GOL?

by Azmi Sharom

It was quite an inauspicious start for me and this project (the objectives of which I am still uncertain). I had to rush to Sid’s Place in Bangsar South (or to use its real name, Kerinchi) from Cheras and when I got there the game was in its sixth minute and Gerrard had already scored.

Good news for the England fans then; of which there were plenty in this “English” pub. It’s a cool place and also one of the homes to the Tottenham Hotspur Malaysia Fan Club. The Irish Newcastle United-supporting manager gives me a hard time every now and then when the “Boys in White” don’t turn up in numbers (c’mon, we are Spurs supporters, there aren’t that many of us around dude!), but he’s a pal nonetheless. And he helped me with the photos. I was too damned shy to ask permission to take them.

Good job I took the photos at half time though because the mainly England supporting (not many actual English people around) were still hopeful that their team could take all three points. England were not playing all that well, but they were marginally the better team and the American goal was the result of one of the most ayam pieces of goalkeeping I had ever seen. And having watched Heurelho Gomes throughout the 2008/2009 season, I know ayam goalkeeping when I see it.

Speaking of ayams, what the hell is Emile Heskey doing in the English team? Faced in a one-to-one situation with the keeper, he shoots straight at him. This is what happens when you bring a striker who can’t strike. I mean, what is his purpose actually? Does FIFA demand a total combined weight from each team so they needed a fatty to make the numbers?

Peter Crouch may look as though he is going to break a leg at any moment every time he moves, but he can set up the goal scorers (something which Heskey is supposedly good for) and, here is the difference, the bean pole can actually score and has a pretty decent record for England.

Anyway, there were many dull periods in the game so I got to talking with my neighbour who taught me the finer points of football betting; something which I have, ahem, no experience. Seems that a lot of money goes around. Thousands and thousands. And this is without Vincent Tan.

This got me to thinking, why can’t we have legalised sports betting? People do it regardless of the law. If the government can just be honest and say, “hey, we never had any sort of moral values anyway and we want to make as much money as possible before the country sinks and we run off to our hidey holes in Geneva”, I am sure we would have betting shops all over the place.

But no, they had to play the great modern Caliphs, the saviours of Islam, and so this Vincent Tan deal just stank of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy which the honourable members on the opposite side of the house quite understandably jumped upon.

Oh well, sod that. I watch football because I don’t want to think about politics. I watch it because I want to see Olympian heroes do amazing physical feats which I can only dream about. I want the adrenaline rush of an exciting match between players who play like their lives depended on it.  Unfortunately I didn’t get that last night.

Sure there were moments where the crowd let out a collective “whoooaaa” when a goal looked likely, but these were rare.  The only people who seemed quite cheerful were the handful of USA supporters. Now, that is something I find weird. Why support USA? They have no football history. They are pretty crap. And the most irritating sound during this entire World Cup next to those bloody trumpets which sound like the continuous drone of a billion mosquitoes is the U.S.A. U.S.A. chant that inevitably comes out whenever Dempsey and crew do something remotely interesting. I don’t know, I guess Yankee patriotism just sounds and looks like trailer trash naiveté to me.

So, why did these chaps support You Ess Ay You Es Ay? Unless of course they were betting against England; I heard that you could get one ball.

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