Worst World Cup Moments

No. 3: The Sven Kid

To be honest, if I did a World Cup best moments list, this would make it on there. But I’m doing a worsties list so this will have to do. Some things are just too good to leave out.

It's easy to forget now (or remember and sneer about it), but England fans were actually pretty excited about the team from about 2001 – 2004. Aside from the awesome shirt we had from 2001-2003 (pictured), this was down to the appointment of Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager, and the heralding of the so-called golden generation of Beckham, Scholes, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Campbell, Owen and... erm... Emile Heskey. OK, so some were more golden than others.

Anyway, England went to the 2002 World Cup full of optimism. Sven had turned the team around and got qualification (courtesy of a late Beckham goal against Greece) from a tricky group, the highlight being a 5-1 win away to Germany. Things didn't quite go to plan in the run up to the World Cup, Gerrard and Gary Neville pulled out through injury and Beckham only just made it after breaking a metatarsal bone in his foot.

Spirits were still high though. Perhaps too high. For one child in particular.

No, that kid was not naturally bald. Nor did he need glasses. He had his head shaved and wore the glasses to look like Sven-Goran Eriksson. Whether he's a legend or an idiot I will leave for you to decide.

The Great White Hype

Director: Reginald Hudlin
Writers: Tony Hendra, Ron Shelton
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum

Released: 1996

Seeing this film at the cinema was one of the great cinematic experiences for me. Not because the film was that good, but that our gang were the only people in the room. The film was shown in the smallest screening room anyway (screen 10 – out of 10 – I think) but having only 5 people attend on opening weekend was still pretty lame.

It meant that we could mess about. Everyone immediately lay across about 4 seats. Food and various other items (including shoes) were thrown around. We climbed up at the back and could look into the projection room. It was quite small and there wasn't much in there. Not even a seat.

"Off the Ground" by Paul McCartney (released three years earlier) was playing on the stereo in there before the film started. I'd heard this album before (I got it out from Leek Library) and it wasn't very good. The title track was strong but the rest of the album was weak. We found that if you smacked the wall with your hand you could make the CD jump. Kind of added a hip hop edge to Macca's dad rock.

I don't really remember that much about the film and I've not seen it again since. I think Samuel L. Jackson was in it as a Don King-type character and that guy from that film (you know the one) was a white guy fighting a black champion boxer in a hyped up bout. I think he had beaten the champ when they were amateurs and the champ hadn't lost since, so fight fans were getting bored. Or something. The champ won in the end though.

Cinema staff popped in occasionally to keep an eye on us as the film was playing, but we had already gotten bored of messing about by the time the trailers started so there wasn't much for them to see, though we were all still lying across several seats at various locations around the room. Being mischievous is tiring.

I'd recommend only watching this film under similar circumstances.

Rating: ?

Glastonbury 2014

I won't be attending Glastonbury this weekend as a fan, but I will be playing there with my band. Not really, but I wish this was the case. I think playing in front of 200,000 people on the Pyramid Stage would have been the perfect comeback gig for us. Our previous biggest ever audience was one, if you count only humans, and three if you also include cats. And that one sole human was the younger brother of one of the band, and he was only allowed to hang around because we were using his instruments. And we were playing at his house. It might have been slightly unfair if we didn't let him stay.

I'm not sure where we would have been on the bill if the Eavis family had booked us. We wouldn't be as high as Dolly Parton obviously (no-one is), but we'd be above Metallica at least. The fact our band had no name might also cause problems as no-one would see us on the posters or anything, there'd just be a gap where a name should be.

Instead of us, the assembled throngs will have to put up with Arcade Fire, Robert Plant, Pixies, Warpaint, Blondie, St Vincent, Lykke Li, Gabrielle Aplin and Goldfrapp. It's your loss people.

Worst World Cup Moments

No. 2: Rivaldo

Like many players, Rivaldo could dive and feign injury at will, but he outdid himself at the 2002 World Cup.

In Brazil's first group game against Turkey, Rivaldo had just scored a penalty in the 87th minute (wrongly awarded - see 4:37 in this video - the foul was clearly outside the box) to give Brazil a 2-1 lead, and leaving Turkey with only 10 men.

As the game went into injury time, Rivaldo engaged in a bit of time wasting at a corner. Hakan Unsal ran over to kick the ball to/at him...

The ball hit Rivaldo in the thigh, only for Rivaldo to take a dive clutching his face, as shown quite nicely in the video above, all set to some lovely hip hop music. Result: Hakan Unsal was sent off and Rivaldo would forever be associated with (pointless) cheating.

Worst World Cup Moments

Seemingly every newspaper and website in the world is having a series on the best or most important moments from World Cup history right about now. I can't compete with that, but I can mention some of the worst.

No. 1: Diana Ross

At USA 94, Diana Ross was the main attraction of the opening ceremony. An odd choice on many levels:, she’s not the kind of artist that I think many football fans would have liked (especially back then when football was a lot less female friendly than it is now) and her star was seriously on the decline by then; she hadn't had a top 10 album in the US since 1980 and a top 10 single since 1984. 19 of her previous 20 singles had even failed to chart in America at all.

Anyway, at one point in the ceremony, Diana was meant to kick a football into a goal, only it didn't quite go to plan. She spannered the ball hopelessly wide, made worse by the fact the goals fell apart as if her "goal" had broken them. Ever the pro, she kept on running and singing. And by singing, I mean lip-synching; and quite badly too, she doesn't even bother holding the microphone to her mouth much of the time. She does sing the odd bit over the backing tape to be fair though as the show goes on.

You can watch the whole 8 minute Diana Ross section of the opening ceremony by clicking here. You can also see her nipples poking through her top quite prominently towards the end of her performance too, if you're into that kind of thing.

Love Shack

It's the summertime now, which is a perfect excuse to listen to 'Love Shack', perhaps the defining cultural achievement of the 20th Century.

One time in High School, there was a drive to reduce the amount of lost property, so teachers would read out lists of lost property items at the start of classes to try to find their owners. One German lesson, Herr W (our teacher) read out a list of the usual items (gloves, scarves etc) with little response, until he mentioned a 'Love Shack' 12” picture disc single. After a brief silence, about 10 kids all put their hands up claiming it as their own. I think only 'Love Shack' could have had that kind of effect on a class of apothetic Generation Xers. And yes, I was one of those 10 kids.

World Cup Fever

The World Cup got underway yesterday in Brazil with the hosts beating Croatia 3-1. The first World Cup I can remember is Mexico 86. (I can't say for sure but I think it was held in Mexico in 1986.) I was only 7 at the time, a young innocent, probably listening to The Smiths, REM, Throwing Muses, like most people did at that age and at that time. I was probably still into David Bowie then too, but secretly thought that his recent stuff wasn't as good as his 70s stuff, though didn't want to tell that to anyone else because I was just happy to see Bowie alive, happy and successful. He deserved it.

Just before Mexico 86, I had a bit of an accident. Playing football in our back yard on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I needed to go to the bathroom, so I ran to our back door, and tried to shove it open, thinking it to be ajar. As it happened, the door was shut and my hand went straight through one of the 1960s style glass panels (in 1986) leaving my wrist cut open and shards of glass stuck in the wound. As my mum didn't drive and my dad was playing golf (and was unreachable), my mum had to take me to my nan and grandad's house (a couple of streets away) to try to get a lift to the hospital. They weren't in either, nor their neighbour who we knew (who was also my godfather). I had a green and white tea towel wrapped around my wrist, soaking up the blood. In the end, some guy in my grandparents's street who happened to be outside washing his car offered to drive us to the hospital so that I could get my wrist dealt with.

The end result of this was that for the start of Mexico 86, I had my right wrist stitched and bandaged up. Coincidentally, star England striker of that World Cup was Gary Lineker, who had his (left) wrist bandaged during the tournament (see the picture above). This led to inevitable comparisons in the playground; fortunately, I was quite the goalscorer in those days and my Lineker-like appearance and goal-hanging made me a feared lunchtime goal threat.

England eventually lost in the quarter finals to Argentina, who went on to win the tournament. My wrist bandage was eventually removed, but it had served its purpose. My class's team (with me as star striker) went on to win a six-a-side tournament that summer too, proving me more successful than Gary Lineker that year, who won nothing, other than the World Cup's golden boot award for leading scorer and a multi-million pound transfer to Barcelona.