GET SHIRTY
Back in the day, football clubs would simply announce their latest transfer signing with a photo. Sometimes, the player would hold the shirt up in the boardroom, or in the stands. Sometimes, for a bit of variety, the player would wear the shirt and hold the shirt up. Front and back, like, to appease the masses. Things started ramping up in the 90s. Bryan Robson was announced at Middlesbrough in 1994 by doing a few kick-ups in a suit/kit combo: jacket and tie up top, shin pads and shorts down the bottom. Because you know, he’s the player-manager. Business in the boardroom, party on the pitch. Still, it sort of worked. We’re talking about it now, 29 years later.
Other attempts aged a little worse. A couple of years later Benito Carbone was made to stand next to some bloke in a Pavarotti mask and eat a plate of plain spaghetti next to David Pleat upon arriving at Sheffield Wednesday. Because, you know, he’s Italian. David Ginola turned up to his Tottenham unveiling with his top off. Because, you know, abs. Fast forward to the 2010s, and an era of Social Media Disgraces and the desperate hunt for engagement and clicks, ranging from the sublime (Santi Cazorla appearing in a genuinely incredible and baffling magic trick on Villarreal’s pitch), to the ridiculous (we still can’t work out the Patrik Schick to Roma video) to the painful (see Antonio Rüdiger in a closet at the Chelsea club shop or Omar Gonzalez being forced to do his first press conference as a Pachuca player in a full Darth Vader outfit, complete with lightsaber, helmet and cloak).
And so, a little weary, we arrive at this week’s efforts. As ever, there are a range of wares on offer. Rochdale’s lo-fi Phoenix Nights-pilfered video to announce the loan signing of Kwaku Oduroh is rather charming, and a world away from the chilling declaration made by the Saudi club Al-Ittihad that they have signed Jota from Celtic and now, unabashedly, “want to rule the world”. A little too close to the bone there. In other Saudi news, Newcastle were at pains to tell everyone how “delighted” they were about Sandro Tonali’s arrival, only to post a video of the poor Italian looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
This week’s winner though, goes to Liverpool and the eruption of “Chairgate”, with some supporters claiming the novel invention of sitting down, with Mason Mount’s slouch at Manchester United’s apparently a little too similar to that of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, thank you very much. Who knows what they would have made of Alessia Russo at Arsenal, perched on a fetching armchair at the Emirates (although the details of it being an antique five-legged chair from the boardroom – with Henry Norris having an extra leg installed on the back of the chair so he could tip it in board meetings – are delicious). Onwards, then. Who knows what will be next? Declan Rice in a Holloway Road curry house? Gvardiol v Guardiola. It’s going to be awful.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We want everyone to be proud of having a hedgehog snuffling on their pitch. We want everyone to be able to take a break from the kids’ school match, sit by a pond and see dragonflies” – conservationist Nick Acheson responds to news of the FA committing to rewilding the English game. Come on you Erinaceidae!
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
My daughter was reading Football Daily over my shoulder last night and asked who Hannah Dingley was – I explained and she asked if there were lots of women managing men’s football teams. ‘But aren’t there lots of men in charge of women’s teams …?’ A withering look, a shake of the head and STOP FOOTBALL has its latest nine-year-old convert” – John Gregory.
Re: Andrew Douglas’s query about wearing scarves in Saudi Arabia (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). If they have air-con units in their stadiums that are anything like the ones Qatar employed during the World Cup, they’ll need scarves, hats, hoodies, gloves, the lot” – Jim Hearson.
Jon Deacon might have a point in terms of similarities between the UK and Saudi Arabia (yesterday’s letters). But, ask yourself, does the government of the country that hosts the Premier League promote policies that contravene human rights law? What? Oh” – Jon Millard.
As a regular reader, I was interested enough to look at the offer of the upcoming Football Weekly book [available to order now, out on 28 September – Football Daily Ed]. The webpage invited me to be the first to review it. Having duly written my one-star review, I was then told I couldn’t submit it as I hadn’t bought the book. So that’s five minutes of my life wasted” – Mark Waters.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Jon Millard.
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