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12 December 2008 ~
If you needed proof of the absurdity of the British honours system, it came when the entire England cricket squad were awarded MBEs following their Ashes victory in 2005. Further confirmation was provided this week when Northern Ireland striker David Healy also received an MBE for scoring some goals a while ago. David, however, has a high opinion of his abilities, as a recently released DVD demonstrates.
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 Badge of the week
Aris Thessaloniki are a Greek side apparently named after Ares, the God of War, the Olympian Father of Bloodlust, the Raging Personification of Slaughter (you get the general idea). Except we look at the figure in the club crest and we do not see the Personification of Slaughter. We seem instead to see a shagged-out roadie sitting on the remains of the drum kit prior to loading up the van and driving to the next student union on the tour. This is not a warlike figure, but a weary and a reflective one, planning not destruction but an early night. Clearly Ares is suffering from late-season fixture congestion and has been warlike three times a week for a couple of months now. It looks as if he is stitting with his ankles crossed, which is (a) not a good position from which to start a fight, and (b) not very intimidating. A closer look suggests his left foot rests both under his buttocks and also on the floor of the podium behind the right foot. So perhaps that is Ares’s secret – he has three feet available to administer a good kicking. Cameron Carter
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Long Players The Glorious History Of Football’s Full Length Recordings  The Golden Age Dmitri Shostakovich, performed by The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Naxos, 2006)
If you were ever gripped by the urge to don a replica kit and ballet shoes and pirouette around your living room to a socialist-realist ballet, then you probably danced to football’s first ever concept album, Shostakovich’s The Golden Age. Written in the late 1920s, it’s about a Soviet football team that travels to the west only (in the words of the sleeve notes) to have “its heroic sporting and social endeavours constantly undermined by hostile administrators, decadent artistes and corrupt officials”. Listening to the flowing, brassy bombast of the music, you might not make the connection to football, but there is a referee’s whistle at the start of track 22 on CD 1, The Football Match, in which “the opposing teams forcefully act out their cultural and ideological, as well as sporting differences”. Sounds like a thriller. Though not as tense as other hard-hitting tracks, The Embarrassment of the Fascists and The Bourgeoisie In Panic. All this proley proselytising wasn’t good enough for the picky Stalinists, and the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians scotched the project. If you’re keen to see how the whole thing pans out visually, you can watch it in 14 parts on YouTube, played in a game of three acts by the Bolshoi Ballet. Ian Plenderleith
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Were you resigned to walking alone this Christmas? You needn't be.
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WSC Archive
Arsenal fans who are booing their players and questioning their manager would do well to cast their mind back a decade or so.
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Further to the David Healy news, David Wallis spotted that his former manager Lawrie Sanchez's Wikipedia entry seems to have amended by a disgruntled Fulham fan.
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WSC Trivia ~ No 45
No one likes to see footballers planting a smacker on their badge after scoring a goal. Indeed this sordid practice was roundly condemned when it first appeared, as borne out by this letter from WSC 68 (October 1992).
Dear WSC
Shirt kissing. I'm not in favour of it. Alan Shearer and Eric Cantona have been the most noticeable exponents of this new trend among goalscorers and I fear that their example will be followed by other impressionable young men. The 1986 Mexico World Cup witnessed several examples of players scoring, kissing their shirts and the haring down the touchline with their belly button displayed to the world. It’s taken six years to catch on here. Quite why it should have become the thing to do is a mystery. What’s so awful about an arm raised in silent affirmation followed by a firm handshake from your captain? That was good enough for me when I was part of a submarine crew tracking down and sinking German battleships during World War Two. In any case, our shirts were usually wet enough without being slobbered on in self-congratulation. Where have we gone wrong? Is it the education system? Channel Four? The ordination of women priests? Am I alone in blaming Top of the Pops?
Graham Kaye, Leominster
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Stickipedia
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards
 Jean-Marc Bosman, FC Liege Panini Belgium 1989
Midfielder Jean-Marc Bosman won 20 caps for Belgium at youth level but hadn’t managed to hold down a regular place with his first club, Standard Liege, before joining their city neighbours in 1987. In the summer of 1990, aged 26, he came to the end of his contract with FC Liege who offered him a new deal worth only 60 per cent of the previous one. He agreed terms on a move to Dunkerque of the French second division but they couldn’t meet Liege's fee. Two months later Bosman sued his club and the Belgian FA. In November 1990 a Belgian court declared that he should be free to move to France. By the time that the Belgian FA’s appeal against this ruling was dismissed in May 1991, Dunkerque had changed their minds about signing Bosman and no club would take him in Belgium, where he was refused unemployment benefit. Legal disputes rolled on for another four years during which he played briefly in the French lower leagues and on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. In December 1995 Bosman was awarded $1 million in damages at an EU tribunal, which established that players should be allowed to move for free at the end of their contracts. Right now, he’s got a new T-shirt collection, “for cool guys who also care about their look”.
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