Jonny Abrams
14 October 2009 - 16:52
by Jonny Abrams
Here’s a jarring thought to start the day with: Phil Brown knows much more about football than you.
That’s right. In fact, Phil Brown – manager of Phil Brown’s Hull City – knows more about football than you probably ever will.
That depends on who is reading this, of course. But it’s safe to say that at the very least 95% of you will always know less about football than Phil Brown. (So that’s roughly seven of you, according to optimistic calculations.)
Let’s say that, somehow or other, you and Phil Brown are guests at the same dinner party. You’d most likely be stifling a chuckle or two, as he is a bizarre shade of orange and has a light pink sweater draped across his shoulders.
The conversation turns to football. Phil Brown’s sitting across the table from you. You could have a bit of fun here. You ask him sarcastic questions and emit stifled giggles whenever he’s speaking.
Schoolboy error. He’s dealt with nitwits like you before. After all, he must get that a lot. He patiently waits for you to finish openly mocking him, before calmly delivering retribution in the form of a comprehensive savaging of your knowledge of football. Football being an industry in which Phil Brown earns a multi-million pound living as the manager of a club he got promoted to the top flight himself.
Make no mistake; Phil Brown would humiliate you, quite possibly in front of several of your best friends, perhaps even a girl you like. And the other dinner guests will leave all muttering amongst each other, “I thought Phil Brown was an orange buffoon before tonight but I’ve got more respect for him now.”
Utterly, utterly rinsed. By Phil Brown, the Carpenter to Sam Allardyce’s Walrus. Phil Brown, who sang on the pitch after his side survived relegation practically by default. Phil Brown, who marched his players back onto the pitch at half-time to yell at them that one time. Phil Brown.
Gary Megson too. Get this, Bolton Wanderers fans…no, seriously…: Gary Megson knows way more about football than you.
What’s more, if you were to lay into his methods and tell him what team and tactics you’d have gone with instead, he would laugh. It would be a sharp, disbelieving laugh at first. Then it would become gradually heartier, before climaxing with a detailed explanation of why your tactics would fail dismally, punctuated by near-hysterical laughter.
But that’s just Mugson’s opinion, you’d think. What does he know? Well, Gary Megson bumps into David Moyes, Martin O’Neill and Roy Hodgson at the cheese counter at Sainsbury’s the next day, and he tells them what you said. And they all laugh; not out of politeness, but out of genuine amusement at just how dismal you grasp of football is compared to theirs.
Have you ever said of a player: “Oh aye, Player X, he’s sh*te, him.” Well, he’s better, richer, more important and quite possibly better-looking than you could ever hope to be.
Take Everton right-back Tony Hibbert, for example. Tony Hibbert has never scored a goal. Ever. Not in the Premier League. Not in any cup competition. Not in any friendly, reserve or youth team games. Not even in training.
Not in the playground at school. Not while having a light-hearted kickabout in the garden with a young relative (although he got sent-off on a couple of occasions). Not while playing Pro Evo. Nor Subbuteo. Not even while dreaming about playing football (although he once hit the post).
Tony Hibbert once managed Everton for 17 seasons on Football Manager and drew every game 0-0.
But he’s a better footballer than you, and quite possibly your children, and your children’s children, and your children’s children’s children, will ever be. How mad is that?
Somewhere along the line, a scout watched Tony Hibbert play and said, “Yes, that kid’s got what it takes!” Maybe you were one of the other kids playing. And where are you now?
That’s right. You work in one of those booths at the end of theme park log rides where you can buy a photo or keyring of you and your friends on the ride. But no-one ever buys them. They just look for themselves on the massive display of televisions showing all of the photos just taken. One of them spots the relevant photo, and points it out to his or her chums. Soon they’re all pointing. And laughing. Just pointing and laughing, pointing and laughing. Finally, they leave.
Doesn’t it feel, sometimes, as if they’re laughing at you? When the packs of pointers and laughers close in on you, while you’re trapped between a counter and a wall of televisions, doesn’t it just feel like they’re mocking you?
You’re not a footballer, they hiss. You were never good enough. You said Tony Hibbert is sh*te but he’s making millions playing football in the Premier League. And you’re not.
Don’t the minutes grind slowly on? In your menial job, while Tony Hibbert spends all his time playing football for loads and loads of money. Tick…tock. Tick…tock.
Tick…tock.