Guess who’s back, back again?
Liverpool created a monster and nobody wanted to see Luis Suarez anymore: however, in a fully cyclical kind of way, his return is as timely as a man with his finger delicately tapping his watch whilst ferociously chewing gum and looking at a man bewildered with the power his electronic board holds; this man is Sir Alex Ferguson.
As well as it being appropriate that he returns now, what with him having served his eight-match ban for racist abuse/ignorance of meaning and connotation/poor use of inter-linguistics – circle as you see fit or feel politically, socially or morally inclined to do so – towards Patrice Evra, it is also well-timed because we haven’t had racism and football instigating atmospheric pressure inside a teacup for a whole twenty-four hours.
The weekend served us well with its regular reminders that the modern game is fast becoming typical of the slap head fan of the 1970s donning a Shearling sheepskin jacket looking rather like English Frank, condemning all gays, blacks, women and children out of the game.
Firstly, Rio Ferdinand made the mistake of playing centre-back for Manchester United in a game against a club involved in a Crown Prosecution case, in the form of its team captain – although no longer the England captain, unless you’re Fabio Capello and then he’s still not the England captain in the physical form but possibly in spirit – John Terry. His punishment for such a crime, of course by means of being the brother of an alleged victim of racist abuse, was a chorus of boos from the Chelsea crowd. Yet, in true captain material, Ferdinand revealed it was “like fuel” to him, inspiring his side to emphatically come back from three goals down to Juan Mata ft. 10 other alleged footballers FC. Unfortunately, Rio doesn’t want to be England captain.
If that wasn’t enough race-related football news for you, a 29-year old football fan by the name of Peter Copeland, who looks a bit like Mike Ashley if the Toon owner had a beard and a bit more hair, pleaded guilty to breaching the Malicious Communications Act by tweeting racist comments on social networking site Twitter.
His punishment for referring to Newcastle United as the “Coon Army,” in an unwitty observation of “the number of darkies” in Pardew’s side is likely to be punished, on the Chairman of the Bench’s advice, with just “medium level community order,” after the excuse of Copeland’s defence was that, “he never intended his comments to reach a worldwide audience.” We can expect the same for John Terry then, right?
In what I have been assured was not, in any way, a race-fuelled hate act, Emmanuel Frimpong has been ruled out until at least the beginning of next season, just five games in to his loan spell at Wolves. With twenty-four minutes on the clock, two of the four classical elements combined in a strictly nonracist way, to ensure Frimpong was Frimponged: the earth provided the passive force and the wind provided the active force, resulting in the on-loan Arsenal midfielder damaging his anterior cruciate ligament.
In failing to understand the numerical measure of, “on the scale of 1 to 10,” Mick McCarthy summed up the likelihood of a serious injury, before scans confirmed it, with: “On a scale of one to 10 I have got no idea.” Typically, Mick was correct and had no idea.