JOURNALISM’S code of dishonour would normally prevent me exposing sleight of hand in the intros of a fellow practitioner. God knows, I’ve pulled some shameless tricks myself in that line. But I can’t let pass the opening sentence in yesterday’s Guardian- syndicated report of the Benfica-Chelsea Champions League match.
Here’s what it said: “These are the moments when Chelsea make it seem barely plausible that they have based long parts of their season on the theory of chaos . . .” Now stop right there, Mr Guardian reporter. But just who, apart from yourself (maybe), ever believed that Chelsea had “based” any of their season on “the theory of chaos”? I suggest this was hardly plausible even before Tuesday night’s game. And assuming it was – if only to you – why should a 1-0 win in Portugal change anything? Yes I’m sure that, like everyone else, Chelsea footballers are subject to the laws of chaos. It’s well known, for example, that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in China can, thousands of miles away, cause Didier Drogba to fall over in the opposition penalty area even though the defender didn’t touch him.
But are we really asked to believe that Drogba’s club consciously planned their season around this most complex of mathematical subjects? That the ideas of Henri Poincaré – say – might have been the basis of sacked manager André Villas-Boas’s doomed attempts to change the team’s style of play? I know Boas is one of a new breed of deep-thinking continental managers, so I suppose it’s just about credible that he mentioned Poincaré’s Conjecture occasionally during tactical talks. After all, in my limited understanding, the conjecture was an attempt to define a three-dimensional sphere – like a ball – in relation to four-dimensional space. But if that’s what AVB was doing, it’s no wonder he lost the dressing room.
Maybe Frank Lampard, who’s said to be unusually intelligent for a footballer, might have understood. I gather he got 11 GSCEs including an A in Latin. And that, according to the classic British measurement of brain-power, he has an IQ “higher than Carol Vorderman’s”.
As for John Terry and the rest, though, it’s surely as much as they can do to absorb simple football equations like the diamond formation, or the concept of playing “in the hole”. Even there, a manager might have his work cut out. It’s no secret that if “the hole” on a football pitch is too wide, or deep, or has an irregular shape, you can easily lose a dressing room in it.
OF COURSE, this sort of thing extends well beyond the Guardian. We have also now reached that part of the English football season when Sir Alex Ferguson starts making pointed comments about his nearest rivals and, like Pavlov’s dog (with a type-writer), football reporters everywhere are suddenly impelled to eulogise his mastery of “mind games”.
If the Manchester United manager’s reputation for intellectual brilliance is to be believed, Poincaré would be no match for him – no matter how much he had to spend on players. Ferguson hardly has to open his mouth (not something he always considers necessary when speaking, anyway) these days to be portrayed as an evil genius, like Fu Manchu.
But don’t mind me: I’m just in a bit of a huff today because a reader has accused me of committing a common “sporting solecism” here recently, when I mentioned the boxer Matthew Macklin’s “brave defeat to” (sic) Sergio Martinez.
“Surely it should read ‘defeat by’,” suggests the outraged reader, who argues that, if the sentence were in the past tense, “you would not say ‘Macklin was defeated to’ [Martinez].” And I suppose he’s right. My only excuse is that “brave defeat by” seemed to transfer the adjective to the victor, where it wasn’t wanted. And in thus attempting to avoid the left hook, as it were, I walked into the right.
But speaking of boxing metaphors, the same reader throws a low punch in also advancing a theory about where this latter-day misusage originated, viz: “I suspect a cub reporter on Sky Sports came up with it and now, lemming-like, every other scribe commits the mortaller.” Ouch.
IT COULD BE WORSE, I suppose. Time was when if a journalist on this paper committed such an error, he could expect a note from Myles na gCopaleen. Just ask a very illustrious columnist, still illuminating our Weekend supplement, who at the start of his career once used the word “me” in print where it should have been “I”.
Cue a postcard from Myles pointing out the mistake. But he didn’t leave it there. Like a wise old teacher, sensing the young man might need help remembering the lesson, he also called him an “ignorant bollocks”. Sure enough, it worked. Half a century later, my colleague hasn’t forgotten (and it’s too late now for counselling).
Happily, Myles’s writings tended to be more humorous, generally. And as such, they will be celebrated again this coming weekend in the now-annual Mylesday. The event marks the anniversary of his death on April 1st, 1966, and like last year will happen in The Palace bar, Dublin, on Sunday next between 3pm and 7pm.
The reading/performance schedule is already crowded. But if you have a good party piece, organiser John Clarke might still fit you in. Be warned, however: like those guitar shops that have a "no Stairway to Heaven" rule, Clarke has been forced to ration outings of a certain poem about "the Pint of Plain". More details are at mylesday.com.