Cast – Richard Shand (capt), his butty Martin, Darren Tandy, his butty Russ, Adrian Colley, Stu Ropke and Paul Shore.
Sick notes - Marc Thomas, Huw Thomas. All the other 150 27 Club members who didn't want to play. At least Marc and Huw nearly turned up.
Location: Douglas Eyre sports ground, wonderful Walthamstow.
Weather: we boiled lobsters on the centre spot
Trophy gained: wooden spoon
All I can say is – we must be the best team ever to win the wooden spoon because no bloody way were we the worst team in the tournament. One more time for emphasis, no bloody way. NO BLOODY WAY. And that’s not just cos I happened to miss both penalties in the crucial penalty shootout. As Oscar Wilde said: To lose one penalty may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness. OK maybe it was carelessness, especially the second one which went exactly the same place as my first – I think the keeper caught it with his knees. Show-off. Anyway I bled for this club on Saturday. Not copiously but I have been putting lots of Savlon on my legs as they hurt. Question – where do you put Savlon on a sore psyche?
Yes, boys, it still bloody hurts.
Act 1 – 1927 Club 1 Birmingham 1. The holders were well on the way to a humiliating defeat when, with 30 seconds left, your correspondent confidently let a long ball over his head knowing that keeper Shandy would collect it with an exaggerated roll, like a snared eel, on the floor wasting another 10 seconds in the process. Mistake. Next time head the fucking thing to fucking Andromeda. A Brummie had a different idea, picked up the ball and slammed it home for the equaliser. However I earned the right to a mistake cos I scored our only goal of the tournament with a fearsome lunge between their keeper and last defender from two yards out to win not a 50/50 but a 98/2 ball (the 2 being my theoretical chance of winning the challenge). Please remind me of this goal next time you see me and I’ll buy you a drink and talk about it for 10 minutes. I later heard the defender sadly telling the keeper: “Sorry about that. I didn’t know he was allowed in our box!” Heh, heh, stop polishing your trophies and read the rules next time, suckers!
Act 2 – 1927 Club 0 Stratford Stompers 1. It was disappointing to find out our opponents were locals rather than some hobbledehoy itinerant band of devil-may-care Shakespearean hooligans. Their name has a bit of ring to it, no? Fie on these guys. We should have won this one too. Why? I dunno, I can’t remember anything about the game. Ask someone else.
Act 3 – 1927 Club 0 Celtic 0. Jocks have a deserved reputation for fearsome violence delivered with relish, as anyone who was at Anfield in 1977 will tell you. Having once walked up Gallowgate (top tip: DON’T! Hire a tank) to watch the Bhoys play Tel Aviv, their name on the fixture list commanded instant respect and I wore seven shinpads on each leg. Maybe that was why I felt a bit tired. However, it’s only fair to point out that our opponents were not at all inclined to behave in line with their reputation and were remarkably fair-minded. Russ played very well and so did Tandy. It’s official – Glaswegians are cuddly.
Act 4 – Plate semi-final: 1927 Club 0 Sarfend 1. Cor blimey we wuz well up for this rumble but one of their geezers burst through second ‘arf, larged it towards Shandy. Wallop, 1-0. Sweet. Fancy losing to Sarfend eh? Gutted!
Act 5 – Wooden spoon play-off 1927 Club 0 Orientear 0. Another glorious 0-0 draw. Christ how did we not win this one? Suppose it helps to have a shot from within 10 yards but bloody hell the gathered crowd of 50 rabid Orienteers were begging the ref to blow for full-time more or less from the start. I swear I heard them trying to persuade blackbirds to mimic the ref’s whistle so they could proceed to their cunning plan of penalties which they had obviously been practising for months, if not decades. Anyway it went to penalties. Ask me about the penalties and I’ll thump you.
The ref was Scottish, maybe we can blame him. And as the guilty penalty-taker I’m blaming just about bloody everybody.
Torquay won the cup, beating lucky Birmingham in the final. Full marks to our skipper for trudging round to Number 29 Edward Road and saying in a high-pitched voice: “Can we have our ball back please?” after it was booted into No 29’s pond (did we murder any guppies lads?) and also for some classy goalkeeping. Scott Thomas may have played his last game for the 27 Club. It has to be said we were extremely hard to score against but lacked punch up front. We are all absolutely adamant that we played far better than our final rating.
Best quote: Tandy, recalling the day we were showered with all sorts of unspeakable Italian effluent in Milan at Wales v Pisschuckers in 2003, all of it emanating from within the heartless Italian hoolies’ own bodies: “It was just like an episode of Tiswas.”
Best player: our ringer Russ. Turned up in specs and wearing a Man U shirt and baseball cap. Played the whole of the five games wearing specs, Man U shirt and a baseball cap and, blow me, always a tricky customer and barely a trace of sweat on the cap at the end of the day.
Next year – I’m playing cricket instead.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
OO2
Shepherds Bush Empire
Accompanied this time by a musicianly ear - Mike - who played sax with Wasted Youth in the 80s. This band toured with the Only Ones in the early 80s and they turned him on to the OOs, who had by then split.
Mike wasn't as smitten as I am by what he saw. He's not a fan of bands past their heyday re-forming, though he makes an exception for Dexys. He reckons some of the playing was loose - The Beast a 'mess', though I enjoyed it. He figured support band - Perrett's kids - were tighter. Have to say that the Nottingham gig was much more intimate and satisfying.
Good turnout by the London crowd - standing area was jam-packed to the point where you remembered that it was a good thing that you stopped going to gigs (happened to me when I was about 26). All those big bastards, too big to chin or pick an argument with, standing in front of you blocking your view or jostling you.
Set list more or less the same as Wednesday, with the addition of As My Wife Says and Someone Who Cares. Missing were Why Don't You Kill Yourself and No Solution. Lovers of Today was the last encore. Me and My Shadow became first encore, which worked nicely I thought, as it allowed for Kellie to get some deserved acclaim as the band joined him one by one to perform the song.
The better bits were a blistering Another Girl, Another Planet which sounded ten times better than on Wednesday and, for me at any rate, The Beast. Amess perhaps but a deeply satisfying one.
Roll on the Hyde Park show on Thursday where, I understand, Air, Queens of the Stone Age and the White Stripes are on the supporting bill.
Accompanied this time by a musicianly ear - Mike - who played sax with Wasted Youth in the 80s. This band toured with the Only Ones in the early 80s and they turned him on to the OOs, who had by then split.
Mike wasn't as smitten as I am by what he saw. He's not a fan of bands past their heyday re-forming, though he makes an exception for Dexys. He reckons some of the playing was loose - The Beast a 'mess', though I enjoyed it. He figured support band - Perrett's kids - were tighter. Have to say that the Nottingham gig was much more intimate and satisfying.
Good turnout by the London crowd - standing area was jam-packed to the point where you remembered that it was a good thing that you stopped going to gigs (happened to me when I was about 26). All those big bastards, too big to chin or pick an argument with, standing in front of you blocking your view or jostling you.
Set list more or less the same as Wednesday, with the addition of As My Wife Says and Someone Who Cares. Missing were Why Don't You Kill Yourself and No Solution. Lovers of Today was the last encore. Me and My Shadow became first encore, which worked nicely I thought, as it allowed for Kellie to get some deserved acclaim as the band joined him one by one to perform the song.
The better bits were a blistering Another Girl, Another Planet which sounded ten times better than on Wednesday and, for me at any rate, The Beast. Amess perhaps but a deeply satisfying one.
Roll on the Hyde Park show on Thursday where, I understand, Air, Queens of the Stone Age and the White Stripes are on the supporting bill.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Warney's big toe
Arundel: Sussex v Hants.
'Cricket is better than sex', I tell people when they wonder why you play. Watching cricket is no substitute but at least it's a great day out in the country, when you go to Arundel, anyway.
Final chance perhaps to see one of the world's greatest sportsmen. A zillion Test wickets and a million front and back pages. One of the best players ever. Shane Warne spent much of the day on the field, as Hampshire skipper, slowing down play in a bid to induce a declaration from Sussex who set a target of 500. His histrionics - pretty mild really - irritated the crowd but what else could do? Good to see he still cares passionately about his cricket enough to be an awkward opponent - and that he's not treating Hampshire as a post-Test career sinecure. Sussex looked well on the way to setting a fourth-innings target of 800.
He didn't bowl well - arrived to watch him being twatted to all corners. Replacement Shaun Udal immediately soon claimed Goodwin on 99 and the Pakistani bowler Rana then slogged an interesting 20 or so before Adams hit 103 and declared.
But Warney still holds the attention, even when off the pitch. As Hampshire started their reply he sauntered barefoot outside the pavilion, entering the picket-fenced players' pen underneath a huge tree. An idyllic scene, we could have been in the 1930s. The alpha male at all times.
Sat next to, I think, Mascarenhas. All the other players on his right but all seemed to cock half an ear in his direction as he and Mascarenhas spoke for maybe 10 minutes, Warney put a silverback gorilla-like paw round Mascarenhas and even apparently stroking the back of his head at one point (I was only five yards away).
What struck me was the size of his feet. Warney has huge toes and his big toe is even bigger than my thumb, which is a bit of a tiddler cos I've got very small hands.
Once again though - struck by how nearly everyone seems to be over 40. Same feeling as when you play local league stuff - not many guys under 35, though this just may be a reflection on the standard our team plays at. Cricket - an analogue sport in a digital age. Once Warney retires, where will the next star come from?
'Cricket is better than sex', I tell people when they wonder why you play. Watching cricket is no substitute but at least it's a great day out in the country, when you go to Arundel, anyway.
Final chance perhaps to see one of the world's greatest sportsmen. A zillion Test wickets and a million front and back pages. One of the best players ever. Shane Warne spent much of the day on the field, as Hampshire skipper, slowing down play in a bid to induce a declaration from Sussex who set a target of 500. His histrionics - pretty mild really - irritated the crowd but what else could do? Good to see he still cares passionately about his cricket enough to be an awkward opponent - and that he's not treating Hampshire as a post-Test career sinecure. Sussex looked well on the way to setting a fourth-innings target of 800.
He didn't bowl well - arrived to watch him being twatted to all corners. Replacement Shaun Udal immediately soon claimed Goodwin on 99 and the Pakistani bowler Rana then slogged an interesting 20 or so before Adams hit 103 and declared.
But Warney still holds the attention, even when off the pitch. As Hampshire started their reply he sauntered barefoot outside the pavilion, entering the picket-fenced players' pen underneath a huge tree. An idyllic scene, we could have been in the 1930s. The alpha male at all times.
Sat next to, I think, Mascarenhas. All the other players on his right but all seemed to cock half an ear in his direction as he and Mascarenhas spoke for maybe 10 minutes, Warney put a silverback gorilla-like paw round Mascarenhas and even apparently stroking the back of his head at one point (I was only five yards away).
What struck me was the size of his feet. Warney has huge toes and his big toe is even bigger than my thumb, which is a bit of a tiddler cos I've got very small hands.
Once again though - struck by how nearly everyone seems to be over 40. Same feeling as when you play local league stuff - not many guys under 35, though this just may be a reflection on the standard our team plays at. Cricket - an analogue sport in a digital age. Once Warney retires, where will the next star come from?
Thursday, June 7, 2007
The Only Ones
There was one band in the world I wished would re-form - The Only Ones.
The feeling first came maybe 20 years ago during the post-Smiths slump when bands lacked lustre. Why wouldn't they want to do it? What was stopping them?
They weren't even my favourite act but the question became, why, when they were all alive, - albeit only just perhaps - did they not do it when every ratty, rickety rocker was? And most of them were far less talented.
For me this is the great existential band. A songwriter, Perrett, who is needy and nihilistic who cuts straight to the chase with arresting opening lines "Why do I go through these deep emotional traumas?" He should have been a journo.
Not only that they recorded the best single ever. Which was largely ignored at the time. Been covered since though I can't see why people try to emulate this - despite Paul Westerberg doing a reasonable acoustic version in London a coupla years back. At least that's a sign of good taste
This band have unfinished business perhaps more than any other. As a sixth former I'd seen them only on the tour to promote the third album Baby's Got A Gun, at a quarter-full Top Rank in Cardiff in 1981. Despite being a favourite band the gig was barely memorable. Support band Wasted Youth, all in black, stayed in the memory longer - not because they were better but because a pal later played sax in the group.
Anyway, cut to the scene: Nottingham Rescue Rooms. About 250 people in the club - the average age well over 40. The gig was switched from Rock City. Beyonce and plodding clunkers INXS were also in town. But had they recorded the best single ever?
Support band Hellset were a 20something trio of bass, drums and keyboards - the piano-pummmelling leader boasting an enormous and likeable self-belief as he thrashed out some proggy stuff. The second song was introduced as: "About whores and wankers in union on wagon." Still trying to work that one out. Back in the early 80s they might have ended up being canned off for being hippie-esque and they weren't my cup of tea but they were warm, engaging and well-received.
Come 9.30pm they were only two questions - do ex-punks still pogo in their 40s? And do The Only Ones still have the sacred fire?
On they came:
Alan Mair - the group godfather perhaps - the man apparently most responsible for the long-awaited reunion. Kept a fairly low profile.
Mike Kellie - a man who seems to epitomise the word 'loom'. He seemed huge in the 70s, especially in a nation of shortarses like Wales. He's still huge. Or rather he 'looms' large even in these days.
John Perry - dark-shirted, milky complexion topped with a natty trilby (must get one). Due to regular gigging seemed the most comfortable musician on stage. Played as if in his own world and with pillbox slits for eyes. The driving force of the music this evening.
Perrett - sporting sunglasses. Slightly stooped, shockingly thin, even though you were aware this would be the case. Don't think I've ever seen a front man/vocalist so meek. Singing and playing guitar looked a real effort. He exuded a lamb-like, girlish innocence and frequently used his left hand to scratch a healthy mop of brown hair in apparent puzzlement.
The set list:
Lovers of Today
Miles from Nowhere
From Here to Eternity
In Betweens
Why Don't You Kill Yourself?
Dreamt She Could Fly
It's the Truth
Programme
Whole of the Law
Flowers Die
Big Sleep
No Peace for the Wicked
Another Girl, Another Planet
The Beast
Encores
Flaming Torch
Me and My Shadow
No Solutions
Don't want to analyse each song separately as that would have got in the way of enjoying the whole night. But there was no fluff here, not much said between songs. I got suckered by: "This is a new one." It took several seconds to realised they were playing AGAP. Perrett's voice isn't the strongest, but it never cracked and he mastered some of the trickier phrasings.
His bleak lyricism slowly came to the fore and by the end of the gig his skeletal appearance had been forgotten. For the encore, off came the sunglasses and he no longer seemed to be hiding from us - there was even time for a couple of shy smiles. He seemed a man of 55 going on 17. Ordeal finally over, he allowed himself to enjoy it.
The Only Ones are not a great live band as a spectacle but they are very good and the songs speak for themselves - some of the subtlety and delicacy's lost live. Bu this was an intimate, compelling and necessary reunion. Not just for them - for us too. And to my unmusicianly ear, more or less note perfect.
By the end you got a strong sense of what the first two albums provide - that you'd been spoken to personally. And for the last half hour the intensity and the context of a 'dream come true' made you feel that the performance had been for your rapture alone and that 249 audience members has somehow melted away.
It was a privilege to spend four hours on a train to get there and four hours coming home. On Saturday, it will be repeated with a trip to Shepherds Bush.
The feeling first came maybe 20 years ago during the post-Smiths slump when bands lacked lustre. Why wouldn't they want to do it? What was stopping them?
They weren't even my favourite act but the question became, why, when they were all alive, - albeit only just perhaps - did they not do it when every ratty, rickety rocker was? And most of them were far less talented.
For me this is the great existential band. A songwriter, Perrett, who is needy and nihilistic who cuts straight to the chase with arresting opening lines "Why do I go through these deep emotional traumas?" He should have been a journo.
Not only that they recorded the best single ever. Which was largely ignored at the time. Been covered since though I can't see why people try to emulate this - despite Paul Westerberg doing a reasonable acoustic version in London a coupla years back. At least that's a sign of good taste
This band have unfinished business perhaps more than any other. As a sixth former I'd seen them only on the tour to promote the third album Baby's Got A Gun, at a quarter-full Top Rank in Cardiff in 1981. Despite being a favourite band the gig was barely memorable. Support band Wasted Youth, all in black, stayed in the memory longer - not because they were better but because a pal later played sax in the group.
Anyway, cut to the scene: Nottingham Rescue Rooms. About 250 people in the club - the average age well over 40. The gig was switched from Rock City. Beyonce and plodding clunkers INXS were also in town. But had they recorded the best single ever?
Support band Hellset were a 20something trio of bass, drums and keyboards - the piano-pummmelling leader boasting an enormous and likeable self-belief as he thrashed out some proggy stuff. The second song was introduced as: "About whores and wankers in union on wagon." Still trying to work that one out. Back in the early 80s they might have ended up being canned off for being hippie-esque and they weren't my cup of tea but they were warm, engaging and well-received.
Come 9.30pm they were only two questions - do ex-punks still pogo in their 40s? And do The Only Ones still have the sacred fire?
On they came:
Alan Mair - the group godfather perhaps - the man apparently most responsible for the long-awaited reunion. Kept a fairly low profile.
Mike Kellie - a man who seems to epitomise the word 'loom'. He seemed huge in the 70s, especially in a nation of shortarses like Wales. He's still huge. Or rather he 'looms' large even in these days.
John Perry - dark-shirted, milky complexion topped with a natty trilby (must get one). Due to regular gigging seemed the most comfortable musician on stage. Played as if in his own world and with pillbox slits for eyes. The driving force of the music this evening.
Perrett - sporting sunglasses. Slightly stooped, shockingly thin, even though you were aware this would be the case. Don't think I've ever seen a front man/vocalist so meek. Singing and playing guitar looked a real effort. He exuded a lamb-like, girlish innocence and frequently used his left hand to scratch a healthy mop of brown hair in apparent puzzlement.
The set list:
Lovers of Today
Miles from Nowhere
From Here to Eternity
In Betweens
Why Don't You Kill Yourself?
Dreamt She Could Fly
It's the Truth
Programme
Whole of the Law
Flowers Die
Big Sleep
No Peace for the Wicked
Another Girl, Another Planet
The Beast
Encores
Flaming Torch
Me and My Shadow
No Solutions
Don't want to analyse each song separately as that would have got in the way of enjoying the whole night. But there was no fluff here, not much said between songs. I got suckered by: "This is a new one." It took several seconds to realised they were playing AGAP. Perrett's voice isn't the strongest, but it never cracked and he mastered some of the trickier phrasings.
His bleak lyricism slowly came to the fore and by the end of the gig his skeletal appearance had been forgotten. For the encore, off came the sunglasses and he no longer seemed to be hiding from us - there was even time for a couple of shy smiles. He seemed a man of 55 going on 17. Ordeal finally over, he allowed himself to enjoy it.
The Only Ones are not a great live band as a spectacle but they are very good and the songs speak for themselves - some of the subtlety and delicacy's lost live. Bu this was an intimate, compelling and necessary reunion. Not just for them - for us too. And to my unmusicianly ear, more or less note perfect.
By the end you got a strong sense of what the first two albums provide - that you'd been spoken to personally. And for the last half hour the intensity and the context of a 'dream come true' made you feel that the performance had been for your rapture alone and that 249 audience members has somehow melted away.
It was a privilege to spend four hours on a train to get there and four hours coming home. On Saturday, it will be repeated with a trip to Shepherds Bush.
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