ham, a.r.s.enal's opponents in the 1980 Cup Final, were in the Second Division that season, and their lowly status made people drool over them even more. To the nation's delight, a.r.s.enal lost. Saint Trevor of England scored the only goal and slew the odious monster, the Huns were repelled, children could sleep safely in their beds again. So what are we left with, us a.r.s.enal fans, who for most of our lives have allowed ourselves to become identified with the villains? Nothing; and our sense of stoicism and grievance is almost thrilling.
The only things anyone remembers about the game now are Brooking's rare headed goal, and Willie Young's monstrous professional foul on Paul Allen, just as the youngest player to appear in a Cup Final was about to score one of the cutest and most romantic goals ever seen at Wembley. Standing on the Wembley terraces among the silent, embarra.s.sed a.r.s.enal fans, deafened by the boos that came from the West Ham end and the neutrals in the stadium, I was appalled by Young's cynicism.
But that night, watching the highlights on TV, I became aware that a part of me actually enjoyed the foul not because it stopped Allen from scoring (the game was over, we'd lost, and that hardly mattered), but because it was so comically, parodically a.r.s.enalesque a.r.s.enalesque. Who else but an a.r.s.enal defender would have clattered a tiny seventeen-year-old member of the Academy? Motson or Davies, I can't remember which, was suitably disgusted and pompous about it all; to me, sick of hearing about how the goodies had put the baddies to flight, his righteousness sounded provocative. There was something about it that reminded me of Bill Grundy winding up the s.e.x Pistols on television in 1976 and then expressing his outrage about their behaviour afterwards. a.r.s.enal, the first of the true punk rockers: our centre-halves were fulfilling a public need for harmless pantomime deviancy long before Johnny Rotten came along.
LIFE AFTER FOOTBALL
a.r.s.eNAL v VALENCIA
14.5.80
Football teams are extraordinarily inventive in the ways they find to cause their supporters sorrow. They lead at Wembley and then throw it away; they go to the top of the First Division and then stop dead; they draw the difficult away game and lose the home replay; they beat Liverpool one week and lose to Sc.u.n.thorpe the next; they seduce you, half-way through the season, into believing that they are promotion candidates and then go the other way ... always, when you think you have antic.i.p.ated the worst that can happen, they come up with something new.
Four days after losing one cup final, a.r.s.enal lost another, to Valencia in the European Cup-Winners Cup, and the seventy-game season came to nothing. We outplayed the Spanish team, but couldn't score, and the game went to penalties; Brady and Rix missed theirs (some say that Rix was never the same again after the trauma of that night, and certainly he never recaptured his form of the late seventies, even though he went on to play for England), and that was that.
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