False Nine Read Free

all. But the way I see it you have two choices if you’re going to survive as a club. Either you do what some Swedish clubs do – clubs like Gothenburg – with most of the players taking part-time jobs as painters and decorators. Or there’s what a French philosopher speaking about something else calls “the detestable solution”. A solution which makes total business sense but which will have the supporters crying out for your head, Midge, and everyone else on your board.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A merger. With Hearts. To form a new Edinburgh club. Edinburgh Wanderers. Midlothian United.’
    ‘You must be joking. Besides, that’s been considered before. And rejected.’
    ‘I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right solution. Edinburgh isn’t Manchester, Midge. It can barely support one good team, let alone two. You use the assets of one club to pay off the debts and build a future for them both. It’s simple economics. The only problem is that tribes don’t like economics. And Hibs and Hearts are two of the oldest tribes in Scotland. Look, it worked for Inverness Cally Thistle. In less than twenty years they’ve merged two failing clubs and gone from the Scottish Third Division to being second in the SPL. The case for a merger is irrefutable. You know it. I know it. Even they know it – the supporters – in their heads. The only trouble is that they don’t think with their heads, but with their hearts. If you’ll pardon the expression.’
    ‘These people aren’t like other people,’ said Midge. ‘They know how to hate and more importantly they know how to hurt. I’d probably have to seek police protection. Leave the city. We all would.’
    ‘Then to quote Private Fraser, you’re doomed. Doomed, I tell ye. It’s the same for most of the clubs in the north of England. It’s history and tradition that are holding them back, too. There’s this singularity called the Barclays Premier League that deforms everything that comes close to it and which is sucking everything in English football into its mass. The big clubs get more successful and the poor ones disappear. Who wants to go and pay twenty quid to watch Northampton Town get stuffed when you can support Arsenal in the comfort of your own home? That’s the physics of football, Midge. You can’t argue with the laws of the universe.’
    ‘It’s only a game,’ said Midge. ‘That’s what these bloody people forget sometimes. It’s only a game.’
    ‘But it’s the only bloody game as far as they’re concerned.’
    I went back to the hotel to watch MOTD but it hardly seemed worth it since the matches were all Scottish ones. Not that there would have been any English Premier League matches anyway because of international duties, which meant I was at least spared watching Arsenal throw away a three goal lead, as they’d recently done against Anderlecht in the Champions League. That had grieved me a lot less than it might have done. The fact is that since I started to watch football with the eyes of an ordinary fan I’ve come to appreciate something genuinely beautiful about the beautiful game. It’s this: learning how to lose is an important part of being a fan. Losing teaches you – in the words of Mick Jagger – that you can’t always get what you want. This is an important part of being a human being – perhaps the most important part of all. Learning to cope with disappointment is what we call character. Rudyard Kipling had it almost right, I think. In life it helps to treat triumph and disaster with equal sangfroid. The ancient Greeks knew the importance that the gods placed on our ability to suck it up. They even had a word for it when we didn’t: hubris. Learning how to suck it up is what makes you a mensch. It’s only fascists who will tell you anything else. I prefer to think that this is the true meaning of Bill Shankly’s oft-quoted remark about life and death. I think that what he really meant was this: that