Reality: It has its critics. Jean Baudrillard, for one. He argued in 1991 that the Gulf War was not taking place, it being instead a conflict conducted via electronic media which had the effect of cheapening life and reality for all humans and not just those whose lives were considerably more cheapened by being obliterated by depleted uranium shells fired from A-10 Warthog attack aircraft. Then, more importantly, there's me. I became an opponent of reality when I realised there was no way that the post-metal band I'd been playing bass in could actually mount a tour of the British Isles by driving around the islands' motorways on a flatbed truck, playing music while a mobile generator powered our amps. We were supposed to wear black denim, leopardskin tops and dungarees and it was going to be beautiful. It never happened, of course, and frankly I blame reality for that. It's always been far more fun to just pretend this shit happened.
Now, for those unimpressed by that horrific opening, I suggest clicking on one of the sponsored ads to the right because this frankly abysmal post is going to go somewhere even worse than that opening paragraph suggests. You can go ahead, I won't judge. Except to say that you're a prick. Moving swiftly on...
So we can see that reality is problematic. Football isn't exempt from this crucial philosphical debate. Nowhere in the game is this more clearly manifested than in the figure of the Real Football Man. The Real Football Man, as conjured by the media, is implicitly special. To be a mere "Football Man", for example, doesn't particularly denote anything. It suggests that you're a man and football applies to you in some way. The Venn Diagram of Football Men would therefore encompass both Diego Simeone and the curly-haired Arsenal fan who went apeshit at Old Trafford in 1998. So it's a meaningless term. Add "Real" to that expression, though, and you've hit on something. "Real" equates to "good". "Real" means "authentic". It's evidently something to aspire to.
This is some heavy shit.
In order for us to really understand what is being discussed, we first need to establish some basic criteria: What makes a Real Football Man? What does the Real Football Man look like? Well, he's British, for a start. We know this because the term has never been applied to any manager born outside of Britain and Ireland. Continental managers can never be described as Real Football Men because before their stuff happens/happened "over there" where nobody can see it. Proper Baudrillard stuff, right there. There's also the problem that contintental managers, with their bilingual skills, their exposure to weird European shit like "tactics" and so on, have spent a bit too much time in the classroom and not by the side of a rain-soaked, mud-sodden pitch in February. You know in those Michael Bay movies where the bespectacled, simpering scientist or intellectual puts forward an idea or a comment to try and solve whatever problem the US government is dealing with and he promptly gets shot down and laughed out of it by the lantern-jawed, hardened military or industrial man who, with a mere ounce of common sense which is worth more than a dozen Harvard PhDs, is able to convince a room full of adult humans that drilling into an asteroid the size of Texas and planting a bomb will save the Earth because he's a man who knows how to fukken get things done: that's the relationship of the RFM to his foreign counterpart. No, these foreign guys can't be "real" in the RFM sense of the term.
Next up, there's the matter of the RFM's record. He has to have been around a while. Not ancient, by any means although it does tend to help. He needs to have spent his time at comparatively less "glamorous" clubs. His achievements need to be modest on the face of it but mask his true brilliance. Think some foreign chancer could get a club like Wigan to an FA Cup final? Think again, pal. You need an RFM for that. There's a formula that can be applied: (Average Points Total +- (Transfer Net Spend)) X (Patronisation Factor / Size Of His Club). If you're in the black on that one then you've got yourself a Real Football Man.
Then there's the style of football itself. Now, we all know that the only clubs that play football by having the players pass the ball accurately to one another and then trust in their skills and intelligence to win matches are clubs that are so rich they can buy the Foreign People who can actually do this kind of shit properly (and are thus not real clubs) or clubs who fancy a spot of relegation to go with their humiliation. Think you can pass the ball to each other without having David Silva in your team and still stay in the Premiership? Enjoy League One, loser. Like the guys who shout down the NASA scientists in the aforementioned Michael Bay movie proposing to adjust the path of the incoming asteroid by using sequenced detonations to subtly alter its trajectory, Real Football Men know there's no time for any of that shit. You want to stay in the Premier League? You want tenth place? You want a cup run? Then this is what you do, egghead: You get it wide. You get it at your feet, you look for the channels and you hit it into them. That's assuming you've got the ball, of course. If you haven't got the ball you tackle. You crunch. You harrass. You kick. You jump and head it. This is what works. This will always work. Against everybody. Without fail.
Then there's his personality and media representation. The RFM has a chip on his shoulder. He's never considered by the big clubs whenever an opening appears. And that hurts. Back in the glory days of the 80's he'd have had his pick of anyone in the top half who wasn't Manchester United, Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur. Not now. And the boys in the press sympathise with him. Whenever one of those foreign coaches does something like go and lose 3-0 away to Chelsea they will confer conspiratorially around that sterile breakfast table with the fake food on The Sunday Supplement and say things like, "You just think to yourself 'Would a Harry Redknapp team have lost that game? Would they have played that way?'"
Lastly, there's his relationship with Alex Ferguson. Put simply, if he gets on well with Fergie but has never challenged him for a title, he's an RFM. Receive weekly calls or texts from him? A Real Football Man.
So, who are the Real Football Men? And what are they doing? In order to prevent anyone from trivialising the importance of the topic under discussion, I suggest reading the rest of this complete and utter bollocks while listening to this. Stick it on repeat, please. Thanks.
Name: Tony Pulis
Club: Crystal Palace
Why is he an RFM?: Because he GETS RESULTS, YOU EFFETE WANKER!!! There's not a continental midfield or forward line out there that doesn't live in fear of coming up against one of his teams. Mothers in Spain and Italy to this very day still tell their children, "If you go into football management and do a bad job Tony Pulis will get you." There's something about Pulis that suggests that, if it wasn't for football, he'd spend his Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the function rooms of provincial pubs explaining to local journalists, "We just think it's time Britain took a bit of pride in itself".
Why is he not an RFM?: Wears a baseball cap.
Verdict: A Real Football Man and always will be. Unless he takes the Wales job.
RFM Index: 89.9%
Name: Sam Allardyce
Club: West Ham United
Why is he an RFM?: Banter with tabloid journalists. Matt Lawton or Martin Samuels have probably sacrificed half of the Amazon rainforest in order to print praise of him. Route one football. Andy Carroll. The whiff of corruption. Unmistakable.
Why is he not an RFM?: Again, the Newcastle thing. He might have gotten away with that shit had he replaced Jim Smith in the post but after Keegan and Robson had had their way with the place? Failure's not an easy thing to live with.
Verdict: What do you think?
RFM Index: 81.4%
Name: David Moyes
Club: Currently unemployed
Why is he an RFM?: Moyes spent 11 years turning Everton into a side you were guilt-tripped into admiring, if not liking. Duty-bound as a football supporter to say, "Aye, he's done a good job there". His body permanently fixed in a hunched posture, one hand cupping his chin, he worked with mostly journeymen and some foreign talents in getting a side with fuck-all cash into the Europa League season after season. If there was a market for photographs of feisty underdogs he'd be the calendar guy for 2002-2013.
Why is he not an RFM?: He loses points because of his encounter with Hyperrealitys at United. Real Football Men don't go to Sky-approved megaclubs and he provides the textbook case why. The foreign players haven't heard of you and the English players want to know how come you haven't won anything.
Verdict: Definitely a Real Football Man although his exposure to Unreal Football will probably alter the perception of him in some quarters. If his next job is abroad he's done for as an RFM.
RFM Index: 73.5%
There's got to be more than these. But I'm knackered, as I'm sure you are too. Might come back to this after I've had another blast of the crack pipe.
Now, for those unimpressed by that horrific opening, I suggest clicking on one of the sponsored ads to the right because this frankly abysmal post is going to go somewhere even worse than that opening paragraph suggests. You can go ahead, I won't judge. Except to say that you're a prick. Moving swiftly on...
So we can see that reality is problematic. Football isn't exempt from this crucial philosphical debate. Nowhere in the game is this more clearly manifested than in the figure of the Real Football Man. The Real Football Man, as conjured by the media, is implicitly special. To be a mere "Football Man", for example, doesn't particularly denote anything. It suggests that you're a man and football applies to you in some way. The Venn Diagram of Football Men would therefore encompass both Diego Simeone and the curly-haired Arsenal fan who went apeshit at Old Trafford in 1998. So it's a meaningless term. Add "Real" to that expression, though, and you've hit on something. "Real" equates to "good". "Real" means "authentic". It's evidently something to aspire to.
This is some heavy shit.
In order for us to really understand what is being discussed, we first need to establish some basic criteria: What makes a Real Football Man? What does the Real Football Man look like? Well, he's British, for a start. We know this because the term has never been applied to any manager born outside of Britain and Ireland. Continental managers can never be described as Real Football Men because before their stuff happens/happened "over there" where nobody can see it. Proper Baudrillard stuff, right there. There's also the problem that contintental managers, with their bilingual skills, their exposure to weird European shit like "tactics" and so on, have spent a bit too much time in the classroom and not by the side of a rain-soaked, mud-sodden pitch in February. You know in those Michael Bay movies where the bespectacled, simpering scientist or intellectual puts forward an idea or a comment to try and solve whatever problem the US government is dealing with and he promptly gets shot down and laughed out of it by the lantern-jawed, hardened military or industrial man who, with a mere ounce of common sense which is worth more than a dozen Harvard PhDs, is able to convince a room full of adult humans that drilling into an asteroid the size of Texas and planting a bomb will save the Earth because he's a man who knows how to fukken get things done: that's the relationship of the RFM to his foreign counterpart. No, these foreign guys can't be "real" in the RFM sense of the term.
Next up, there's the matter of the RFM's record. He has to have been around a while. Not ancient, by any means although it does tend to help. He needs to have spent his time at comparatively less "glamorous" clubs. His achievements need to be modest on the face of it but mask his true brilliance. Think some foreign chancer could get a club like Wigan to an FA Cup final? Think again, pal. You need an RFM for that. There's a formula that can be applied: (Average Points Total +- (Transfer Net Spend)) X (Patronisation Factor / Size Of His Club). If you're in the black on that one then you've got yourself a Real Football Man.
Then there's the style of football itself. Now, we all know that the only clubs that play football by having the players pass the ball accurately to one another and then trust in their skills and intelligence to win matches are clubs that are so rich they can buy the Foreign People who can actually do this kind of shit properly (and are thus not real clubs) or clubs who fancy a spot of relegation to go with their humiliation. Think you can pass the ball to each other without having David Silva in your team and still stay in the Premiership? Enjoy League One, loser. Like the guys who shout down the NASA scientists in the aforementioned Michael Bay movie proposing to adjust the path of the incoming asteroid by using sequenced detonations to subtly alter its trajectory, Real Football Men know there's no time for any of that shit. You want to stay in the Premier League? You want tenth place? You want a cup run? Then this is what you do, egghead: You get it wide. You get it at your feet, you look for the channels and you hit it into them. That's assuming you've got the ball, of course. If you haven't got the ball you tackle. You crunch. You harrass. You kick. You jump and head it. This is what works. This will always work. Against everybody. Without fail.
Then there's his personality and media representation. The RFM has a chip on his shoulder. He's never considered by the big clubs whenever an opening appears. And that hurts. Back in the glory days of the 80's he'd have had his pick of anyone in the top half who wasn't Manchester United, Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur. Not now. And the boys in the press sympathise with him. Whenever one of those foreign coaches does something like go and lose 3-0 away to Chelsea they will confer conspiratorially around that sterile breakfast table with the fake food on The Sunday Supplement and say things like, "You just think to yourself 'Would a Harry Redknapp team have lost that game? Would they have played that way?'"
Lastly, there's his relationship with Alex Ferguson. Put simply, if he gets on well with Fergie but has never challenged him for a title, he's an RFM. Receive weekly calls or texts from him? A Real Football Man.
So, who are the Real Football Men? And what are they doing? In order to prevent anyone from trivialising the importance of the topic under discussion, I suggest reading the rest of this complete and utter bollocks while listening to this. Stick it on repeat, please. Thanks.
Name: Tony Pulis
Club: Crystal Palace
Why is he an RFM?: Because he GETS RESULTS, YOU EFFETE WANKER!!! There's not a continental midfield or forward line out there that doesn't live in fear of coming up against one of his teams. Mothers in Spain and Italy to this very day still tell their children, "If you go into football management and do a bad job Tony Pulis will get you." There's something about Pulis that suggests that, if it wasn't for football, he'd spend his Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the function rooms of provincial pubs explaining to local journalists, "We just think it's time Britain took a bit of pride in itself".
Why is he not an RFM?: Wears a baseball cap.
Verdict: A Real Football Man and always will be. Unless he takes the Wales job.
RFM Index: 89.9%
Name: Sam Allardyce
Club: West Ham United
Why is he an RFM?: Banter with tabloid journalists. Matt Lawton or Martin Samuels have probably sacrificed half of the Amazon rainforest in order to print praise of him. Route one football. Andy Carroll. The whiff of corruption. Unmistakable.
Why is he not an RFM?: Again, the Newcastle thing. He might have gotten away with that shit had he replaced Jim Smith in the post but after Keegan and Robson had had their way with the place? Failure's not an easy thing to live with.
Verdict: What do you think?
RFM Index: 81.4%
Name: David Moyes
Club: Currently unemployed
Why is he an RFM?: Moyes spent 11 years turning Everton into a side you were guilt-tripped into admiring, if not liking. Duty-bound as a football supporter to say, "Aye, he's done a good job there". His body permanently fixed in a hunched posture, one hand cupping his chin, he worked with mostly journeymen and some foreign talents in getting a side with fuck-all cash into the Europa League season after season. If there was a market for photographs of feisty underdogs he'd be the calendar guy for 2002-2013.
Why is he not an RFM?: He loses points because of his encounter with Hyperrealitys at United. Real Football Men don't go to Sky-approved megaclubs and he provides the textbook case why. The foreign players haven't heard of you and the English players want to know how come you haven't won anything.
Verdict: Definitely a Real Football Man although his exposure to Unreal Football will probably alter the perception of him in some quarters. If his next job is abroad he's done for as an RFM.
RFM Index: 73.5%
There's got to be more than these. But I'm knackered, as I'm sure you are too. Might come back to this after I've had another blast of the crack pipe.
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