Football

April 6th 2007


I first got to be friends with Alisha cos of Arsene Wenger. We were at school right and we had this teacher Mr Fielding and he was talking about football yeah and he said Arsene Wenger believes in training and discipline because he’s an alsatian. So next time old Arsene was on TV I had a look and the day after yeah I said to Mr Fielding I thought alsatian was wrong he looks more like a collie to me. And Mr Fielding did his like I-went-to-university laugh and said oh no, Chanelle, I meant he comes from the Alsace region of France.

I was like omigod and I went really red yeah but then Alisha right they used to have a house in France so she knows stuff, she said no wonder Chanelle misunderstood you Mister Fielding isn’t it supposed to be pronounced alsassyann? And old Fielding took his like I’m-popular-with-the-kids smile off his face and snapped into default teacher grumpy mode and said he was using the Anglican version thank you very much Alisha and stomped off.

So that’s why I’m friends with her because that’s what you want right, a friend who sticks up for you when you’ve embarrassed yourself instead of taking photos of you on their phone and showing them around. Well I know that’s what we did to the England cricket boys but they got arsey with us so that’s different.

If I know anything about any football team right which isn’t much yeah it would be Arsenal because when I was about fifteen I was like so so so in love with Thierry Henry I was like, Thierry will never be mine so book me that cell in the convent now. I still think he’s pretty cute to be honest but I try not to have crushes on footballers these days cos I’m supposed to be growing up and stuff right, I mean I can say I wouldn’t kick Owen Hargreaves out of bed but I’m not like pining cos there’s no future in it.

I don’t mind football but sometimes I wish it wasn’t like totally the most important thing on the planet yeah, I mean if you see a bunch of blokes shouting at each other it’s either football or politics right and 99 time out of 100 it’s football, but that’s the way it is yeah so you have to like survive in a football-obsessed world. So you have to have a few remarks up your sleeve right like, Arsenal have never really replaced Patrick Vieira have they, and with any luck you can throw that one into the conversation yeah and then the blokes won’t stop talking for about a week and you can have another margarita and get on with your life.

I have a question about football right, which is this: when foreign players come over here right and they’re like, I ‘ad to get used to ze English game because eet ees verry fast and verry physical, yeah, do they really mean that they think all our footballers know how to do is run up and down the pitch a lot and kick the shit out of each other, but the money’s good so they’re staying?

I put this question to Karl who was this boy I used to go out with yeah he was sweet but he was like the football anorak of all anoraks it could get embarrassing. And Karl looked dead hurt and offended and said it’s a matter of style and ethos right and I said well either they kick the shit out of each other or they don’t and excuse me, I watch TV. So then he decided I didn’t like football yeah and it was like this major problem in our relationship so you see what I mean yeah football has too much influence in the universe.