Liga Fever

On March 20th, 1910, about 60 metres from the house where I now sit at my keyboard, Athletic Bilbao, sporting for the first time their iconic red and white stripes, defeated Vasconia (about to become Real Sociedad) 1-0 in what was essentially the final of the breakaway tournament UECF (Spanish Union of Football Clubs), now officially recognised in the history books.  Remigio Iza scored the goal in the 56^th minute and the ref (Lavat) had come from across the nearby French border to San Sebastián to officiate the tournament’s games. Madrid FC were the other side, and the next day they lost to Vasconia 2-0 in what was essentially a 2^nd/3^rd-place play-off. 

Had some sooth-saying fairy suddenly appeared back then and whispered into the Basque captains’ ears that it would take another 111 years for the occasion to be repeated, they would have either laughed at such an improbability, or dismissed the fairy as a liar. Well of course, the fairy would have needed to have been privy to the fact that the pandemic would delay this long-awaited occasion by yet another year, but hey, on Saturday it’s actually going to happen, come hell or high water – only this time down in Sevilla, in La Cartuja stadium – not quite the same as the Ondarreta stadium in 1910 which was basically a bit of reclaimed boggy marsh next to the sea, roped off on four sides.

Nevertheless, Saturday’s game will have fewer spectators than in 1910, and is timed to kick off at 21.30 to ensure that there will be no sweaty heaving conglomerates in the two cities’ bars, in a region where the watering-holes close by edict at 20.00 and the night curfew begins at 22.00.  For the citizens of either Bilbao or San Sebastian, any fountain-jumping or marine-wallowing will have to wait until dawn on Sunday.  I just nipped down to the beach for an optimistic rehearsal, and with the water at an icy 12 degrees I managed to stay in for a ball-shrinking five minutes before emerging refreshed but with the flesh a kind of pale blue – not quite Real Sociedad’s darker blue but it could be a sign, who knows?    

Spain being an urban balcony culture, the victory will be celebrated with folks spattering each other over shortish distances with champagne showers, as long as the fluid is not deemed to spread the Covid virus.  When Athletic and Real Sociedad won their places in the final last season on the cusp of the first lockdown (ten days later) there were copious memes of King Felipe looking up to the sky in desperation with a speech bubble saying ‘Lo que faltaba’ (just what I needed), the meaning of which – in case it’s not obvious, is that the last thing the King needed, after another annus horribilis in the ‘firm’, was an April final in Seville with 60,000 heaving Basques, all tanked up and primed for the mother-of-all booing sessions of the Spanish national anthem. The pandemic saved his royal bacon, and has kindly repeated the gesture this year.  Felipe can smile behind his mask on Saturday and convince himself for another year that there is no sundown on the union.   There was talk of holding the game in the Basque Country, once it became obvious that the pandemic was not yielding, with Alaves´ Mendizorrotza ground the obvious choice, situated, as it is, in the Basque capital of Vitoria-Gasteiz, but the Spanish Federation held firm and maybe they’re right.  In commercial terms, the game now means nothing to the city of Seville, but there’s some sort of tradition attached to playing a cup final at a regionally neutral venue – a necessary venture into semi-foreign territory to taste the sensation of an event, to turn it into a big day. 

Bizarrely, the league derby between the two clubs was originally scheduled for this very Saturday, and so the clubs will cross swords again the following Wednesday in San Sebastián. Ten days later, Athletic will return to Seville to gorge on yet another final (against Barcelona), having also reached this year’s through a rampant act of cup gluttony. And talking of gluttony, Athletic’s line in the good-natured banter between the two communities tends to focus on the huge quantitative disparity between the trophies won by the two sides since that 1910 meeting, the main joke consisting of ‘Just think – if Athletic win both finals they’ll have won more cups in two weeks than Real Sociedad in their entire history’ – which is harsh but true. Real won it in 1987 under Toshack in Zaragoza against Atlético Madrid whilst Athletic have won the trophy 23 times, second only to Barcelona whom they of course defeated in this season’s Supercopa, the win unleashing an orgy of pent-up celebration after years of relative trophy-lessness.  Athletic last won the cup in 1984, again against Maradona’s Barcelona, in a game that ended infamously in mass fisticuffs.  Nevertheless, for all Bilbao’s crowing, their post-Franco trophy haul is neither better nor worse than Real Sociedad’s, both sides winning consecutive leagues in the 1980s in a four-year Basque-fest of dominance.

 All the above is actually a preamble to stating that the final in Seville is an event of socio-cultural significance, whether Spain at large gives a fig or not.  There has been a tendency in the foreign press, particularly in the UK in recent years, to idealise the whole Athletic vibe – impressive though it is. But the idea that Athletic are somehow the sole representatives of Basque culture, the ‘flagship’ of the region’s football, is largely a myth of its own making, relentlessly fuelled by the club’s daily self-proclamation as to that alleged fact.  The truth is rather more subtle, rather more interesting, but the foreign press prefers the myth.  The myth also feeds the idea that the Basque Country is a mono-cultural collective when in truth the regions of Bizkaia (Athletic) and Gipuzkoa (Real Sociedad) are very different in temperament.  There is a basic solidarity between the two regions, and derby matches are largely friendly affairs, but Bilbao’s insufferable self-belief can be politely described as Quixotic whist San Sebastian’s more cautious conservatism is easier to swallow.  It makes for a fascinating contrast, as do the current styles of the two teams. 

In terms of quality, Real Sociedad have the edge if they have their big guns up and running.  A healthy midfield of David Silva, Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi – the latter perhaps the new Xabi Alonso – is capable of taking any side apart, whereas Athletic base their approach on the more traditional virtues of dagger-in-teeth aggression and spirit.  That said, Sociedad have nobody like Iker Muniain, unlucky not to have been picked for the current Spain squad, and the centre-back partnership of the turncoat Iñigo Martinez plus Yeray is one of the best in La Liga.  Yeray is the next Laporte.  He won’t be staying much longer in Bilbao, and Unai Simon, their excellent keeper, probably won’t be either.

The game has become a regional obsession, with both communities attempting to outdo the other with outward displays of flag-waving proclamations and good-humoured banter.  Schools have become red or blue centres, balcony flags speckle the urban landscape and when folks stop you in the street for a quick chat about whatever, the game either begins or ends the conversation.  It has become all-consuming, slightly tiresome and yet it’s impossible to stay dry in the footy-soaked moment.  The father of one of Real Sociedad’s defenders (I’ll keep it discreet) has moved into the flat directly above me, and the son comes over from time to time to hang out.  A few days ago, having ventured to the bins, I was returning to the steps outside the building when said defender suddenly appeared from the main door, meeting his girlfriend who was walking her dog.  The dog, on seeing the defender, jumped up in happy greeting and connected directly with his wedding gear, whereupon the victim effected the classic head-down grimace, hands clutching the offended parts.  Amused and unable to resist, I quipped (from behind my mask) ‘Oye cuidado! Necesitamos a este el fin de semana’ (Hey – be careful! We need this guy at the weekend’).  And I meant it.  I don’t know if he was amused. You can’t really tell when people have masks on.

I’ll leave it there. It would be churlish to turn this article into some sort of anti-Athletic rant because in truth, if the game were to be played in normal circumstances, 60,000 Basques would have descended upon Seville and mixed peacefully but boisterously in the streets for days in a perfect display of what sport could and should be about.

 In the stadium itself, the supporters would have sat together and taken the mutual piss in a friendly fashion that has developed naturally over the years.  It’s brilliant, and a lesson to us all.  Athletic consider themselves the most important sporting institution on Earth, but that is the endearing and defining quality of Bilbao’s baffling lack of self-awareness, whilst Real Sociedad are rather more modest and aloof in their pretensions, mirroring the more upmarket breeding of Gipuzkoan conservatism  – sometimes to the detriment of the competitive edge that Athletic possess, almost genetically.  But Sociedad play great football and produce as many, if not more, locally-bred Basque footballers from their ranks.  That these two clubs, coming from such a small territory, have written such a significant chapter of Spanish football history says a lot about the Basques – who despite their wealth have never had an easy time of it.  It’s an amazing place and I feel blessed to have raised my children here, one of whom was good enough to play alongside and against some of the players who will be on the pitch in La Cartuja on Saturday. 

These two clubs have been waiting 111 years to enact this unique cultural celebration. Saturday is an important wee day in the history of the Basque Country that not even a damned virus can ruin, and if Athletic could just find it in themselves to generously gift a trophy to their little brother, they would be more than happy if big bro were to stuff Barcelona a fortnight later.

Phil Ball, San Sebastián

I’ve recently finished writing a kids’ novel, and during the process of coming up with the ‘elevator pitch’ (the blurb to convince the literary agent in less than 20 words) I’ve learned various things, the most important of which is that if you don’t have a simple story line with characters who have punchy kid-like features, you can’t write the pitch….and therefore your book probably sucks, or won’t sell.

It also got me thinking about football in a slightly different way.  Imagine that football didn’t exist, and that you were pitching it (as a commercial concept) to some wealthy ideas person whom you just happened to have met in an elevator. You’d probably get their attention before the ‘ping’ and the opening of the penthouse doors.  They’d probably give you a quick parting glance and say ‘Yeah ok.  Tell me more’ and leave you to work out how exactly to do that – I mean by finding out the e-mail of the schmuck in the hierarchy to whom you really send the pitch.  The pitch itself will be easy.  Football?  The basic rules are simple, the parameters clear, and the attraction for tribalism obvious.  But as I get older and reflect on a life following the tortuous ups-and-downs of my beloved two teams, of watching my son play as a vicarious extension of my own hopes and failures, of experiencing, for nine months a year, the vile aftermaths of defeat and the absurd and irrational ecstasy that accompanies a win – I’ve suddenly realised that the pull of football has nothing at all to do with winning and losing.  It’s like a bolt from the blue beyond – and I’ve only seen it because of the obligation to do the literary pitch.  Bear with me.

To get kids interested in a book, you have to create a sense of injustice.   You need goodies and baddies, sure, but that ain’t enough.  Anybody can do goodies and baddies, but creating a story in which the reader gets the brutal idea that the world is hopelessly unfair is basically your only ticket to getting published.  The only carrot that keeps the kid reading is the desperate hope that injustice will be vanquished – that the world is actually okay and that the goodies will be treated fairly, in the end.   There’s also the small matter of impunity, where in the follow-up book the Voldemorts will get their just desserts….but that can often wait. 

If you took away the sense of injustice from football, the entire edifice would collapse overnight.  Almost all of my mates – at least those who are as emotionally afflicted as me by football – are convinced that there is a high-level conspiracy being carried out against their team – and hence against their very own persons.  No amount of therapy can cure this. And not only is there a conspiracy, there is also a cabal of referees who are against their team, and hence against them.  It’s personal, of course.  Some referees may be incompetent, but it is their alleged bias that rubs folks up far more. 

The emergence of VAR has only fuelled these feelings of injustice, given that we were sold the idea that it would somehow correct all errors overnight – as if it were as simple as the tennis hawk-eye configuration. In tennis now, it’s in or it’s out, and McEnroe can leave his testosterone in the changing-rooms, but in football the configurations are more complex, of course.  And so the guys in the VAR room –apparently there for our protection, have in fact become an integral part of the conspiracy, aiding and abetting the officials in their personal vendetta against our club.  Like Winston Smith in 1984, we are wary of any campaign to undermine our paranoia.  If there is no injustice, football loses a large part of its magic, just like that Harry Potter novel without Malfoy.

Justice in football is a fleeting emotion. If you deserved to win that league title then fair enough, you won it – but the satisfaction will never last as long as a perceived injustice. It will never fuel your love for your club in quite the same way.  Leeds United’s league titles glow more dimly than their historic sense of outrage at their home defeat by West Brom in 1971, where an offside decision not given (allegedly) cost them the league title.  As Barry Davies, the commentator at the time famously yelled: ‘Leeds will go mad, and they’ve every right to go mad’.   The game and the referee, Ray Tinkler, are now a part of Leeds’ DNA, and no matter what Bielsa currently achieves, he will never exorcise this from either the club or its community. 

Put up the question on the twittersphere, and word it something like ‘In which game in the history of your club were you most fucked over?’ and you will be guaranteed a flood of angst-fuelled answers, like a sociopath convention where members are invited to air their grievances.   Of course, there will be different levels of validity, with regard to the responses.  Here in Spain, Barcelona’s president was murdered in the mountains by the Nationalist forces at the outbreak of the civil war.  That seems like a decent enough injustice to carry around in your knapsack, except that of course, the anti-Barça brigade have accused them of ‘victimismo’ (victim-complex) over the years, whining about Madrid and political oppression whilst happily raking in the lolly.  You decide.

Further down the pecking order, this doesn’t mean that an Elche fan (for example) should feel guilty at complaining about a penalty decision awarded in the Camp Nou against his team, because Elche will have their own historic grievance to sustain them, whatever it is.  Other teams’ grievances are of little concern. The sociopath is only concerned with his own sense of injustice.  Stoke City fans will fuel their rage by being associated with wet Tuesday nights. Is it always wet on a Tuesday night in Stoke?  Perhaps not, but football’s pervasive discourse has conspired to convince us that this is actually the case.

You would think that Real Madrid, as Spain’s record trophy-holder, would have little cause to rail against the runes, but of course they do. The chant that still echoes around Spain’s stadia ‘Asi, asi, asi gana el Madrid’ (That’s how Madrid win) alludes to the alleged favours done them by Franco’s regime, and the continuation of official favours to this day.  Madrid fans protest, for example this season, that they are the La Liga team who have been awarded the least penalties – a statistical truth rebutted by howls of historic protest – ‘Well it’s about time!’  They can never win this particular argument because the injustice stakes are high in the collective consciousness of a nation. Madrid fans’ own sense of injustice thus resides in the feeling that their team’s achievements are undermined, and that their image is unjustly sullied.  They may be right, but nobody really gives a shit. Outside of their admittedly extensive church, their every defeat is celebrated in a writhing orgy of schadenfreude, with Catalonia at the naked forefront. Meanwhile, poor Real Madrid sit like King Midas, surrounded by gold but unable to eat.

The two sides that have invaded my emotional self and battered my psyche from the age of roughly 9 years are Grimsby Town, on whose terraces I grew up, and Real Sociedad, in whose plusher seats I have sat for the last 30 years. I like to think that destiny chose me these two teams because of their particularly virulent sense of injustice, but that would contradict my thesis.  The supporters of Crawley Town, to select an outwardly pointless team at random, will also have their stories to tell. But if we take Real Sociedad, with their acute sense of politico-cultural discrimination, we might be tempted to admit that they have a point.

Traditionally viewed as the Basque bad guys, allegedly conspiring against the state and applauding terrorism from behind the walls of their cold northern Mordor, their fan-base took it for granted that the referee collective was against them, and that the Spanish state viewed any prospect of their success with fear and loathing. Their two league titles in the 1980s were further proof of this, since their supporters reasoned that Franco’s death a decade before had finally given them the chance to compete on a semi-equal footing.  Note the word ‘semi’, for there was no still general feeling that anyone was on their side.  Their hard-balled team of the 1980s was in fact so good that nothing could stop them, but the titles were certainly earned. 35 years later, the conspiracy mentality still suffuses the club, engulfs its very being. 

They may be right – I wouldn’t like to say, but it sure makes for a fun club to follow. The greater the sense of injustice, the better the feeling is when the team sits temporarily at the top of the table, or reaches the King’s Cup Final, as was the case last season.  Even this game’s delay (it will be played on April 3^rd, a year late) is seen as a conspiracy – an attempt by Spain’s monarch-kissing unionists to spare King Felipe the inevitable public trashing of the national anthem by the massed ranks of hooligan Basque nationalists from Bilbao and San Sebastián.  Pandemic?  Nah. Nothing to do with it mate.  It’s those Falangist civil servants in Madrid, serving up their neo-fascist poison. *Don’t write in. I’m being ironic.

Grimsby Town is an altogether more complex case. Shivering out on England’s east-coast margins and cut off from the country’s main transport networks because nobody cares, the surviving hard-arsed populace has traditionally required its football team to understand this cut-off psyche, and to treat all visitors to its sagging old stadium as unwelcome ponces, to be tolerated for 90 minutes only because the rules of the game demand it. 

The club currently sits 92^nd of the 92 league teams, the victims of years of neglect and a Nero-like president, not even fiddling while his house burned. Be that as it may, Grimsby fans will direct their anger more quickly at the infamous phrases repeated by generations of higher-league players, quote: ‘No disrespect to the likes of Grimsby’ or ‘No disrespect to your Grimsbys’ – the latter one really pushing the buttons, as if your Grimsbys were a collective metaphor for everything that is shite. Well, that’s the problem. It is a convenient metaphor for everything that is shite (ask Sasha Baron Cohen) and the sense of injustice that this confers upon its fan-base has become the reason for its very being, a reason to rage against the dying of the light.

Okay – if you’ve got a few thousand followers, stick that question up on Twitter.  In the end, the sense of injustice that saturates football’s afternoons is its very lifeline, the reason that we will continue, post-pandemic, to return to its gleaming church to pay its indulgences, listen to its phoney orators and pray for a paltry three points to keep us happy for at least the following week. And given these rather challenging times, I reckon that’s absolutely fine. Meanwhile, must get on with writing to that agent…..