Pompey provide dangerous levels of perspective

Your more obsessive football fan tends to view perspective a little like Superman views Kryptonite. How can anyone, after all, be expected to really get worked up about sport if they are constantly thinking: “Well, at least no one died”. It’s the sort of thinking that leads to something like Bill Shankley’s observation that; “football’s not a matter of life and death, it’s much more important than that,” being hailed as a little demonstration of the man’s genius when, really, it’s little more than an amusing quip. People wear t-shirts with the quote emblazoned across it and good luck to them, but I doubt very many have ever worn one to a funeral.

 

Personally, I get mildly upset when a team I take an interest in loses a game and then, like most people, I tend get on with my life but as somebody who (sort of) works in the game I have to guard against too much perspective creeping into my world view. It’s one thing to remember not to write that some club or team has been the victim of “a disaster” in the week, say, that a quarter of a million people have been killed by a real one in Haiti. It’s another altogether to start writing about Ireland going out of the World Cup in Paris thanks to a blatant handball with the attitude that essentially says: “Ah well. C’est la vie!”

 

Sadly, I had something of a reality check in work this week. After Giovanni Trapattoni named his squad for next week’s friendly against Brazil next Tuesday I undertook to try to line up an interview with Marc Wilson, the Portsmouth defender for Saturday’s paper. It was only supposed to be done over the telephone, Wilson has a reputation for being a fairly cooperative sort of guy and Pompey, I sort of reckoned, might be up for a bit of positive publicity so, on Monday afternoon I started calling and emailing the club’s media department.

 

To be honest, I don’t do this sort of thing all that often. There are other ways of going about this stuff if you’re really intent on giving it a go: tracking down a number from a former manager, fellow journalist or other player etc, and I’ve been messed around by enough press officers who don’t give a toss about the Irish papers so many times without ultimately getting the interview that I generally try to avoid it.

 

Still, for the reasons mentioned above I started calling and, it quickly became apparent, being ignored by the guy I needed to arrange things over at Fratton Park. I made it fairly clear that I appreciated that things at his end probably weren’t the greatest just now but a few emails and a dozen or so calls into the process, my messages started to become a little less understanding.

 

Then, yesterday, at 3.15 I made my fourth call of the day to the guy and noticed that his outgoing message had changed. Instead of chirpily lying that he would get right back to me if I left a number, he was advising that anyone with “any queries about Portsmouth Football Club should contact…”

 

It was late Thursday afternoon, I was flying to London on Friday afternoon and my sports editor was getting a little bit ratty about what was going to fill a rather large space in Saturday’s sports section of the Irish Times. (Suggestions, incidentally, for a Brazil match related feature that might be done at very short notice while in transit would be most welcome).

 

As things stand, my day is going to be a bit of a nightmare, trying to come up with something on the move but I mustn’t grumble. Wilson and the rest of the Portsmouth team now look certainties to be relegated with Burnley looking a good bet to add to their misery this weekend while, more importantly really, the club’s head of communications, along with quite a few others, will probably be signing on this morning. At least I do still have a job to worry about.

 

 

Bets

 

€25 double on Manchester United v Aston Villa to produce three goals or more and Manchester City (+1) to win at Chelsea @ 4.4.

 

 

€25 double on Birmingham City (0/-0.5) to beat Wigan and Wolves (+0.5 to beat Bolton @ 3.08.

 

 

€25 double on Burnley (0/-0.5) to beat Portsmouth and Stoke v Arsenal to produce three goals or more @ 3.37.

Categories: Soccer