The Fall

My name is Ramon.

I am a hypocrite.

I was born in Perth, in the state of excitement in 1973 and not Toledo as I once claimed. I was born in an Australian era when football was footie; when football meant Victorian Football League (VFL); when football meant sitting on my father’s knee to watch Drew Morfett host The Winners every Sunday night after Countdown. My father never did take me to a football game and for this I am grateful. I have no memories, then, of ‘aussie rules’, but only the everlasting memory of The Winners theme music and a vague homosexual delight in watching burly men tangle with each other in the Melbourne rain.

I first encountered ‘soccer’ in the fifth grade. Back then it was customary to feature a month or two of each sport, to learn the basics, to at least know the name of what you were meant to be doing. Back then, soccer was only for sheilas, wogs and poofters. I remember the other boys laughing, insisting that we might also learn to hug each other like those foreign players did. How easily scornful we were, so confident in knowing that it was worse to embrace another man in celebration, rather than throw him coarsely into the mud, in manly fashion, like they did in VFL. Besides, those soccer players could only score one or two goals a game. In real footie you could get over a hundred points! But the most surprising thing I remember about that first day was being told by the teacher, looking up from his instruction manual, how to kick the ball with the inside of your foot. What a strange thing to do, I thought.

The next time I thought about football (soccer) was when I was a teenager and had access to the families first home computer, the legendary Commodore Amiga (no we never had an Commodore 64, Atari or Spectrum). I’d never seen a football match. Ever. I’d not even seen a soccer ball since those early school days. But I fell in love with the first edition of Championship Manager despite the fact that it had no graphics, no sound (as such, except that scratchy imitation crowd noise) and essentially no moving parts.

I remember looking at the list of teams to choose for the first time. I didn’t want to manage one of those big clubs from the big towns I’d heard of, like Oxford. I was always for the underdog. So I chose a strange name, something unimaginable. I chose Scunthorpe United. I lead the team from the old division 4 to the first division in straight seasons. I won the European Cup from the third division. I won the FA Cup nearly every year. I was always on top and I never faltered. Neither did I cheat. Much.

I was there for hours, me and my best friend Nick watching the Classified Results click over endlessly with impatience. I smoked cigarette after cigarette watching the game prepare the database for another season. I cried when Jim Mowbray, my star striker, averaging over 30 goals a season, failed to renew his contract. He preferred the comforts of the lower division than the fame and fortune of division 1 and Europe where all the players where named after numbers like dishes in a Chinese restaurant.
I eventually did move to Europe, to England, the birth place of the world game. I was and always will be a Scunthorpe fan. I spent two years in England, several in Australia and then two more again before moving to Spain. In that time I managed to see my beloved team about 10 times, but never once did I see them win. I’ve been to Glanford Park several times. I own two scarves and a bootleg T-shirt that is badly faded. I sat in the cold of the Shrimpers stadium in Southend-on-Sea on a Friday night in Winter battling through a 0-0 draw. But I wanted more.

On the 19th April 1998 I went to Stamford Bridge for the first time with my friend Johnny Nonation. The match was against Sheffield Wednesday. Chelsea won 1-0 with a Frank Lebouef penalty after 23 minutes though I have fonder memories of Wednesday’s Carbone hitting the cross bar with an overhead kick.

The seed was planted. After this, I always had a growing fondness for Chelsea, for their apparent Europeaness, for that memory, for that beginning. There were several other critical factors. I will not lie. I will say to you without hesitation that it was when Mourinho moved from Porto that I began to cast my lot in with the Blues. I had watched a lot of Porto games with my ever enthusiastic Portuguese friend Diogo, mostly the Champions league of course. I liked what Mourinho said. I liked his attitude and flair, especially in the face of perennial dullards like Arsene ‘Principal Skinner’ Wenger. Most importantly, I liked his coat. I used to favour Liverpool because of Harry Kewell, but that is a shallow reason to support a club.

There are other reasons for why I found yourself loyal. My friend Mark. A stalwart from the old days, with tales of the Fall, Joy Division and of the Malcolm McClaren era along the King’s Road; whose swagger and musical knowledge were always an inspiration. There was also the fact that I could actually watch Chelsea in the pub, unlike the Iron, whom I only saw once on the box. Chelsea took away the pain of being alone.

But the important thing is: I wasn’t born loyal. I made my allegiances. I chose them all and am responsible for them all. I was always for the underdog. I always hated the big clubs, especially Manchester United and more so Arsenal. I hated corporations and their power. It took me a long time to realise I was wrong.

I reconcile myself to my hypocrisy, I rejoice in it by saying that I grew sick of the underdog, sick of that mindless assertion of desire that the little team won. To hell with them. Let them lose. Let there be domination. Let it be naked, protean power. People hate Chelsea for this, for the arrogance. But don’t fool yourself a minute longer: it’s all around you. You can’t escape it. Man U have it; Arsenal have it. Steve Bruce has it when he claims he won’t quit his failing side. I embrace it and its evil. I am for Chelsea and for Scunthorpe. I am for power and victory. I am for belief and loyalty. I am for blue and for thinking about what it is that you are doing. I am for feeling, even if it means that one day I must be destroyed in turn. As Yukio Mishima said: ‘Subtle evil is more beautiful than coarse goodness.’ I don’t know if this evil is subtle or not. But I know where I have chosen to be.