The fable of Queens Park Rangers and the stolen bike

So, you bought a football club Tony. Well done. I once bought a bike. Ten years ago, in fact, and today it was stolen.

Why?

Well, I’m glad you asked. The person I left in charge of the bike made the wrong decision. He locked the bike up in the wrong part of the wrong town, and now, it’s gone.

The same thing will happen to you with your football club, if you keep handing it’s management to people who don’t know what they’re doing or, worse still, don’t care.

It wasn’t his fault, you say?

Yes, my Dad secured the bike as best he could, given the circumstances, or so he says.

Perhaps though, he hadn’t done enough research with regards to the tactics of local thieves; perhaps he hadn’t bought the best lock he could, instead settling for a well packaged one from Halfords that gave him loyalty points. Besides, there are plenty of other poorly locked bikes in the area, he thought, so why spend more? I’ll just buy this one. I’m sure it will do.

Perhaps though, he isn’t quite telling me the truth.

Perhaps the bike was stolen because he didn’t take good care of it. And perhaps he didn’t take good care of it, because his biking days were soon up and he wasn’t actually bothered what happened to my bike. After all, he’d had his use from it. Why break his back trying to secure something that he wouldn’t need in the immediate future?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, as I wasn’t watching the bike.

I wasn’t giving my investment the attention it deserves.

It’s a risk you take, when you hand the keys to your possessions to someone else and turn your back on them, without a second thought.

That bike cost me £300 in 2014. Losing it doesn’t really bother me. £300, spread over 10 years, isn’t a huge sum of money to me. Plus, it’s my Dad. He’s given me more than enough over the past 30 years to make up for one bike - which he probably paid for anyway. He’s definitely paid more than that paltry sum to the football club you own; lining the pockets of lazy managers, journeyman footballers, and every blood sucking leech in-between.

Maybe, like my bike, buying a football club isn’t a huge sum of money for you. You can buy it now and if someone loses it, or you get bored of it, you can sell at a loss or just give it away. Once it’s gone, you’ll buy another, or upgrade to a car - we all know how much you like those.

Well, this is our football club Tony.

While you split your time between airlines, failing Formula 1 teams, failing football teams (p.s. notice a pattern here?), and Twitter, we have to watch this rubbish. We have to pay to watch this rubbish. We have to pay to travel to watch this rubbish. And we’ll still be here, long after you’ve gone, long after you’ve decided that basketball is your new sport, or ping-pong, or ice hockey, or whatever else it is that you decide to fail at next.

Ultimately, you bought the club, so technically, you can do what you like with it.

You can keep a manager in charge who is inept, doesn’t care, or both. You can keep signing aged players who are well past their best on ridiculous wages, just so they can warm the bench (we warm seats too, but we pay for the privilege).

But remember, while you might be bored of the bike, while you might have left someone in charge who won’t secure it, while you might be okay with losing it, there are some of us out there who still want to take it for a ride…

….as it’s the only f****** bike we have.

Fear and Loathing in Southampton

Southampton

Riding the train in the evening should be a time for quiet reflection. Curtains drawn, a soft dim glow from the table lamps, and a large pocket sprung chair to sink in to. The carriages thunder through the unbroken fields, for a moment disturbing the peace of the night and the sleep of the cows. A gentle whisper from the conductor breathes this station and the next. A trolley, laden with coffee for those who want to stay awake and cocoa for those who want to sleep. A peaceful, tranquil affair. Smoking jackets, slippers, and a warm blanket, all worn under the gaze of a doe-eyed moon as it drifts across the sky.

The reality is as starkly different as the fluorescent lights are bright. Here, everyone has a pale, luminous glow as they attempt to hide behind papers, books, and headphones from the relentless din of those finding solace, humour, and friendship in the warmth of alcohol. I'm in the latter category. Grolsch gripped tightly in one hand to steady against the sway of the train. Shredded lettuce and diced carrot strewn across the floor, the remnants of that dearly departed Subway dinner. Desperately trying to think of a footballer beginning with ‘G’.

The train is heading back from Southampton. A long, slow, slog, stopping at every station between the capital and the coast, and every other in-between. It's a £13 journey that began 12 hours ago on the concourse of Victoria station. The last time I came here, it was to begin a journey to France. Not this time. Here's to now. Coffee, water, chewing gum, and a crate of Peroni. The breakfast of the Saturday Kings. The Wise Men following their star; in this case a poorly performing West London football team. Not then, so wise. But, they know this, they've done it a thousand times before and, each time, the day itself is the main spectacle. A win, just a bonus.

Following football is a fools errand. Every win an instant memory at the whistle, with the next game far more important than the last. Forward, always; forever more. A never ending battle for arbitrary prizes over which the fans have no control, but are convinced they have some influence. A man in a Shepherd’s Bush pub once cited urination in a graveyard as the reason for that day’s loss. Karma. Divine intervention. The alignment of the planets. Football takes sane people and turns them into irrational fanatics, willing to spend cold hard cash on countless tickets, shirts, beers, terrible burgers, and extra long odds; travelling the length of the country to shout, scream, cheer, cry, turn-tail, reach home and start over again.

The majority of fans are calm, mostly. They reserve their emotion for the 90 minutes of play, directing anger to those on the pitch, and occasionally turning their joy towards the opposition fans. At the final whistle, they send a text, put their hands deep in their pockets and trudge to the pub for the late afternoon game. 

Some though, a small minority, are animals. Mouths foaming, knuckles dragging, they come tanked up on booze, drugs, and the inner turmoil from their own miserable existence. Venting in each and every direction, they look for trouble, actively seeking a confrontation, or many. A comment on the team, a jibe at a player, or a polite request to sit down brought bile to the throat of one particular animal, out from his cage on day release from the Zoo. Inside, he smiled. This was the moment he had emerged for. He saw the red rag waving, loud and clear, where others did not. He howled, fists whirling, veins throbbing, belly slapping. He spat. He shouted. He shamed every fan of his ‘own’ colour. The target? A man with his ten year old boy. The former visibly shaken, the latter in tears. Neither will come to the football again, not for a long while. A day ruined, a season ruined, a belief in humanity ruined.

That fan’s behaviour won’t be shown in the adverts of Barclaycard, Budweiser, and whoever else sponsors English football. It's echoed up and down the country though, I guarantee. Morons, plain and simple. The scum of the nation whose single brain cell gets so lonely it wants to cry, lash out, and ruin the world for everyone else. A father and his son traumatised, victimised, subjected to a violent display of aggression reserved for the jungle, not the terraces. The police took action on the day. Let's hope they take more.

The day over, the team lost. We walk along the central reservation. A thousand fans, all headed to the pub across the asphalt in silence. No animosity. No aggression. Slide into the bar. Another beer and another match. The train appears at 19.00. The spectacular views of the sea, moors, and castles covered by the darkness and neglected by alcohol. It's a long way back to London this way. A station in every town, village, hamlet, and Gatwick airport, all ticked off the list. I’ve done one, I’ve done all. I’ve seen the six foot elf, fully clad in the uniform of Santa’s employ, wrapped in coat from North Face, buying a train ticket home. Honestly.

The clock ticks, slowly. The conversation turns to every matter bar football. Some in the carriage listen lazily, some turn the volume up and turn to those pages of the newspaper never read before.

It's been a long day.

The Highbury Barn - Highbury, London

26 Highbury Park, London, N5 2AB

Garbage, most football pubs. Soulless holes that profit from proximity to a ground and exist solely to pump each punter with a yard and a half of cheap lager every other Saturday and some week nights in between. The one under the M6 was a particular favourite of mine. A dank pit, with ITV on a fourteen inch TV, warm Budweiser from a multipack, and a foot of stagnant water on the wrong side of the latrine. Still, it makes for a good story at parties, doesn't it? 

There are exceptions - rare gems that people actually enjoy visiting - The Crown & Sceptre, The Strawberry Pub, The Coach & Horses, and The Lass O'Gowrie (RIP), to name a few. For them, there is no smoke in the toilet, no deliberate rough surfaces in the cubicles, no fat b*st**ds at the door eyeing up your colours and looking for a fight. Strangely, what stars these pubs in Google Maps is the same thing that attracts people to the pub on a non-match day: good beer, friendly bar staff, decent food, and the fact that you can walk in and out with an iPhone still in your hand.

From Arsenal you expect the best of course. Every pub within half-a-mile caters to the Land Rover driving, ski trip taking, wax jacket wearing, white wine drinking, former Chelsea fans who've grown bored of Abramovich and, along with Arsene Wenger, have taken an expensive punt on Mesut Özil. 

I joke of course...some of their fans drive Toyota Prius.

The Highbury Barn I've visited only on match days. A slightly dark, sweaty pub, reminiscent of a Wetherspoons, where I felt comfortable practicing my best football voice - Fackin' 'ell ref! - has been renovated: flooded with light, given a separate restaurant area, and had the most futuristic of tables installed. Honestly, these things dispense beer at mouth level, they'll save a fortune on the washing up. The food has possibly been renovated too. Last time I went with the brilliant outdoor BBQ'd burger. Five quid, and it came with chips - better value than my ticket. Now they offer up meat from Godfreys Co. on the opposite side of the road, a place I've heard nothing but acclaim for and a choice that will surely get the wax-jacket brigade firmly seated for the lunchtime game. 

The sausage and mash served was tasty and came with peas. I can't stress that enough. Too often I end up with meat, mash, gravy, and no vegetables. 'Has tha nowt green?'. There isn't much else to say about sausage and mash. No lumps in the latter and plenty of flavour in the former. Perfect. The fact that I'd managed an almost identical meal earlier in the day from Piebury Corner probably speaks volumes for the quality alone.

Bar eleven overpaid useless ***** in West London pulling their fingers out or a 3rd Round FA Cup draw, you're more likely to see Van Persie at the Emirates than me next season. That said, if I'm passing through The Highbury Barn will definitely be a reason to stop.

Disclaimer: The Highbury Barn invited me for a couple of beers. The food I paid for. And I do count many Arsenal fans as my friends. Some of them don't even own a wax jacket.