Andrew Donegan · @piebald77
25th Jan 2013 from Twitlonger
Astonishing Brutality
Eden Hazard. What a name. What a guy. Don’t worry laddie, we’ll stand by ya. You got people talking. You made people take notice again. You’re no Cantona or Zidane yet, but you’re on the right track. Keep going boyo.
BBC Radio labelled your antics “astonishing brutality.” To put the record straight, you never kicked the ball boy, you kicked the ball from under the ball boy’s chest because the gobshite was lying on it. From a certain angle it looked as if you did kick the ball boy, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t so. You simply tried to retrieve the ball from a cheeky time-wasting rascal, who deserves big props in his own right, to be honest, for being ballsy enough to do it. Well done, ball boy, and well done Eden Hazard (this name alone is worth his millions).
Don’t worry your head so much about Gaza massacres or North Africa hostages or our troops stepping on IEDs or schoolgirl protesters shot in the head or unprovoked happy slappings or pensioner muggings or stray bombs or corrupt regimes or just about anything like that...(breathes in)...because THIS, ladies ‘n’ hippos (one dimwit kicking a bag of wind from out under another dimwit’s chest), qualifies not simply as brutality, but the kind of brutality that astonishes you.
The little ball bag, sorry, ball boy even rolled around pretending he was hurt. Classic. But this is precisely what we’re torkin aboot — Fakery. Not the fancy beamers, embarrassing haircuts or WAGS, but the diving and the deception. Kidding you not here, Fernando Torres once tripped himself over and got himself a free kick. There was nobody within three yards of him. You find yourself applauding the fakery eventually. That’s all top flight footy is anymore, a mile wide and an inch deep. So when homies like Joey Barton swing along, punching 'n' kicking 'n' elbowing, all in a single game, some people stand up and start to respect him. Not condone him, of course, but you know. Listen, when somebody gets hurt, we’ll stop having a giggle and debate seriously.
Then you have rugger (rugby). In rugger, they have a place on the sideline where injured players go to have their cuts patched up, called the blood bin. If they don’t bleed out, they are free to come back on, sometimes sporting red bandages like lunatic escapees from A&E. If you are lying down on the ball in rugger, don’t be alarmed, or expect anyone else to be alarmed, including the officials, if you take a size twelve studded boot square in your upper teeth. It’s part of the territory. They will literally walk over your back like a doormat, lift you up and dump you like a sack of trash, and clothesline you midair like Hulk Hogan in his WWF days. There’ll be no public outcry and not a mention of it on the news. Your team may not even be awarded a penalty.
Raise your hands in football, and you’re a madman.
By Number 9