FOOTBALL TALK

Footballers. Don’t you just love ‘em? I have very little opinions on football in general, there have been professional footballers or nearly pro footballers in my family (Spurs and Rangers by all accounts) and likewise in my wife’s family (Spurs being the cross-over here). Anyway, this is a short retelling of a chance meeting that still tickles me today. Mrs M and I were in a swanky (for the real meaning of the word just remove the S) bar in the East side of London. This was several years ago – you know the time when there were actually bars so hip that people were prepared to queue to get in or you had to do a complicated act of subterfuge pretending to be the PA to someone relatively famous booking a table to chaperone them for an interview only for them not to turn up but the fact that the interviewer seemed to be a really close friend who also brought someone with them who you knew was never rumbled. Aah the Met Bar. What foolish youth we were filling our empty martini glasses with a cocktail of hubris and ennui. 20 years later we slip on the free frames of hindsight and George Bernard Shaw is proven prophetic once again.

So. Mrs M and I are in a bar area, with some other friends and a footballer of some note wanders in with his entourage. The cliché collection of James 20 bellies and the like. I can’t judge them – friends are friends, none of them were offensive in any way, perhaps a bit loud, but I suspect we were as well. I won’t name the footballer, but he played for Spurs and England (I think he was recovering from injury – which I am told has been his standard position for most of his career). We ended up, in the general bar melee that is the ebb and flow of people waving £20 pound notes folded lengthways over their middle fingers, occupying the same space at the end of the bar like social driftwood nudging each other in the artificially formed lentic of our evening.

 

I had one of these. Yeah I know, me with a football is like Liberace with an attack dog

We decided to chat to the footballer. Age is important here. The footballer is one year older than us, we were about 27 at the time. Not wishing to do a disservice to footballers we imagined that if we were going to talk we needed to talk football. This goes for most professions, it is not a slur on the individual, if you are introduced to a doctor your opening gambit is probably going to be something medically related (although not a demand for an impromptu health check – that is frowned upon) in fact here are a few opening conversation scuds that you could employ if you ever find yourself in a mano-a-mano situation with a ‘professional’ stranger:

Jockey: What about those horses eh?
Butcher: What about those horses eh? (cheap but topical joke about a month ago)
Doctors: What about those hospitals eh?
Teachers: What about those politicians eh?
Musicians: What about those recording rights eh? (be very careful at the outset of this conversation that you establish whether this conversation is part of a performance or not and ensure that you don’t go over three hours as this will cost you dearly)
Actors: What about you eh?

I know, incredibly useful wasn’t it? So, between us Mrs M and I can probably carry off a 10 minute conversation about football before we look like complete idiots. That is 10 whole minutes of football knowledge based on our own families’ successes in the arena. This is roughly how it went – hang on before I start, he was on crutches so the fact he wasn’t playing was visually obvious, not something we had prior intelligence on:

Mrs M: Hello, you are Footy McFootball aren’t you? (obviously this wasn't his name)
FMcF: Hi yes I am. (very pleasant response – something he was throughout the short conversation)
Me: Hello, nasty to be on crutches – have you done something bad?
FMcF: Yeah not nice, my Achilles.
Mrs M: Does it hurt?
FMcF: Not now, just have to keep my wait (sic) off it.
Me: How long are you going to be off for?

Look – I know this isn’t the most exciting conversation. Secretly Footy McFootball was probably enjoying talking to some people who weren’t giving him a Saint and Greavsie (I know this football equivalent to Morcambe and Wise purely through the fact that I had to watch it at my best friend’s house whilst waiting for him and his brother to finish lunch before we could go out on our bikes) style grilling.

FMcF: Not sure.
Me: My granddad was about to sign for Spurs at the start of WWII. And my great Uncle played for Rangers, I think. (Not only have I shown scant knowledge of my family and who they actually played for thus exposing my true apathy to the sport but I have also shot all my meagre canons in one salvo thus leaving me empty of conversation beyond this point).
FMcF: Oh right.
Me: Mmmm. Yeah. (awkward hiatus in conversation)
Mrs M: My Dad had a try out for Spurs.
FMcF: Did he?
Mrs M: Yeah, he was quite good I think. My brother has just finished playing in America. They won the college cup.
FMcF: Who does he play for?
Mrs M: I’m not sure what they were called (Mrs M fast approaching the conversational roadblock I was left at a few moments ago).
FMcF: Oh.
Mrs M: Is it a good life being a footballer? (nice work there Mrs M)
FMcF: I can’t complain. Do you want me to sign something for your Dad?
Mrs M: (scrabbling in bag trying not to look impolite because quite frankly we are not 10 anymore and collecting autographs has long since left our weekly ‘to do’ list) OK, how about this? (produces a scrap of paper)
FMcF: What is your Dad’s name?
Mrs M: (insert name of Mrs M’ father here)
FMcF: There you go. Have to get back to the guys now, nice talking to you.
Mrs M: You too, thanks. I’m sure my Dad will be thrilled with this (possible white lie)
Me: (thin echo) Nice meeting you…..

So we finished our drinks. We said goodbye to our friends and headed back to the station to go home. Sat on the train Mrs M pulls out the autograph and written on the paper is:

 

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR SPURS TRIAL MRS M’S DAD

FOOTIE McFOOTBALL

XX

That’s right. Mrs M’s 50 year old father, referred to as Dad several times by her and Footie McFootball was apparently trying out for Spurs. Bless him though. He was lovely, professional and his friends didn’t let him down so I am not criticising. Besides he wasn’t employed as a footballer for his analytical conversation skills.