Category Archives: Blog
The privilege of being a Barca fan
Let me honest. It’s been a long time since I felt as proud of being a Barca fan as tonight when FC Barcelona beat Bayern Munich 3-0. This was a game played by two great sides, charged with emotion, pursued with strength, and delivered with grace by the best player in the world that worked his magic a amidst giants of the game. This was a first leg that should have been a final but will still endure in the memory of any true football fan as a master class, …
I will vote Labour tomorrow
No I don’t think Ed Milliband is a natural leader- but he has worked hard to be taken more seriously and deserves greater respect than the misinformation and crude insults launched at him during the campaign by bigots- the lie that having more Scot nats in the UK parliament and voting on certain issues with Labour will lead to a disintegration of the UK (more chance of this happening with a Conservatives in power and pushing for an exit from the EU). No I don’t think Cameron has been a …
Barca needs a different Laporta
I cannot remember when I last watched FC Barcelona play and enjoyed it. But I’ve taken to looking for old DVD’s of Ronaldinho, of Messi, of Iniesta and Xavi and Pujol, of Valdes, and Guardiola, and Johan Cruyff, in an exercise of nostalgia for those halcyon days when a team came together under a manager and a president, struck a harmonious note, and gave us pure magic-the kind of football you would remember for the rest of your life. Nostalgia is a risky business for it draws us into …
La faz inexcusable del futbol
Cuando dos grupos de hombres jóvenes y de mediana edad, manejando diversos instrumentos de violencia desde cuchillos hasta barras de hierro se enfrentan de tal modo que dejan a un muerto y decenas de heridos, y todo porque su lealtades se dividen entre equipos de fútbol-hay algo muy mal, no sólo en el juego, sino todo el contexto en el que se juega este deporte. Las circunstancias de la muerte de un hincha del Deportivo La Coruña a manos de una turba Atléticista fue particularmente horrible: la victima fue …
The inexcusable distinctiveness of football
When two large group of young and middle-aged men, wielding various instruments of violence from knives and knuckle dusters to iron bars first charge , then beat each other – to death in one case-and leave many others injured-severely in several cases-, all because they happen to support different football teams-there is something badly wrong not just in the game but the whole context in which it’s played. Judging by reports that have emerged, the circumstances of the death of a Deportivo La Coruña fan at the hands of …
Barca in Limbo
Some days ago I was besieged by angry comments from Catalan friends and their English sympathisers when I suggested that FC Barcelona currently mirrored the disfunctionality of Catalan politics. Having just come back from one of my regular visits to Catalunya, let me rest my case. Barca is a team playing without joy, rhythm or system. Neymar has a growing tendency to frown and protest, like a spoilt school kid, lacking the grace and sheer toothy big smile fun that Ronaldino gave us in his heyday. Suarez beats his …
Looking forward to another Clasico
When people ask me-the son of a Scot father and a Spanish mother who was born in Madrid-why I am a cule, I tell them because I became one in the mid 1970’s thank to Johan Cruyff and have remained one ever since because I love watching beautiful football and I count many Catalans among my Spanish friends. I will be looking forward to this Saturday’s Clasico with the hope that the Barca that Luis Enrique is crafting will demonstrate that it has recovered some of the poetry in …
A family war remembrance
This evening at ten o’clock local time , on this day marking the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, lights will dim in the city where I am now London , in streets and homes, and candles will burn in remembrance… of those who died. I share with you the remembrance of my uncle who was killed long before any of us were born- 2Lt David Chambers Burns, Black Watch Regiment- educated at the Jesuit Stonyhurst College. “He was killed in Flanders during the Third battle of …
