Articles of Faith

Articles of Faith

Russell Brand

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Introduction

1 This year I’ll ride the snake like a soccer shaman

2 A pitch-perfect ending to a sadly familiar song

3 A pledge is not enough to make England shine

4 Dark lore of Dyer and the Hammers’ hex

5 Never mind Israel, I’ve been beaten by Bohemia

6 Repent, for the kingdom of Steve is at hand

7 Chelsea too small for these two randy stags

8 His Grace Arsène, the shaman of our football

9 Whatever next? Joe Cole on stilts?

Interview between Russell Brand and David Baddiel

10 My cathode carnival with Sir Alex turning green

11 Who’s to blame for my impotent rage?

12 First rule for life in the lounge: no swearing

13 East will always be east for lovers of freedom

14 My view from afar of Fergie’s flirtatious feuding

15 I need a new way to feed my England habit

16 This crimson blot will take three years to fade

17 José makes my day…in another dimension

18 Barwick must atone for the sins of his fathers

19 Capello’s trunks more titillating than his titles

Interview between Russell Brand and James Corden

20 Inner sanctums reveal soul of Hammers family

21 Watching Arsenal, thinking of Sting and Trudie

22 Don’t let Harry head north for shooting practice

23 If Keegan’s a messiah I want the Cockney Moses

24 Is Morrissey talking the language of West Ham?

25 Well done stern Fabio for defying our emotions

26 Let’s revolt against Lucre-more’s ludicracy

27 Potassium-rich fruit has no place in football

Interview between Russell Brand and Noel Gallagher

28 A lament for Gazza, whose gift became his curse

29 Congratulations to Spurs for their lowly bauble

30 Is this the right fertiliser for Grays’ grassroots?

31 What’s the point in replaying a humiliation?

32 Hurrah for super, special, Sunday soccer-day

33 Capello’s words minced by sinister Nosferatu

34 My adventures with Beckham in wonderland

35 No replacing the man with a wiggle in his walk

36 From Bridge to Boleyn with Littlejohn on a limo-bike

37 Girls may turn my head but my heart is lost

38 Enthralled by a giddy mist of climactic hysteria

39 United to win – the Gods’ll never work this one out

40 One little slip and happiness goes out the window

Also by Russell Brand

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

I am writing this intro so that you feel validated in purchasing this compilation of columns. If I don’t write it you might feel aggrieved that you’ve coughed up money (yuk! Who’d do that? You could only cough it up if you’d eaten it. I hate those people that eat coins and light bulbs and clock parts. Why don’t they get a proper job? Like me for instance, I write a lovely column – and intros to column compilations – you won’t catch me scoffing down change and chewing cogs then thrusting my coppery palm into your face for remuneration: ‘If you wanted money you should of kept those pennies instead of gargling them down your whorish trachea’ one might respond. I’m also against ‘beards of bees’ and, in fact, all records. I don’t know how Guinness have snided their way into the world of records – it’s none of their business, stick to booze, what’s next – the Benson and Hedges encyclopaedia of maritime mysteries? The Skull Bandits almanac of porn? The Olympics can fuck off an’ all – it’s just the Paralympics for people who haven’t suffered, it doesn’t make sense. Running, jumping, swimming, triple jump, high jump. Don’t they know there’s a war on? Do they know it’s Christmas? Timing things? Grow up. The only occasions on which my actions were timed were when my dad was tricking me into going to the newsagents. ‘Go on, I’ll time ya!’ he’d say. Though by the time I’d return the competitive element had dissolved, replaced by fag-snatching indifference. Where’s my medal? Where’s my tickertape parade? I wasn’t even allowed to keep the change. Luckily I nicked it anyway) only to read stuff you could’ve got for tuppence ha’penny with the

Guardian

, plus you’d’ve got all the ol’ news in that an’ all – not to mention those gorgeous tarts on page three and the weather. But with this book, you get all the articles – together at last, the cover picture, in which I am unadvisedly posing as Christ and interviews with famous football fans – providing I’ve had time to do them. What a bargain. I don’t know why I’m trying to sell you this book; you’ve obviously already bought it. Unless it’s a friend’s copy or you’re in a shop. If so, pop it in your jacket and walk out – I don’t care – I’ve already been paid plus I don’t really do it for the money, I do it for the honour and my love of the art of intro writing. I could sit and write intros all day.

It just occurred to me that you might be reading this in the distant future, having chanced upon this in a second-hand book shop from the future. Should that be the case, get back on your hover-pod and watch the final glacier dwindle into naught and lament that you never knew the glory that was the 07–08 football season.

It was an incredible season, beset with drama and fused with romance. I love the game itself, of course, but these articles focus chiefly on my reaction to the phenomena of football culture – Sir Alex Ferguson, who doth abide and will ne’er relent, like a face carved into the edifice of the national game as though it were Mount Rushmore; Kevin Keegan, who in the past brought Newcastle so close to success but now has the air of a Sunday league dad hollering ‘go on my son – they don’t like it up ‘em’ from the touchline; Avram Grant, poor unlovable Avram whose legacy is as murky and as difficult to judge as the dental blur that resides betwixt his lips; Ronaldo, a man allegedly labelled a slave by that flippant nit Sepp Blatter – a tag he did too little to shed (‘Yeah, I am like a slave – I remember that episode of

Roots

 where Kunta Kinte, reclining in silver hot pants, got noshed off on a yacht by a never-ending procession of gorgeous floosies – no wonder he was peeved.’). Ronaldo has remained at United, wisely allowing his free will to be coaxed into acquiescence by the endlessly successful Fergie. I’m sure he’ll be a better man for it but how can he top last season?

Then of course there’s my beloved Hammers, for whom it was a relatively uneventful year, which typically means that the subsequent season will see Upton Park burned to the ground or Lionel Messi join the club – West Ham cannot be mediocre with any degree of consistency, they are defined by volatility. Or should I say ‘we’ for Paulo Di Canio himself, one of the club’s most beloved anti-heroes, referred to the institution of West Ham as ‘you’ while addressing ‘me’. A team he played for for over four years and yet he grammatically acknowledged the strength of my allegiance. This is where the game’s power lies. When abroad, if I see someone in the shirt of a British football team, even Tottenham, after ascertaining that they’re not dangerously drunk, I will make eye contact and talk. About football. It gives us a common language. We recognise that whether you’re hollering for Hull City to stay up or for Manchester United to gobble up another cup, what you’re actually doing is submerging your identity as an individual into a whole that is common to us all. Separation is an illusion and in a game that is built around opposition we discover that ultimately we are all one.

1 This year I’ll ride the snake like a soccer shaman

Today I am going to watch West Ham vs Man City for the first game of the new calendar. The season’s commencement feels all fresh, lovely and new. We’ve rinsed away the horror and regret of last season; I suppose that’s another of the sublime delights entailed within the game – a terminable, manageable existence within defined parameters. Regardless of how spectacular or drab your term has been it’ll all begin again next August. That’s comforting. Better than actual life where if you hijack a bus and drive it into an old folks’ home yawping slogans and hurling fireworks the consequences will haunt you to your grave.

I shall make my way to Upton Park all virginal and brimming with innocent expectation with a couple of chums, perhaps singing ‘three little maids from school are we’ from the

Mikado

. Noel Gallagher will be there in his capacity as a City fan elevating further the jeopardy for this already thrilling encounter as football kindly provides a context for good-natured banter and playful threats – again within defined parameters.

The close season, or anti–season – a kind of negative un-time that exists only in relation to the Platonic, pure season – has been a fiscal torrent with cash flooding the Premiership and now buoyant corpses bloated with expectation bob towards the first whistle.

‘I shall make my way to Upton Park all virginal and brimming with innocent expectation’

There has been much condemnation of the way in which the influx of money has poisoned the game and it’s difficult to dispute that recent events have tarnished football’s romance. But the effects of rampant capitalism are not confined to peculiar transfers and boardroom espionage – it’s ballsing up the entire planet. I saw in a red top that cocaine was found in the lavvies at 25 per cent of Premiership grounds, implying that the clubs are somehow culpable. People take cocaine; people go to football, that is all that’s been proven in that barmy cistern survey. Similarly the whole world is governed by an ideology that demands that the acquisition of money must subjugate all else: morality, spirituality and good old-fashioned sexiness are secondary to commerce, and this cannot be blamed on Carlos Tevez, Malcolm Glazer or even Thaksin Shinawatra, although he might’ve been closer to the nub of the problem in his last job.

When caught up in the magic of live football it’s easy to believe that the power of the crowd is what ultimately matters; the inherent unity feels like socialism but each of the screaming 34,000 has been taxed on entry and however loud they may sound their voices are seldom heard. It is apparently futile to resist progress although tiny victories are occasionally achieved: disenchanted Manchester United fans have established FC United, a collectively financed club that truly belongs to its supporters. Presumably, though, were the club to clamber through the multitude of leagues to penetrate the national consciousness and challenge for trinkets the inevitable tide would also consume this idealistic vessel.

Myself, I get all caught up in the rhubarb, I’m intrigued by escalating transfer fees and bonkers wages, I enjoy the soap opera. How can United fail to win the title this year? They’ve assembled a terrifying gang of world-class players, and quaint idealism aside I’m tantalised by the prospect of seeing Tevez hook up with Rooney. Chelsea’s current injury problems may impair them early on but that Malouda bloke looked good in the Community Shield and they know how to scrap. I’d like Liverpool to do well – Torres is a handsome devil and I’m sure he’ll cause all sorts of bother. Arsenal have a stability which oughtn’t to be underestimated and were coping without Henry for the majority of last season. And I supp