EXCELLENT ENGLAND GRIND COLOMBIA INTO A FINE WHITE POWDER 1-1 (4-3 pens)
It is hardly as if Bobby Moore is the only man ever to have led England to World Cup glory; there have been countless others. Take, for example, Jack Taylor, that great Englishman who was responsible for the decisive penalties that determined victory in the 1974 World Cup. Mr Moore was, however, among the fairest and comeliest and his gesture prior to receiving the trophy at Wembley of wiping his hands on his shorts, which had become inevitably soiled at the prospect of meeting the Queen, makes him out as the truest of gentlemen.
It therefore galls me to the quick even today to think that this this prince among men, this direct descendant from St George, this straddling demi-God was the subject of a prolonged and base accusation by some scheming shopgirl concerning the purloining of a bracelet in a hotel shop in Bogotá prior to the 1970 World Cup. Clearly Mr Moore was innocent; he need only have produced his English passport as proof of that. That the authorities persisted with their investigation nonetheless was an unpardonable slight. The British army, air force and navy were mobilised; if the Colombians persisted in their persecution of Moore, British boats would have sailed round Cape Horn, the old-fashioned way, and staged a ground invasion of the country in order to obtain honourable satisfaction. Many hundreds of British soldiers would have lost their lives but done so willingly for the hero of 1966. Fortunately, realising that they would be reduced to cinders as a nation if they carried on, the Colombian authorities withdrew all charges.
We could expect the Colombians to use similarly shady tactics today; as commentators wisely pointed out last night, theirs is a different, more infantile culture. Not like our own, upstanding creed. When in our island history we colonised entire countries we always did so after a fair fight, conducted according to a decent military code, with handshakes all round after the conquests were concluded. There was no writhing around on the floor feigning injury, rolling over or discreet treading on ankles as we enslaved their people and looted their resources; everything was by the book.
It was against this nation of spurious-theft-of-bracelets-charges-trumping-up, coffee and cocaine-addled swarthy curs, however, named after the fellow who discovered the Americas since its natives were too obtuse to realise they existed until he turned up, that England were ranged last night. The National Anthems were the measure of the disparity. Our own was bellowed with raging, tumescent gusto by every man-jack of the England team, with small tracksuited boys collecting the discharge in buckets, to be immediately refrigerated and dispatched to FA laboratories for future insemination. The Columbian effort, by contrast, sounded like the clueless procession of a ragged national army accidentally marching into jungle territory, one by one, and brought down with blowdarts.
The game began at a cracking pelt, with Harry Kane leading the charge, quite literally on horseback. I recall his great-Uncle, Colonel Sir Henry Kane, on the Western Front back in January 1915. This was following the great football match of Christmas 1914, which, of course, England won by a large margin; this caused such indignation among the Germans that they persisted with the war for three futile years rather than sensibly surrendering. A further bonus was that England’s players purloined the German ball after the game by way of a trophy, to add to the red-faced rage of the “sausage swallowers”. Colonel Kane decided to taunt Fritz by instructing his men to cast a spotlight on him as he played “keepie-up” with the ball in no man’s land. He was riddled with bullets after just seven volleys but already showed touches of the ancestral skill he would pass on to his great-nephew. A great man, Colonel Kane regarded any sort of reluctance to die as the mark of a craven coward.
With Colombia’s defenders constantly dashing to the touchlines and dead ball line, lured by their white substances, kneeling down and snorting them furiously, England were left plenty of space in the final third to operate. It wasn’t long before the Columbians were up to their tricks, however; their manager, Roger Waters, once wrote the Pink Floyd album Animals and it was as animals that his team behaved. At one point their centre back brought down Jesse Lingard, bundled him into a car boot, drove him to a remote location and severed his ear which he sent to the English FA along with a ransom demand. All of this was on the blind side of the referee, however, with VAR failing to take action. Fortunately, Lingard refused to rise to the provocation, brushing off the incident.
Come half time, as England’s northern players made tea and prepared sandwiches for their southern counterparts, manager Gareth Southgate called for a volunteer to score England’s opening goal. Without hesitation, Harry Kane stood up and did so and duly obliged as the hour mark approached, receiving a penalty following attempted sodomy inside the area by a Colombian defender. It was at this point that the Columbians had the effrontery to abandon some of their dirty tactics and attempt to play some football of their own. This certainly wasn’t because they’d finally realised they were up against a callow shower of overrated mediocrity barely capable of basic one-touch football. No, this was an act of studied insolence, a crude imitation.
England merely answered back with silken skills of their own. Raheem Sterling showed once again that it is not an ability to pass defenders or score goals that counts but a willingness, albeit vague and intermittent, to do so. Kyle Walker showed once again that he plays with the undeniable stamp of great British sportsmen; their were moments in this game when he played like Frank Bruno. Eric Trippier is a fine, two footed player. Those who say it’d have been fucking helpful last night if he’d grown another fucking foot when defending that fucking corner are, to my mind, misguided.
Finally, by way of atonement for earlier refereeing blunders, England were awarded four consecutive penalties, each of which they converted with aplomb. As the Colombians snivelled and sniffed up the centre circle, halfway line and both penalty spots by way of consolation, England celebrated and headed back to the team hotel, there to loot the shop of every last bracelet by way of spoils, to distribute among their wives and girlfriends. England’s route to World Cup Final is clear and certainly doesn’t involve hoping all the decent sides somehow knock each other out, leaving us as last man standing like a knock-kneed Buster Keaton in a silent all-in wrestling comedy, surrounded by enormous men flat on their backs, surprised to have the referee raise his hand. We shall do it by blood, spunk and the thrash of the Kane.
It is hardly as if Bobby Moore is the only man ever to have led England to World Cup glory; there have been countless others. Take, for example, Jack Taylor, that great Englishman who was responsible for the decisive penalties that determined victory in the 1974 World Cup. Mr Moore was, however, among the fairest and comeliest and his gesture prior to receiving the trophy at Wembley of wiping his hands on his shorts, which had become inevitably soiled at the prospect of meeting the Queen, makes him out as the truest of gentlemen.
It therefore galls me to the quick even today to think that this this prince among men, this direct descendant from St George, this straddling demi-God was the subject of a prolonged and base accusation by some scheming shopgirl concerning the purloining of a bracelet in a hotel shop in Bogotá prior to the 1970 World Cup. Clearly Mr Moore was innocent; he need only have produced his English passport as proof of that. That the authorities persisted with their investigation nonetheless was an unpardonable slight. The British army, air force and navy were mobilised; if the Colombians persisted in their persecution of Moore, British boats would have sailed round Cape Horn, the old-fashioned way, and staged a ground invasion of the country in order to obtain honourable satisfaction. Many hundreds of British soldiers would have lost their lives but done so willingly for the hero of 1966. Fortunately, realising that they would be reduced to cinders as a nation if they carried on, the Colombian authorities withdrew all charges.
We could expect the Colombians to use similarly shady tactics today; as commentators wisely pointed out last night, theirs is a different, more infantile culture. Not like our own, upstanding creed. When in our island history we colonised entire countries we always did so after a fair fight, conducted according to a decent military code, with handshakes all round after the conquests were concluded. There was no writhing around on the floor feigning injury, rolling over or discreet treading on ankles as we enslaved their people and looted their resources; everything was by the book.
It was against this nation of spurious-theft-of-bracelets-charges-trumping-up, coffee and cocaine-addled swarthy curs, however, named after the fellow who discovered the Americas since its natives were too obtuse to realise they existed until he turned up, that England were ranged last night. The National Anthems were the measure of the disparity. Our own was bellowed with raging, tumescent gusto by every man-jack of the England team, with small tracksuited boys collecting the discharge in buckets, to be immediately refrigerated and dispatched to FA laboratories for future insemination. The Columbian effort, by contrast, sounded like the clueless procession of a ragged national army accidentally marching into jungle territory, one by one, and brought down with blowdarts.
The game began at a cracking pelt, with Harry Kane leading the charge, quite literally on horseback. I recall his great-Uncle, Colonel Sir Henry Kane, on the Western Front back in January 1915. This was following the great football match of Christmas 1914, which, of course, England won by a large margin; this caused such indignation among the Germans that they persisted with the war for three futile years rather than sensibly surrendering. A further bonus was that England’s players purloined the German ball after the game by way of a trophy, to add to the red-faced rage of the “sausage swallowers”. Colonel Kane decided to taunt Fritz by instructing his men to cast a spotlight on him as he played “keepie-up” with the ball in no man’s land. He was riddled with bullets after just seven volleys but already showed touches of the ancestral skill he would pass on to his great-nephew. A great man, Colonel Kane regarded any sort of reluctance to die as the mark of a craven coward.
With Colombia’s defenders constantly dashing to the touchlines and dead ball line, lured by their white substances, kneeling down and snorting them furiously, England were left plenty of space in the final third to operate. It wasn’t long before the Columbians were up to their tricks, however; their manager, Roger Waters, once wrote the Pink Floyd album Animals and it was as animals that his team behaved. At one point their centre back brought down Jesse Lingard, bundled him into a car boot, drove him to a remote location and severed his ear which he sent to the English FA along with a ransom demand. All of this was on the blind side of the referee, however, with VAR failing to take action. Fortunately, Lingard refused to rise to the provocation, brushing off the incident.
Come half time, as England’s northern players made tea and prepared sandwiches for their southern counterparts, manager Gareth Southgate called for a volunteer to score England’s opening goal. Without hesitation, Harry Kane stood up and did so and duly obliged as the hour mark approached, receiving a penalty following attempted sodomy inside the area by a Colombian defender. It was at this point that the Columbians had the effrontery to abandon some of their dirty tactics and attempt to play some football of their own. This certainly wasn’t because they’d finally realised they were up against a callow shower of overrated mediocrity barely capable of basic one-touch football. No, this was an act of studied insolence, a crude imitation.
England merely answered back with silken skills of their own. Raheem Sterling showed once again that it is not an ability to pass defenders or score goals that counts but a willingness, albeit vague and intermittent, to do so. Kyle Walker showed once again that he plays with the undeniable stamp of great British sportsmen; their were moments in this game when he played like Frank Bruno. Eric Trippier is a fine, two footed player. Those who say it’d have been fucking helpful last night if he’d grown another fucking foot when defending that fucking corner are, to my mind, misguided.
Finally, by way of atonement for earlier refereeing blunders, England were awarded four consecutive penalties, each of which they converted with aplomb. As the Colombians snivelled and sniffed up the centre circle, halfway line and both penalty spots by way of consolation, England celebrated and headed back to the team hotel, there to loot the shop of every last bracelet by way of spoils, to distribute among their wives and girlfriends. England’s route to World Cup Final is clear and certainly doesn’t involve hoping all the decent sides somehow knock each other out, leaving us as last man standing like a knock-kneed Buster Keaton in a silent all-in wrestling comedy, surrounded by enormous men flat on their backs, surprised to have the referee raise his hand. We shall do it by blood, spunk and the thrash of the Kane.
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