Clint Dempsey – Captain America

Haywire

Anyone who’s seen the trailer for Haywire most likely thought the same two things I did; “oh wonderful, a Bourne movie with a woman at it’s core” and “thank you trailer editor for ruining that entire film for me”. If you reader have not seen the trailer I recommend you avoid it, but also recommend you run to the pictures to see the movie. There’s no escaping the comparisons with the series which came form Robert Ludlum’s books and starred Matt Damon – but in this we have a female playing the lead role as the highly-trained super-assassin kicking and wrestling her way through the conspiracy plot. Rather sensibly Steven Soderbergh has avoided the trap of casting a dainty looker to play Mallory, but instead given the role to a former American Gladiator and MMA fighter, Gina Carano. This works extremely well in a film which could easily have been ruined had it starred one of Hollywood’s pretty A-list.

I’ll stand by an arguably contrary opinion by saying my favourite Bourne movie was the first one. Others believe the series only came to life once Paul Greengrass took over, but I was never a fan of the shaky camera being shoved so close one couldn’t really see what was happening during close combat. Soderbergh goes in the complete opposite direction and pulls the lens much further away. This means we get to see the many brawls as they would appear, and the fight coordination is so good this really works. The violence looks real, horrible and occasionally there’s a hit which will really make you wince.

The film is non-linear which allows a relatively simple plot to become slightly more interesting than it could’ve been. Thanks to the terrible sploiling trailer there weren’t too many twists, but the cast all play their roles perfectly well. There’s some good actors in this film and Carano does all she needs to to blend in.

It’s not entirely original, but in Soderbergh’s competent hands it’s bloody good and I’d happily take in the sequel which it seems to gear up for.

★★★★

Not fit for purpose

Paul McStay’s testimonial on the 12 December 1995 wasn’t one of the most important evenings in football history. If anything it was a melancholic affair. On the night 37,000 Celtic fans showed up to honour a wonderful captain who’s career had sadly petered out in the nineties after having already achieved greatness in his younger days. Hampered by injuries and burdened by the weight of rivals’ Rangers seemingly unstoppable run of championships, McStay’s career ended anti-climatically. But at least the Celtic fans were given the chance to celebrate this great player and man on an oddly relevant night in Glasgow’s east end.

I say it was oddly relevant because two things stand out for me from that match to this day. The first thing was that Manchester United wore their hideous grey away kit. On a very foggy night in Glasgow I recall several people making the point that United’s players at times looked invisible. It was true, though the weather was partially to blame that strip Umbro provided for United was flawed. A few months later during a defeat against Southampton, Alex Ferguson prompted his players to change into another kit at half-time. He claimed his players were unable to see each other. Many in the media laughed and Ferguson was lampooned by those who suggested he was clutching at straws looking for an excuse. Paradoxically, it was one of the few times in my life I found myself agreeing with the man.

The second significant thing from that evening was the man who scored United’s goal; Paul Scholes. I’d seen Scholes a month or so before on Match of the Day scoring two against Chelsea. He looked like a cracking wee player and although I had (and have) no firm allegiance to any English club, my instincts told me he’d be a favourite of mine. On that cold  December evening I kept an eye on him during the warm up; whilst all the other United players did their sprints and stretches Scholes parked himself in front of the ‘keeper and hit shots. At the end of the game whilst delighted Celtic had beaten United 3-1, I was chuffed to have seen Scholes score.

Over the next seven seasons Scholes would go from strength-to-strength, winning all there was to win, scoring at major international tournaments and being lauded by his generation’s greatest midfielders Zinedine Zidane and Xavi Hernandez as their equal. But after those seven (or so) flawless seasons Scholes form dipped. He quit international football in 2004 which actually helped England a great deal because for the next decade they managed to botch selecting the correct balance in midfield. Scholes continued availability would just have made things even worse for England’s run of gutless managers. Domestically he continued to win medals playing next to great players but his influence on those titles is something I’d dispute.

For as much as the whole second half of Scholes career he was a pale imitation of the player he was in his twenties. The number of goals he scored declined and the number of silly tackles he made increased. I always admired his contempt for media duties, but toward the end of his extended career I was less of a fan of Scholes as a player. Perhaps it was injuries, perhaps it was simply age getting the better of him, but Scholes by the end was no longer the “great” player he once was, even if fellow pros continued to say nice things about him. In terms of top level football, which is of course what Manchester United aspire to, he was well passed his use-by-date when he retired in 2011.

Now Scholes has returned to United for the remainder of the 2011/12 season. One can only conclude Sir Alex Ferguson is trying to make a point to folk within the club. I’ll be greatly surprised if Scholes does anything worthwhile in the coming months. Apart from one blast from the past against Barca in 2008 he contributed little during his latter years.

Though I may be wrong.

Two tales of Rudolph Hess

Edward was working the detergents aisle. This was his favourite aisle. It was his favourite aisle because whenever he encountered a damaged or leaking bottle or box, which happens quite a lot when working as a supermarket shelf-stacker, the outpouring fluid or powder would undoubtedly be clean with a tolerable smell, even if it was poisonous. His least favourite aisle, the one he truly hated working, was pet foods. Edward had never known the love of a family pet so the unfamiliar cocktail whiff of dog biscuits and cat litter was something alien and immediately unpleasant. And the smell was not the worst thing about working the pet foods area. When unpacking a punctured crate of dog meat Edward had more than once stumbled upon a thriving maggot colony. In this situation it took him no small amount of slowed breathing and effort to fight off his childish instinct to vomit. He puked a lot as a kid. On this night he was safe amongst the household cleaners.

At the beginning of Edward’s shift, which would be his last, he had pulled two cages of deliveries from the stockroom and parked one at either end of his lane. He then obtained another empty trolley to collect the cardboard he would discard throughout the evening. Though it was a twenty-four hour shop few customers appeared in the middle of the night when Edward worked. To save up money to go somewhere else he had worked six nights a week solidly for four months. He would have worked that seventh night of the week were he allowed.

In the neighbouring aisle worked Lauren. Lauren was a surreally shaped woman who looked older than she was. Her body was made up of several connected bulbous parts as if put together by a cavalier trainee butcher yet to master the art of sausage making. She was barely more than half Edward’s height and though provided with a boosting step, occasionally had to call on her taller colleague to place things on higher shelves. Edward happily assisted, but inside it was a mystery to him why Lauren had ever been employed.

When Edward first started working in the supermarket he shared quite communicative relationships with his colleagues. During lunch breaks, which took place between one and two a.m. he would sit at the busiest table and blether about football the way people do. Some of the staff supported the same team as Edward and others did not. After football the talkers would quickly move on to discuss whichever celebrity was having their private life exposed on the front of the tabloid newspaper routinely left on the table by a day-shifter. After the headlines whichever reality television show that was on at the time would be analysed in depth.

After a month or so Edward stopped sitting at the busy table. This change of behaviour would see him hiding in a quiet corner of the cafeteria at an otherwise empty table. After consuming his lunch he would allow himself thirty or forty minutes of undisturbed reading – this depended on how quickly he ate. Often one of his old lunch buddies would shout over querying his self-imposed exile. His ready excuse for avoiding their company was divulged in an earnest and light-hearted manner. I’m escaping so-and-so’s second-hand smoke. When no smokers were present Edward’s back-up excuse involved being near the end of whatever book he was reading and an eagerness to get it finished. To avoid the expiry of this safety net excuse Edward began bringing two books to work. This guaranteed he would barely have to speak to his workmates in such an informal capacity ever again.

This isn’t to suggest he was rude or disinterested when proximity demanded he contribute to their banter. He could feign interest on any topic and his rare droll observations won him several admirers amongst the older members of staff. It was the younger workers, those nearer his own age, who did not like him. Sensing their contempt, Edward would once-in-a-while bate those who disliked him with some fact or opinion which would guarantee to rile. On a long quiet night-shift he found winding up folk who mocked him behind his back a perfectly valid and justifiable form of entertainment.

Working six days out of seven for weeks and weeks on end Edward began to omnipresent within the store. Some nights some co-workers were there, other nights other co-workers were there – but Edward it seemed was always there. He was a constant. When others noticed and commented Edward would joke about not actually having a home to go to outside the supermarket, and claim to sleep in a corner of the stockroom on a pile of toilet paper. This was an amusing idea but it was not true. When his shifts were over, at seven in the morning, Edward would briskly walk for forty minutes to his parents’ house on the other side of the small town. There he would meet his rising family members and eat supper as they took their breakfasts. Then as they all set about their summer’s day an exhausted Edward would retreat to his darkened room like an anaemic Dracula who had gone an evening without finding a virgin. Edward would close his eyes and with any luck sleep all the way through to when the sun began falling once more. By then, on the other side of town, the supermarket shelves would be stripped and he would return to the vultured carcass to fill them again. Night after night. Day after day. This was the summer of Edward’s twenty-second year.

During these four months Edward spoke at least fleetingly to most people in the store, from the women in the canteen to the baker who would arrive before dawn to start his ovens. He chatted to everyone except the security men at the customers’ entrance. Before a shift shelf-stackers entered through the back door so he had never crossed paths and conversed with the white shirt clad muscle at the front of the building. But Edward did have a polite relationship built entirely on nods with one of the bouncers. He was a short bald man in his fifties. Perhaps it was his white shirt, but he appeared the most tanned member of staff within a workforce occupationally starved of vitamin D. He was the security man most often responsible for wandering the quiet aisles and making sure everything was as it should be, rarely was it not. Edward had once been asked by a gaunt young man with hideous black teeth where the tin foil was kept, but beyond this brief encounter with a solitary addled ghoul he had barely met a customer in all his time there and the several security staff seemed somewhat superfluous. But every night the short bald security man would walk along Edward’s aisle. If they noticed each other they would each smile and nod then carry on with their respective tasks. This was until Edward’s last night as a shelf-stacker.

Edward was on his knees using his specifically designed health and safety conscious box-cutter to slice off the tape from a large brown box, inside which lay sixteen more pleasantly coloured bottles of fabric softener. When not in his hand the box-cutter dangled down to his knee from a springy red wire, like that of an old analogue house phone. When called upon Edward did not need to look for his tool, he simply swung his arm downwards like a duelling cowboy and drew his sidearm. Having opened the box the pink or sky blue bottles were placed tidily on the shelf. Edward then broke down the cardboard as he stood up and moved to dump it in his spare trolley. On this short walk he met his silent sun kissed colleague who spoke for the first time.

Herd at work?

Edward laughed. Always, this retail empire would collapse without me.

The bald man laughed which pleased Edward as such tongue-in-cheek quips passed over the heads of many other co-workers.

The bald man stood side on and looked Edward’s cages up and down. Well you’ve got plenty to keep you goin’ there.

Yeah. No easy shift on my last night.

Why Edward passed on this information to the friendly stranger he did not really know. Perhaps he realised if the pair avoided a conversation at this moment then they would never have one.

That right? Got somethin’ else lined up?

Edward did. I’m going to America. Do some travelling.

America, eh? Uv been tae America mysel’.

The bald man’s stance had changed. He relaxed, folded his arms and settled down for a chat.

Where abouts in America have you been?

I wus in Florida. In the Everglades.

Were you on holiday?

Naw, it wus exercises with the ermy.

Edward stopped pretending he was working and stood tall next to the shorter man. The army? You were in the army?

Aye a wus. Fur fourteen year.

And the British army do drills in the Everglades?

Naw, a was pert of an exchange programme. Some o’ their soldiers trained with the British and some o’ us went oot there. I wus wan of the lucky wans.

When confronted with someone or something new Edward would always try and further the discussion by relating it to what he already knew. It was this habit that prompted his next question.

Did you ever see any alligators?

Aye, shot wan or two when we wur oot and aboot.

That’s cool.

Aye. Wus an interestin’ place. Hot, really really hot.

I can imagine. The shelf-stacker was fascinated.

I wus in Germany as well. Wi’ the Americans. I wus o’er there.

Of course, they’ve got bases there don’t they?

A don’t knaw if they still do noo, but they did back then, in the eighties. A wus a’ Spandau prison.

Where’s that?

Berlin. The bald man paused to think for a moment. Aye. You knaw Rudolph Hess?

Yeah I do, the Nazi?

Aye, well I wus working at Spandau the night Rudolph Hess killt himsel’.

Edward giggled. It was a sentence he never thought he would hear.

Really?

Aye. It wus ma shift. He wus the only man in the whole prison.

Seriously?

Aye. He’d been in there since the war and he wus the last one left. Hung himsel’.

Wow. And you were working?

Aye. I wus oan duty. Me an’ another lad, an America. We foon ‘im.

That’s amazing.

It wus aye. He wus one of the tope Nazis ya knaw?

Yeah, he flew over to Britain during the war?

That’s right, that’s ‘im.

At this point Edward realised he had his own Rudolph Hess story which had been passed down two generations and decided to share it. It seemed like a fair trade.

My grandparents were on the spot the night he landed in Scotland?

Aye?

Yeah, they were on holiday outside Glasgow when his plane landed.

That’s right, it wus just ootside Glasgow.

I remember my dad saying something about a clock. My granda said some knicked his watch or something after he landed. Now that I think about it I don’t really know.

Aye, well a wus there the night he died a knaw that much.

There was a silence as both parties reflected on the conversation which had just taken place.

So yer gawn tae America, eh?

Yeah, flying into Philadelphia.

Well guid luck wi’ tha’.

There was another pause then the short bald man turned and walked away along the aisle towards the unstaffed tills. Edward looked at his cage and decided which case he was next going to unpack. He swept his box-cutter into his hand and dragged the blade down the tape on a box full of own brand bleach. He heaved the box onto the floor and dropped his knees to begin placing the blue bottles on their low shelf.

Goon

I watch way too many low-brow comedies to be able to distance myself from them with any legitimacy. And when I saw the trailer for Goon I thought this isn’t going to be anything I haven’t seen many times before. Happy Gilmour was about a bad hockey player who turned out to be a great golfer, Goon is about a moron who turns out to be a great hockey player. What makes the film slightly different is the tone with which it is pitched.

It starts at 100 miles-per-hour with the genesis story of Doug Glatt being told in barely 15 minutes. He’s a really hard bouncer with a really low IQ who through assorted contrived circumstances finds himself thrust into a career as a hockey player. Needless to say he rises through the ranks very quickly thanks not to his stick skills but thanks to his fists. He’s apparently too dumb to feel pain and can punch like a heavy weight. In the violent world of low league hockey this makes him a star.

It’s funny enough and Sean William Scott is ably supported by a number of characters; his motor mouth mate, his gay brother, the talented-but-stroppy French-Canadian star of his team. But none of the characters are silly enough for this film to be truly Sandlerian, hence what we have is a film which tiptoes the line between our real world and pure Hollywood comedy nonsense.

The result of this is that the film, which you think is going to be riddled with low-brow bullshit, ends up having some genuinely poignant relationships, horribly graphic violence and expertly executed sporting action scenes complete with Nessun Dorma cranking up the emotions up to eleven. And Liev Schrieber delivers a good performance as the veteran rival meat-head Glatt inevitably has to go  tête à tête with.

This really wasn’t the film I thought I was going to see.

★★★

There by the grace of Gord

There’s a parallel universe very close to ours, possibly the next one along, where life worked out very differently for one particular young man. That universe’s tale was identical to our own until six years ago this week. There Gordon Strachan, the then manager of Celtic Football Club, was sitting in his office pondering over the recruitment of a new central defender. He lacked faith in the brutish but reliable Bobo Balde who already filled the role and aspired to select someone more elegant and cultured. Alas there was little money available for Strachan to upgrade so anyone signed would have to be cheap. Strachan went one better and picked up Hibernian’s Gary Caldwell for free. The moment Gordon Strachan convinced himself this was a good decision our reality was created, but ours may not be the only one:

An alternate reality

Gordon Strachan had been impressed by the way Gary Caldwell vocally marshalled Hibs’ defence during Celtic’s recent 3-2 win over the Edinburgh side at Celtic Park. But after much consideration he realised for all his expressive leadership skills Hibs had still leaked three goals. Strachan thought better of it and opted to find an alternative elsewhere. This left Caldwell a Hibs player with his contract running down as summer 2006 approached. His agent met with Hibs’ manager Tony Mowbray to negotiate new terms. Mowbray, initially a fond admirer of the way Caldwell spoke a good game had grown less impressed when seeing the player in action over an extended period. For all of Caldwell’s talk he was just as keen to lump the ball long up the park as any other journeyman Scottish centre-half. The only real difference being Caldwell needed more time to execute said hoofs because he was so slow. Mowbray offered Caldwell a two year deal on the same money as before, Caldwell felt he could earn more else where and opted to leave Easter Road on a Bosman.

During the summer of 2006 Caldwell’s agent contacted every club in the Scottish Premier League. By mid-July, with most teams already well into their pre-season training, he was still without a club and freed his agent to now listen to offers from Scottish Football League sides. Gretna came in with a good offer and by signing for the rapidly rising Dumfries and Galloway club Caldwell was reunited with fellow former Newcastle United reserve players Colin McMenamin and Ryan McGuffie.

During the 2006/07 season Caldwell featured prominently as Gretna stormed the First Division and achieved promotion to the SPL. In the summer of 2007 Kilmarnock approached Gretna with a bid to sign Caldwell, however the personal terms the Ayrshire club offered were less lucrative than he was already receiving so he opted to stay at Gretna. Gretna began the 2007/08 season admirably and competed well with other bottom half of the table sides. There finest achievements were draws with both sides of the Old Firm; a 1-1 draw with Celtic at Motherwell’s Fir Park and a more impressive 0-0 against Rangers at Ibrox. After the draw at Ibrox Gary Caldwell was given the man-of-the-match award. Performances on the field however covered up for financial irregularities within the club and before the end of the season Gretna went into administration making all their players redundant.

Caldwell’s solid performance against Rangers the previous season had left an impression and the cashed-strapped Glasgow club approached the now free agent. He signed for Rangers on July 1st, 2008 and was keen to tell Rangers fans how he’d always been one of them. The Daily Record had a full two page spread where Caldwell emphasised how much he enjoyed his childhood trips to Ibrox with an unnamed uncle.

These were different times for the once mighty Glasgow Rangers. Walter Smith had returned to the club having failed as Scotland manager and built an ultra-defensive side on the twin immobile pillars of Caldwell and veteran David Weir. This proved a disaster as managers throughout the SPL realised any pacey attacker could get the better of them. At Christmas Rangers sat at fifth place in the table. In the second half of the season their form improved and they finished comfortably in second place, but Caldwell had lost his place in the match day squads. He stayed on at Rangers until his contract expired in summer 2010 but he never played again for the club. On leaving his boyhood heroes he signed for Kilmarnock.

During his first full season at Kilmarnock Caldwell performed admirably considering he’d been out of first team football for over a year. He sometimes played in midfield and Kilmarnock easily avoided relegation though failed to achieve a top six place.

Gary Caldwell never added to the 20 international caps he’d received before 2006. But Scotland fared well qualifying for both the 2008 European Championships and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Celtic went on to win six consecutive SPL titles.

Gary Caldwell still plays for Kilmarnock and is now a regular pundit on BBC Scotland’s Sportscene.

The right to choose

Hogmanay is a time folk like to get excited about. How enthused I get about a New Year depends purely on which New Year it is. I have a system; years with an even number good, years with an uneven number bad. Why is this? Well it’s nothing to do with what will happen in the early months of the given year, for my eyes are always six months ahead. If a major football tournament is to take place in June of any year I’m immediately titillated. There’s a particular buzz at 00:01 on the January 1st of a year when one can smile at friends and loved ones, ignoring all New Year’s resolutions and personal triumphs/disasters and say “it’s a World Cup year, ya beauty!” Even better nowadays is the knowledge of an upcoming European Championships. With Poland-Ukraine just around the corner I can’t wait for 2011 to end. And it says something for my own blinkered views on the world that when I think of 2012 I don’t automatically think about a certain series of events which will take place in London during the summer. I couldn’t give a hoot about the Olympics. I’ve even given up being one of those people that claims “I watch the one hundred metre sprints”, because the one hundred metre sprints last 10 seconds and invariably sneaks by me before I notice it retrospectively on the news. No, I don’t care about the Olympics. But there is one thing that could get me involved, a Celtic player taking part.

Now there’s much hoo-ha being made about the involvement in the Olympic football tournament of Team GB. The associations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland apparently fear involvement will jeopardise the legitimacy of their own existence. Members within and other prominent football people, including Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, have voiced concerns regarding players from the Celtic parts of the UK making themselves available for selection. There’s some fear that a British side will be none other than England plus Gareth Bale. Others within the British media are reluctant to embrace Olympic football for no other reason than a deep rooted ignorance regarding it’s prestige. With all this cynicism around, it took some real chutzpah for Scotland winger James Forrest to declare his own enthusiasm for the project last week. And all credit to him for doing so.

Now Forrest is a player in a unique position. Whereas the other Scotland cap voicing his enthusiasm for Team GB (Steven Naismith) is a Rangers player, with little chance of selection, pandering to his own largely Unionist support, Forrest plays for Celtic. Few teams in the British Isles have such a vocal anti-British support. To run out in Team GB’s red, white and blue strip would, in the eyes of some, make Forrest a pariah. The supporters this would annoy are people who’s naive understanding of history involves big evil England conquering Scotland and Ireland before taking it’s horrible dictatorial ways around the world building the empire. Even manager Neil Lennon has voiced a reluctance for Celtic players to be involved.

Such insular views Forrest should be lauded for ignoring. The Olympics, whether you are interested in them or not, are in theory a beautiful thing. Whether your politics are right or left, separatist or unionist, secularist or religious – the Olympics are meant to rise above all these things and be a celebration of humanity. I’m not daft enough to pretend it’s utopian, but the same folk who would attack it for being a tool of evil globalists are the same people who’d wave a red flag and cling fundamentally to the discredited ideas of international socialism. The Olympic spirit ignores all these things and to take part would be a great honour for any athlete.

Despite what many closed minded people will say, the football competition is also of some value. So the British have never had a team to support and hence filed the event as no more important than a Uefa under-21s European Championships. Tell that to the many great players who are now the proud owners of an Olympic medal. Of the three players short-listed for this year’s Ballon d’Or two (Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez) have won Olympic medals. The tournament’s top goalscorers have included names like Romario, Ivan Zamarano and Hernan Crespo. In 1952 none other than Ferenc Puskas scored as Hungary took gold. Anyone who loves football must accept that the Olympic competition has it’s place in history and should be respected. Who are the SFA to stand in the way of James Forrest’s ambitions to achieve similar greatness?

As I’ve already said, I have no interest in the Olympics. I also more-often-than-not have no interest in the Scottish national team, the Irish national team or the English national team. But if you were to stick a Celtic player in anyone of those sides I’d happily watch and hope that they do their best. Not only would I endorse James Forrest playing for Team GB, but I hope he makes the squad and does everyone at Celtic proud. A kid coming through Celtic’s ranks winning an Olympics gold medal? Who wouldn’t want to see that?

One rule for the rich

American Chris Rock is responsible for some of the funniest bits of modern comedy. Though his output has been prolific and consistently amusing, few of his jokes have reached the bar he set for himself during his 1996 show Bring the Pain. This was Rock’s finest hour, his tour de force, his masterpiece. And even within that stunning display of writing and performance there’s gags and observations which are better than the brilliant rest. Here is one such bit:

“Niggers always want credit for some shit they’re supposed to do. They’ll brag about stuff a normal man just does. They’ll say something like, ‘Yeah, well, I take care of my kids.’ You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker. ‘I ain’t never been to jail.’ Whaddya want? A cookie? You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!”

Whilst much funnier when performed by the man himself, it still reads hilarious. And though I don’t pretend to fully understand or accept the observations being made about certain African-American males, I do have more than enough familiarity with the concept of the “low-expectation-having motherfucker”, for I am a fan of Celtic Football Club.

Now football fans, none more so than Celts, always need something to moan about. Just now the Hoops are on a modest run of positive domestic results and have clawed back what appeared only three weeks ago to be an unassailable lead held by their rivals Rangers. At half-time on October 15th it looked like manager Neil Lennon was for the sack as the Bhoys trailed 3-0 to Kilmarnock, but striker Anthony Stokes had other ideas; scored a couple of excellent goals, rescued a point and saved his gaffer’s job. Since then other players like James Forrest, Beram Kayal and Gary Hooper have lifted their games and pushed the Glasgow club on a path to progress. But though Celtic’s fortunes have improved, it’d be a lie to say everyone in the squad is pulling their weight. For there is an imposter within Celtic’s ranks – and his name is Georgios Samaras.

Now I should state that I once loved this man. On a good day he’s a graceful big athlete with the potential to be defensively unplayable. I spent the first three years of Samaras’ Celtic career telling others just how brilliant the giant Greek international could be, if only a manager persevered with him and he himself improved his decision making. For three long years my lofty opinion of Samaras was built on a hypothetical – that pending various factors he might in fact be wonderful. I waited and waited and waited but the big man kept failing to impress. This time last year I belatedly gave up the ghost and I reluctantly filed my hero under not fit for purpose. He chose this moment, January 2nd to be precise, to serve up his finest performance in the green and white hoops. Up front on his own Samaras lead Rangers’ slow defence a merry festive dance as he scored two goals away at Ibrox in a comfortable win. At the time it seemed such a display had been worth the wait. Looking back now it was little more than a false dawn.

Between that afternoon and the end of the season Samaras would contribute little more than missing a penalty at Ibrox on Easter Sunday. A penalty miss which ultimately cost Celtic the title. At the time excuses were made and Celtic fans in a predictably forgiving manner sought other reasons why Celtic came second in the league, but had Samaras once again beaten Allen McGregor from the spot on April 24th, 2011 Celtic would’ve been champions.

But football is a team sport, nobody wins or loses anything on their own. With this in mind Samaras would be given a fair chance to redeem himself. But in order to deserve that opportunity he would soon have to start delivering on a more regular basis. It’s now December and we Celtic fans are still waiting.

Bizarrely however the Scotch media and many Celtic fans are now starting to see Samaras’ situation completely differently. Six months into the Premier League season he has pitched in with one goal; a lame effort in an easy home win where St.Mirren’s ‘keeper should’ve done better. Such profligacy should surely earn a so called striker some time out with the first team squad, but for reasons beyond me Neil Lennon has decided to deploy the Greek as a left-winger. And here expectations of Samaras are so comically low people are now beginning to believe his fleeting involvement in matches is substantially aiding Celtic’s cause.

Last week on ESPN’s coverage his former manager Gordon Strachan insisted the man he brought to Celtic Park from Manchester City had never once let his manager or his team-mates down. Well to quote a manager who’s legacy shits all over Strachan’s; “Football is nothing without it’s fans”. Jock Stein was right and how many times has Samaras let us down? We fans, of course, are little more than cider swilling vermin in the eyes of Strachan – but he is wrong about this. As is the BBC’s Chick Young. I heard him on the radio last week suggesting that Samaras’ first 30 minutes against Atletico Madrid last Wednesday were his finest in a Celtic jersey. It doesn’t surprise me that Chick, a massive hun, has conveniently forgotten the afternoon Samaras tore his side to shreds. But beyond pointing out that Chick Young has little clue what he’s talking about, Samaras’ performance against the Spanish side was little more than competent.

The hyperbole currently washing over Georgios Samaras in waves continued after this weekend where he began the game away at Dundee United well, pushing down the wing and creating a chance which didn’t lead to a goal. He offered little more throughout the match as once again Celtic’s other players earned three points. Yet I keep hearing just how well Samaras is doing. It’s a lie, and no matter how much it is repeated it won’t become true until Samaras actually starts scoring and setting up goals. Until he does this he isn’t doing his job, except in the eyes of low-expectation-having motherfuckers.

Alas, Celtic Park has plenty of them.

Tony, you’re quite good: The autobiography of an amateur footballer

10 An American Tale

It seems weird looking back, but between 2001 and 2004 I spent close to eight months of my life in the United States of America. It feels like yesterday. For most of my time there I was working as a soccer coach during the summer breaks between years at university. Whenever I tell people this they reply by asking “was it Camp America?” or “were you with BUNAC?” Then and now I have no real idea what these things were. All the work I did in America was cash-in-hand and illegal. The shortest version of how this arrangement came about would be that I was working at a college for people my brother knew through a mate of his. So as my Scottish friends stacked shelves in supermarkets off I went across the pond to play football in the sun – it was a pretty good deal.

During my first of two summers in North Carolina (2001) I was with my brother who had worked the same camps the previous year. We were based in Davidson, a tiny college town north of Charlotte. It was a quiet southern nook with little more than a soda shop and one multinational ice-cream outlet. But the town did have a prestigious liberal arts college with impressive and ambitious collegiate sports’ credentials. That’s where I was employed to teach the children of American how to kick a ball. The thing was however, the Carolinas in the summer time get pretty hot, and it was far too dangerous to send kids out in that cooking sun. So that’s when we coaches got to play.

Our work force was made up mainly of students from the college and recent graduates, most of whom had played for the Davidson Wildcats team. It was always interesting playing football with and against Americans because they did function slightly differently from Scots. For a start they were significantly fitter than I ever was. I needed about a fortnight to sweat out all the booze and sausage roll grease I had consumed over the previous 12 months. As well as their engines they were quicker than I was, but then I was never that quick anyway. They also liked wearing contraptions and suffering from injuries I had never heard of. They were like sci-fi soldiers taking to the field with their back-braces and elaborate knee frames which they diligently constructed before even the briefest kick-about. Many of them lived in fear of the re-occurance of their ACL, ICL, CIA or FBI injury. I had no idea what they were on about. But they could play, if often in a mechanical and unimaginative way.

They also had little concept of the goal poacher. Quite often during our pick-up games their vaunted striker would sit ten yards from goal and do little more than shoot when he got the ball. He would inevitably score bucket loads and the rest of them would think he was a star. This confused me. I always viewed goal poachers throughout the world as selfish pricks. If it had ever occurred to me to be that lazy, arrogant and vain I could have been as star.

Every week we would play a staff game for the kids who had attended. This was definitely the highlight of each camp and probably made for the largest crowds I ever played in front of. Despite my noticeable lack of fitness I always felt I held my own during these energetic high-tempo matches played in dangerous temperatures. I averaged a goal-a-week over the summer including one of the greatest goals I ever scored, into the best goalkeeper I ever played against.

Todd Herman was ridiculously good. He was Davidson College’s assistant coach and not much to look at. A droll red-headed American who rarely smiled. He had been a contemporary of Brad Freidel’s back-in-the-day and had offers to go to Europe and play pro. In his words he had “pussied out”. He would come and play in our pick-up games and surprise the hell out of me. Up until that point, in all my years playing football I had never played with a goalkeeper who was any better than anyone else on the park with the willingness to go in sticks. Todd was different though. Todd would not only make extraordinary saves when balls were heading for his top corners, he would jump a metre passed the post to catch and hold a ball to save himself having to then run and get it. I do not know if that was a measure of how amazing or how lazy he was. Good goalies are often likened to cats, watching TH one could understand why. But he did not save every shot that came his way.

During the last councillor game of summer 2001 I managed to get the better of him. It was a close match but I am sure I was in the losing side. I was playing in midfield. A move had been worked up the left and the ball switched to me in space 20 yards out on the right. Here I shaped to shoot, swinging my arm high as if to give ball everything I had. Todd Herman instinctively sprung off his line to narrow my angles. Like an in-his-pomp Dennis Bergkamp I lightly clipped the underside of the ball, it lifted slowly back-spinning all the way to the goal. Herman was stranded, the ball floated gently over him and fell comfortable below the bar and into the net. In the baking summer heat the competitive and often seemingly angry ‘keeper simply fell on his back and lay there like a corpse. A worthy high pitched cheer came from the crowd and it was high fives all round for the fat lad from Scotland. I scored better goals, but few as satisfying.

Tony, you’re quite good: The autobiography of an amateur footballer

9 Hadjuks of Hazzard

Football fans love hypotheticals. The most in vogue discussion to be had these days is; who would win if Pep Guardiola’s 2008-11 Barcelona played Arrigo Sacchi’s 1988-90 Milan? Such pointless debates would once have been saved by alcoholic football enthusiasts for quiet Tuesday evenings in the pub, now however they clog up cyberspace being written by bloggers and celebrated sports journalists alike. One discussion that’s never been had by anyone in the world is; who would win between AC Florentina and Hadjuk Shit? As the two sides were populated by quite a lot of the same players it would in theory be quite close, but I think the players who changed were considerable better in Hadjuk’s favour, so they would probably claim the glory were they ever to go toe-to-toe.

Once Hadjuk got settled they were actually quite decent. Whereas the ‘Tina had relied heavily on their Catenaccio 5-4-1, by they time Hadjuk evolved the important sweeper had developed enough confidence in his position to practice it within a back four. This freed up a player to go up front and Hadjuk became a more consistant attacking force. This was proven one afternoon when we opened up several tins of whoop-ass and hit double figures against some bunch of diddies. I do not remember every goal, but two in the second half, when we really started flying, are embedded in my brain forever.

The first was a team goal par excellence that Zidane and Figo’s Madrid of the time would have been proud of. I was slightly obsessed with Real Madrid around that time. It was before the Galactico-shirt-selling-project had gotten ridiculous with the signing of David Beckham – when Spaniards Raul, Helguera and Morientes were still part of the mix. It was a time before Youtube and I used to sit in the university library watching Champions League goals on the Uefa website – long before you had to pay a subscription for doing so. I used to get nasty looks from people trying to urgently print out their dissertations, nasty looks that would get much worse when I then loaded up Roberto Baggio’s Magical free-kicks. But watching Real Madrid tear through Milan one night at the Santiago Bernebau inspired me and I was chuffed to bits one Sunday to be involved in a goal they could have scored themselves.

Hadjuk had a shy just inside the opponents half on the left wing. I took it short to Gareth who immediately returned the ball on the ground. I let the ball roll between my legs then leisurely clipped it behind my left-leg down the line with my right-foot – very Zizou. There it arrived at Rossco who flicked the ball inside to Manson whilst spinning off his marker and down the wing. For once Manson released the ball quickly and the darting Rossco needed only a couple of touches to push forward onto the by-line. This only took seconds but myself, Gareth and Manson were all pouring into the box to join our strikers. Rossco cut the ball back to the penalty spot and it was Gareth who had the privilege of tucking away the chance (with the aid of a slight deflection). The final moment of the goal might not have been the most beautiful, but the move was tremendous. At no point had any of the players involved made a mistake, every touch had been executed perfectly. It was an undefendable moment of collective magic. Sure, my touch was small and early in the move, but it was the touch that started it off and the touch that would have had Alan Hansen in the studio purring like a drunken kitten. This goal would have been a contender for goal-of-the-month, ten minutes later Iain Manson scored a goal that would’ve won goal-of-the-season.

Now Iain was not the quickest player in the world. Actually, he was not even that slow, but he did often take an eternity to release a pass. But this afternoon that was all forgotten about. Hadjuk were working a move down the right. Manson was standing with the ball at the corner of the opposition’s penalty area. To give you an impression of how long Iain could and would hold onto possession, I made a lung bursting overlap, failed to receive the pass, and had the time to wander back gathering my breath and be standing straight behind Iain diagonally facing the goal 30 yards out before he decided to have a pop on goal. For reasons which I do not understand to this day, he opted to strike from a perfect crossing position with the outside of his right boot. At no point did anything Iain was attempting seem to make sense, until the ball swerved left-to-right and crashed into the goal clipping the bar and post. No ‘keeper on earth would have stopped this goal. It was ridiculous. A huge pile on ensued and I remember shouting as loud as I could “remember the name, remember the name, Iain Manson”. The one man and his dog watching this exaggerated display of excitement must have thought we were nuts, whilst grudgingly accepting what he had just witnessed was worthy of some acclaim, despite the modest stage.

That was Hadjuk’s biggest win that season. There were probably only two other events worth mentioning in their tale. On the last afternoon of the league campaign we came up against The Pornstars, the Goliath who I had briefly signed for at the beginning of the season. They needed to win by five clear goals in order to steal the title from the Medical Society. Now the Medical Society team (including Kenny Deucher) were a bunch of smug dicks, but we did not care much for my old side either. It was Hadjuk’s job to make sure the title was won fair and square. Alas, we were 5-0 down half way through the second half and The Pornstars were heading for the title, but we did bloody their noses ever so briefly. With 10 minutes to go we got a corner. Now it says something for me having thrown in the towel that I was standing at the half-way line when we earned this setpiece. I usually took all the dead balls and when I did not I would still fancy scoring a header from a corner. But on this occasion I was standing hands on hips in the centre circle, caring not to attack.

The corner arrived in the box, bounced around a bit and popped out to the left-side of the six yard box. There it arrived at my flatmate Andrew Quigley. Now I have left Andrew Quigley out of much of what I have had to say about Hadjuk and the ‘Tinas strengths. Whilst being one of my oldest and dearest friends I would be lying if I said he was much of a footballer or athlete (myself and Michael Hughes used to call him Gollum when we were walking back to our flat and his chronically injured ankle caused him to trail us by 50 yards). But this was Wiggles’ moment. The ball fell to him in slow motion, time froze for an instant, then Andrew swung with his box fresh left-foot and smashed a volley curving into the far corner. Another mass pile on ensued. Never had a consolation goal meant to so much to so few. 5-1 down but we were about to scalp the big guns once again. But we did not. They ran straight up the park and reclaimed their five goal advantage again and won the title, but Quigley had served up a glorious moment which will be remembered by all involved forever.

We ended the season in the final of the consolation Cup which we tore through having been beaten in the first round of the real Sunday League Cup (a bit like the modern Europa League). In the final we met the Irish Atlantic Savages. We kept it close, around 2-2 at half-time. I definitely set up one of our goals where I delivered a free-kick to the back post and Michael took it down well and buried it, but they extended themselves in the second 45 to lead 4-2. I do not remember the details, but I vaguely recall some of our squad blaming our hockey enthusiast ‘keeper Ally Blair for the defeat. With the last kick of the ball I scored from 18 yards, squeezing a low show under their goalie. But the match was lost.

The most significant thing about that night was who Hadjuk had on their subs’ bench. Amongst our extended squad we had a future Catholic priest and a future Democratic Unionist Party member of the Northern Irish Assembly. We and they themselves did not know that then, but it shows Hadjuk were force for good in the world bringing divided people together (for the record neither of them got on the field because they were both shite).