Mixing Pop and Politics

Walking into the Logan Hall yesterday initially brought back a Pavlovian memory of a very different occasion, back at the turn of the century, when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown joined forces in the spirit of “my enemy’s enemy is now my friend”, trying to dissuade London Labour Party members from electing Ken Livingstone as London Mayor. On that midweek evening in winter there were queues round the block and people locked out, such was the demand to be in the audience; Alastair Campbell and the then recently defected Shaun Woodward manned the stairwells, communicating via headsets like a New Labour Secret Police.

The anti-Livingstone message of course, thankfully, had no effect, but the audience were allowed to ask questions on anything, and they did. The everlasting memory of the night was seeing Blair, who spoke charismatically throughout, talk with real passion and genuine belief in favour of international intervention in oppressed countries in order to save lives, withstanding the hostility he was facing from a questioner who was asking about Britain’s specific interests in the then more innocent age of the time, pre-9/11.

Yesterday’s event was something completely different, the Compass’ annual conference, this year entitled ‘Building the Good Society’. I was a guest of Philosophy Football, supporting them on a day when they staged their first ever Compass Seminar, which was on the subject of engaging people in politics. Unlike most seminars it started with a live song from Maddy Carty  and a short five minute You Tube film on Egypt by student Sanum Ghafoor A panel of Pat Kane, (the writer once of Hue and Cry), Heather Wakefield  (Unison National Officer) and Deborah Grayson (writer and activist) followed, discussing social networking as Jessica Riches tweeted throughout, while also touching on ideas including the “franchising” of future Uncut protests, so demonstrations take place simultaneously nationwide, as well as the collective experience of being involved in politics through both music and comedy. 

The main event of the day though was a Question Time debate in the main conference hall, expertly chaired, with both decisiveness and humour, by The New Statesman’s Medhi Hasan. In contrast to television’s Question Time, there was no dumbing down, and there were proper answers from a strong panel. The panel included Polly Toynbee, whose writing I was first introduced to in an English Language lesson at school, at a time when she still worked for the BBC; I went onto write about her in a final Public Relations exam I had at University the day after she was the subject of a typically misogynistic attack by the Daily Mail, and remain a big fan of her books and regular Guardian columns. (When I first arrived at the conference and was standing behind the Philosophy Football stall, I took the opportunity, to say hello to her as she was passing – always nice to speak to people you admire).

Also on the panel was Green MP Caroline Lucas, Labour’s rising star Chuka Umunna (who was speaking in between appearing at three separate London school fates), Baroness Professor Ruth Lister, and the always engaging, intelligent and incisive John Harris. Earlier in the day I had gone to a seminar where Harris was speaking on how the Labour Party can engage with the progressive left, where he highlighted the need to not be complacent. In the main session he told how due to the ridiculous First Past the Post electoral system, he, a Labour activist, was compelled to campaign for a Liberal Democrat at the last General Election in order to stop a Tory winning, something he said, to the cheers of the crowd, he would never do again.

Harris is such a good speaker because as well as being intelligent, he is always honest, and speaking in favour of nuclear power as a viable source of energy compared to unclean coal, as he did in this debate, was both intelligent and honest, if not universally popular in the room, and certainly not on a panel with The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas.

Lucas was also critical about the perception of Labour Party’s recent focus on benefit fraud, saying they were targeting people fighting to get by, and inferring they were punching down rather than up; Chuka Umunna acknowledged there was disproportionate coverage of benefit fraud which, according to the figures he quoted, cost the Treasury £800m a year compared to Banking Sector issues that cost £1.3 trillion.

The profile on Compass’ Twitter Page explains that Compass is committed to building a good society, with greater equality and democracy, and that is what this Question Time was ultimately about. In one question a member of the audience told of the banning of girls wearing trousers at a school, giving a perfect example of the unaccountability of decision makers that have risen up in David Cameron’s “Big Society”, an idea flawed on so many levels.

The deficit is a very thin disguise to the severe ideological and political cuts Cameron’s Government is making to state spending, and it was this that was inevitably at the root of most of the questions from the floor. In the answers, there was general agreement that as well as a pay-ration in the public sector, there should also be one in the private sector. Caroline Lucas also pointed out the fallacy of the coalition’s talk of protecting front-line services while making cuts to back-line services that the front-lines services depend on to run properly.

Impending industrial action, the “Labour of Love” Hue and Cry once sang about, that may stem from the cuts was of course discussed. All the panellists, while defending the right to withdraw labour, were vary of long strikes; echoing Ed Balls’ recent public comments, Umunna suggested a long drawn-out strike was exactly what this Government wanted to turn the public mood against state workers; Polly Toynbee said long strikes should always be avoided unless they were certain to produce a win; and John Harris, stylishly getting to the heart of the matter as always, pointed out how poorly the case had been made by unions so far for striking – there is a case to be made that public sector workers are on low-pay that hasn’t been made but the idea of “gold-plated pensions” have got to be ditched and comparisons with the miners strike were particularly bad.

In sharp contrast to the Blair-Brown axis against Ken Livingstone over ten years ago now, both the main debate and the conference were progressive and forward looking with Umunna at one point, perhaps unwittingly, using the Bruce Springsteen lyric, “the ties that bind” when talking about the next steps with The Labour Party. The days for in-fighting and political naivety need to be over as from the IMF to the current coalition government, the monetarists are currently calling the shots and quickly unravelling the fabric of what a good society is built on. Those of us who do believe in a Good Society need to co-ordinate, communicate the message clearly and present an alternative. This conference was a good start.

European Cup Final 2011 – A View from the Front-Row

So I went to the European Cup Final at Wembley last night. My season attending Champions League games from a qualifier in Berne, to how I got into the Final in the front row of the Barcelona end in a seat not for sale, is a piece of writing, full of stories, I will save for another occasion. For now, I am going to concentrate on yesterday’s match, starting with a bit of perspective.

I am assuming anyone reading this doesn’t need me to outline the importance of the occasion, but suffice to say, of the many hundreds of football matches I have been to, this was up there. And while it didn’t involve my own club, it had the two clubs I admire most outside my own.

My allegiance to Barca stems from the political, enforced by Jimmy Burns’ ‘Barca: A People’s Passion’, (which I read in the late nineties), and ignited by sparkling football. They have been an exciting team since I first started watching football, by which time they had already had been touched by the hands of Rinus Michels and the first coming of Johan Cruyff in the seventies; but as I said in my last piece on ‘Moving The Goalposts’, this current side is taking the beautiful game to new levels.

When they have the ball they make the pitch as big as possible, and on the rare occasions they give the ball away, the compress the space. The approach manifests itself with their centre-backs always giving the keeper two options to pass the ball out, and two of their forwards having a starting position where they hug the touch-line; yet the movement of the whole team, and the front five in particular, is always fluid and exciting. Comfortable in possession, and with players with exceptional technical ability, they are not just the best the club side in the world at moment but are correctly recognised one of the best of all time.

Manchester United meanwhile have proved to be the best side in England for nearly twenty years now. They are alone as being an English club other than my own that I like to do well in Europe (of the teams that qualify regularly). When I grew up watching football in the eighties, Liverpool were the dominant force in England, back passing their way to league titles, mastering the art in killing time, and getting results; they had glory-hunting supporters, a fawning media and even more deferential referees. In the nineties, United turned the tide, playing football with a flair and an attacking intent, more like the Spurs team that I was lucky enough to start supporting in the early eighties.

When United celebrated their first league title in 26 years with a cracking free-kick from a 19-year old Ryan Giggs in 1993, they were a breath of fresh air, and went on to deliver domestically in the following years. As their manager has always acknowledged though, they under achieved in Europe, apart from the treble winning year in 1999, and he scrapped plans to retire in 2002, after not finishing on the high of winning the European Cup at Hamden Park, as he envisaged.

Last night was their third final in four years though, but as with the last in 2009, Barcelona outplayed them for large parts of the game, and went onto deservedly lift the trophy, leaving an image on the big screen at Wembley last night, that was similar to the one on TV screens two years ago after the final whistle, with a disconsolate Giggs and Scholes dissecting the game.

Even in his 38^th year, Giggs could still walk in any English team in the country, and it was no surprise that United’s equaliser came from his assist. Time and again over twenty seasons he has been the best player for the best team in the country, and is still their most influential on the pitch. He has been easily been the best British player of his generation, and is one of the greats of all-time.

The equaliser came at a crucial time last night, because after Barcelona opened the scoring seven minutes earlier, Wayne Rooney was berating the rest of the team, who as they were regrouping at the centre circle looked like they were getting up after a count of 8 in a boxing ring. And had Barca added a second quickly, United could have been ripped apart.

United had started promisingly though. It is often forgotten that in the first ten minutes of the 2009 Final, United looked dominant, with Ronaldo taking the attack to Barca, and their tails up. The opening goal by the clinical Samuel Eto in the 10th minute changed the game dramatically, and Barca suddenly took control. They dominated for the rest of the match, and with all their attacking talent on the pitch, there was always the likelihood they would score a second, and they did, with the head of Lionel Messi.

Last night United bravely tried to press Barcelona from a higher starting point, and looked lively for the first ten minutes again. Park was breaking up play, tucking in from the left, and Carrick and Giggs looked good on the ball. They looked to me like they identified the inside left channel as area to profit from, in-between the attacking but defensively suspect Daniel Alves, and the makeshift centre-back Javier Mascherano. They tried to play both Rooney and Javier Henandez in there, but Barca stuck to their principles, and steadily began to push upfield, catching Henandez offside four times in the first 21 minutes, and after defending well for the first ten, took the game to United, by simply passing and moving as a team.

Xavi and Iniesta were at their best last night, finding angles, giving options, and both an attacking threat. And it was Xavi’s incisive pass that picked out Pedro to score the opener on inside 27 minutes, a goal that was coming as Barcelona again had taken control.

Pedro played from the left last night, and David Villa the right, a change in their positions from the last time I had watched them in the flesh, a few weeks ago in the League game away at Real Madrid. But the movement as always was fluid, and Pedro made a darting run in the inside right position, to score quickly inside Edwin Van Der Sar’s near post.

Van Der Sar has had an excellent final season for United, and while he made a few saves yesterday, it wasn’t his night. Replays of Messi’s goal showed that the ball wasn’t in the corner, although Messi’s quick feet seemed to catch both him, and the defenders in front of him, out. Like Barca’s first, the second goal was coming. The United players were out a few minutes before Barca before the second-half began, but when the whistle blew, Barca were at it straight away, winning successive corners, and playing the game almost exclusively in United’s half.

That the goal was scored by the best player in the world was fitting, and it was a pleasure to celebrate with the Barca fans, with Messi running over and looking at us in the eyes as we were celebrating after that ball hit the back of the net. An unforgettable moment.

A couple of seasons ago I went to the Wembley Cup, and while Messi didn’t play on the first day against Spurs, it was interesting just to watch him warm up, passing the ball in a triangle with team-mates, almost always with his left foot. The following day he played 45 minutes against Al Ahly, in the position that is now his own, in a central role of a front three with licence to drop off, and move anywhere.

I have now been lucky enough to see him play in the flesh a further two times since, including last night, and he is with Maradona, the best player I have seen. Unlike Maradona, it is likely he will be more popular; when the ball went over the line for his second goal in the semi-final against Real Madrid, it was hard to believe there was any non-Real Madrid true football fan who didn’t shout with joy.

After his goal last night, it seemed a matter of time before Barca scored the third, and it came from David Villa. Villa was disappointing when I saw him play at the Bernabeu in the La Liga last month, but he got the goal of the night yesterday, beautifully bending the ball in the top corner, which no keeper could have saved.

United had little options on the bench, certainly none that could reverse the red and blue tide. Nani came on for the injured Fabio, with Valencia going to right-back, an intelligent substitution, but it had no real effect. Valencia, who was lucky not to get a booking in the first-half, picked up a booking after the change, but it was by and large a clean game, and a total contrast to the as a spectacle of the semi-final, when Real Madrid’s negative, spoiling tactics failed.

After winning his first European Cup with two goals from substitute strikers in 1999, I guessed that Sir Alex Ferguson would pick both Berbatov and Owen on the bench, but news which came through on twitter that Berbatov was left out of 18, proved correct.

I remember when Berbatov left Spurs to join Man United, his “dream move”, he said he felt it was like joining The Beatles. Last night, he must have felt more like Pete Best then George Best.

Ferguson didn’t even try with Owen, knowing that there were no chances being created to be put away. Only Giggs and Rooney offered United any hope at this stage, Giggs going out on the left, with Park inside, and still looking as likely as any United player to give them a lifeline. Rooney had one great chance, almost made on his own, but he shot just over, and after that Barca looked as likely to get a fourth, as United did of making it a tense final few minutes.

Barca were worthy winners, and they could conceivably get stronger if they strengthen their squad, and as long as the manager stays. Pep Guardiola is a classy manager, and I was sure that he would bring Carlos Puyol on for the final few minutes, and he did. But there was more, and Eric Abidal going up to lift the cup will be noted when the book on Barca’s achievements in the 21^st Centaury is written.

FCB are a proper team, and this side is the best example yet, that winning medals and playing attractive, attacking football, go together.

MG

My full story of the Journey of the Champions League 2010-11, from a qualifier in Switzerland to the front row of the final via the epic series of Clasicos, is now available as a e-book from Amazon and Smashwords.

Slight Return

Last night I dreamt of Madrid again. Not surprising the seemingly never ending wonderful terrace bars, sangria and tapas slipped into the sub-conscious after a return from second short visit in less then two weeks.

I had been to over seventy odd football grounds before my visit to The Santiago Bernabeu on 5 April, and as soon as I had a view of the pitch from up in the Away section on the fifth tier of the North Stand, it was clear this ground was the best of the lot. Now, like buses, two trips have come at once. But the opportunity of having a weekend in Madrid with good company and the aim of going to an El Classico match was too tempting to refuse.

Going to European games as a neutral was more common in the handful of years Spurs missed out on qualifying for European football until 2006; I went to a Milan derby, enjoyed Ajax play, watched a Lazio game at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, as well as going to an El Classico at the Camp Nou in 2004.

The Real Madrid side that day had Figo, Zidane, Beckham, Roberto Carlos, Raul and the original Ronaldo in a team built on the Galactico ideal. But they were put to the sword by a fantastic Barcelona side, who controlled the game with Xavi anchoring midfield, Ronaldinhio looking the best player in the world by some distance (which he was at the time), and Samuel Eto giving them a lethal cutting edge. Managed by Frank Rijkaard, Barca won 3-0 that Saturday night, late in November 2004. The scenes on the streets a couple of hours after the game resembled those you see on television of capital cities when their countries who have won the World Cup. And the City was still buzzing at 4am.

The rivalry of El Classico is of course deep rooted in both political and footballing history and while my allegiance is with Barca, both the game in 2004, and again on the Saturday night just gone, were amazing spectacles in their own right, regardless of the result. The emotion is incomparable when your own club play away in Europe: the highs will never be as high, the lows never as low, and there is not the sense of a large traveling following descending on a town or city. There is no compulsion to be in that number and the pressure is off for these “neutral” games.

The fixture on Saturday was of course the first of four El Classico’s in close succession, a series of fixtures that for many will bring back memories of the epic Tottenham/Wimbledon games in 1999. I was at all five of those games, and perhaps remember at least two of them, maybe three at a push.

One player from that Tottenham side was also in Madrid at the weekend just gone: a few hours before kick-off , while a couple of my amigos had gone to see Getafe v Sevilla as an appetizer, I was with a couple of my other friends from the north who were Man Utd fans; and at the only bar we found showing the Utd-City FA Cup Semi-Final, Darren Anderton was also there watching it. A nice bloke, he was happy to chat. It was his first time in Madrid and there to see El Classico. Like myself he wanted Barca to win, and do themselves justice, as the superior footballing team.

When I got in The Bernabeu later, the view was fantastic, on the front row of the fourth tier (via Tower Block C), level with the byline of the goal Barcelona attacked first-half, in the stand opposite the dug-out. It was worth every penny of the price of the ticket, which was relatively expensive as football tickets go, yet face value. That Real Madrid released the tickets online just the previous day, and we were able to purchase them was very fortunate.

Right from the naming of the teams, when Mourinhio put Pepe in midfield, there was little doubt the he would “park the bus” to coin his own phrase. And from the off, Barca were totally dominant, and the usually loud home fans were pretty much silenced by an impending fear of humiliation on their own patch. By playing Pepe in front of the back four and dropping Ozil, Mourinhio left plenty of space for Barca’s centre backs to come and join the play, which Pique in particular, took every chance to do.

While Kaderia, who was also Real Madrid’s best player at White Hart Lane earlier in the week, played well, Barcelona, with Busquets bossing the centre, were in control from the first whistle. The game looked so one-sided at one-point in the first-half the sides looked leagues apart.

For all their great players though, it is the underlying principle Barca adopt that lies behind this side being considered one of The Great Footballing Club Sides of all-time – when they have the ball they make the pitch as big as can be, and when they don’t have it, they press, and make the pitch as small as can be. On this occasion, particularly in the first-half, when they were a pleasure to watch with the ball, there were no real occasions when they didn’t have the ball, to see how well they compress space as a team when they need to.

Messi, by far the greatest player in the world at the moment, plays a central role, but always comes deep, and interchanges in a fluid passing and moving game. And the way both Barca centre-backs come to the edge of the box either side of Valdes so they can play their way out from goal kicks, while their full-backs take up advanced positions, is just another example of how they have pushed the boundaries with a footballing philosophy that really took shape when Johan Cryuff joined the club in the Seventies.

If Barca have any weaknesses as a club side at the moment, it is they have a slightly small first-team squad who may now show signs of tiring as the season goes on; also, they sometimes seem profligate with their chances, and don’t always have as much cutting edge as they should.

And that is what cost them winning this El Classico, a game they should really have killed off, so far superior were they to Real, and being in a position just five minutes into the second half where they had a man advantage and were a goal-up. David Villa had a bit of “Torres” on Saturday, and the thought that keeps occurring to me is if Barca still had Samuel Eto at their disposal, they would be even greater side than they are now, hard though that is to imagine.

However, Real Madrid should never have been awarded the penalty to equalize, as Alves clearly nicked the ball. Mourinhio may be renowned for having great attention to detail, breeding strong team loyalty, and having tactical nous, but his greatest attribute is luck. It was no surprise before the equalizer that Adebayor came on, and Real looked to play more directly, which did make them look more competitive. They looked a desperate team when they were chasing the home game to Sporting Gijon a couple of weeks earlier, knocking it long at every opportunity, but ultimately it was a poor refereeing decision that got them a point in this game. Even after that, David Villa had a great chance to win the game for Barca, but didn’t take it.

When Barcelona fail to take their chances, there is always a possibility they could lose games, and however negative Mourinhio may want to be when playing Barca over the next few weeks, Real have enough players who can create and take chances. For the good of Football though, it would be great to see Barcelona in the European Cup Final, having overcome Madrid.

While their football team may be in the shadow of Barcelona at the moment, the City itself certainly isn’t. It is first-rate in every sense, and ideally Spurs get Real Madrid in the group stages of the Champions League next season. (Don’t concede a soft goal after five minutes and go down to ten men shortly afterwards, and who knows…)

If there is one downside about the city, from two short stays in Madrid it does seem that tourists are more likely to be targeted for petty crime then in many other major European cities, but that is perhaps not surprising with unemployment at 20% in Spain.

But on the whole Madrid has the feel of being a fiercely liberal city, and not an evidently Franco town. And from the Prado to the parques, and of course all the bars and a great market, there is plenty to see and do. And Madrid has the feel of city that keeps on giving.

A final bonus on the weekend just gone was the live music venue, the Joy Eslava, a cross between The Melkweg in Amsterdam and Norwich UEA - intimate yet still spacious around the many bars. And it was the ex-libertine Pete Docherty who lit the place up on Sunday night with a sincere and interactive performance.

On stage just five minutes after his billed time he started with his modern classic 'Can't Stand Me Now' on an acoustic guitar, the crowd singing Carl Barat's harmonies. And it continued on to be a great gig with ballet dancers, his fans singing on stage, and a bit of football banter after he was handed a Real Betis scarf (he said he wanted nothing to do with it, before dropping in the fact his Spanish team was Deportiva La Coruna).

An exceptional live performance from Peter Doherty, with the heart of his songs coming to fore in an acoustic performance, was a nice unplanned bookend to a couple of great trips to Madrid. An ending fitting for the start.

MG

The full story of my Journey in the Champions League, 2010-11, from a qualifier in Wankdorf in Berne, to the front row at the Final in Wembley, via two trips to Madrid, and the epic series of El Clasicos, is now available to buy from either Amazon or Smashwords.