Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 19

Buen ejemplo en La Romareda

 

On a weekend when Millwall fans trashed each other, Di Canio invoked his mother, and Newcastle fans battled with police  , there were more pleasant scenes to be witnessed at Zaragoza’s La Romareda stadium.

During the La Liga match between second from the bottom Real Zaragoza and top of the table FC Barcelona, aggression took the form of some taunting Viva Españas and occasional collective protest of contested referee decisions, thought to have been biased in favour of the visitors.

In fact Barca showed how good a  team it still can be without Messi, when the rump of the first team are reenforced with spirited youngters desperate to prove themselves.

But more striking were the three standing ovations by the whole stadium to Barca players. The first to Abidal , for his courage in enduring a long battle with cancer, the second and third to Xavi and Iniesta respectively for contributing to the success of Spain’s national team.

It was not always as civilised at La Romareda. In February 2006, Samuel Eto’o, at the time Barca’s lead striker, threatened to abandon the game after being subjected to racial abuse by home  fans. But seven years on, Spanish football has shown it can get its  priorities right, not just in the way it plays, but how it behaves.

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Di Canio and the UK: A Response to Simon Kuper

 

 

It is a pity that my former colleague Simon Kuper wastes most of his commentary – Football’s little problem on the right-wing’ on the Di Canio saga in today’s FT coverage on the football manager’s  political sympathies and the national culture which nourished them. That Di Canio is Italian, a one-time player of one of Italy’s most fascist clubs, and a self-confessed admirer of Mussolini is well tread ground. Far more interesting in my view are the inclinations of certain representatives of English football within their national culture, and the extent to which the appointment of Di Canio to manage a Premier division club is something that should or should not be endorsed.

On British culture, Kuper’s commentary  has only this to say:“In Britain, politicians subscribe to two basic propositions: fascism and racism are terrible; and immigration is terrible…opposing fascism is a no-lose proposition, like opposing cannibalism.” And concludes, with reference to Di Canio’s presence in the UK: “Thankfully this fascist sympathiser is just a harmless football manager rather than, say, a leading politician in a troubled European country.”

Kuper is, in my view well off the mark in his generalizations, as when he states  that “In the UK, opposing fascism is a no-lose proposition, like opposing cannibalism.” One only needs to have followed the admirable research  by the UK based NGO and magazine Searchlight over the last decades to be aware of the the insidious infiltration  of fascist views and actions in British post-war society,and the risks that those exposing them have taken with their own personal safety.

Britain  has its BNP and its National Fronts, and other seemingly more moderate right wing parties that barely hide their potential for prejudice behind their nationalist anti-immigration views.My own experience of watching football matches across borders is that some English fans, players, and fans have a capacity for racist attitudes and thuggish behavior of no minor order within the general European landscape, with some groups of traveling English fans behaving in a particularly disgraceful manner when visiting foreign territory. The memory lingers of a group of Manchester United fans destroying one of my favourite bars in Barcelona.

But look closer home. Only last week a friend of mine who happens to be a Chelsea fan reminded me that the hissing sound is periodically distributed at White Hart Lane by visiting fans, not least those supportive of his own club, as a provocation of Spurs fans, many of whom are Jewish.

Meanwhile what are we to make of continuing statements of support for Di Canio from British football personalities  like John Terry and Harry Redknapp and their influence on the thousands of English fans who look up to them?  The answer must be that Di Canio may have been a fascist in Italy, but in good old England, he becomes a harmless manager. Or not.

 

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Pope Francis can do without Mrs Fernandez

Trust Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez to use her first audience with Pope Francis to press her country’s claim over the Falklands Islands.

With the demagoguery that has has marked her time in office,Fernandez has seized the opportunity to try and restore her own dwindling popularity by raising a cause that Argentines have historically rallied around.

This is the same President that has viewed Jorge Bergoglio as  an opponent when he served as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires and has allowed her allies in the Argentine media to try and wreck his reputation by claiming, unjustly,  he was complicit in the military regime’s dirty war.

Quite apart from the evident whiff of hypocricy surrounding La Presidenta’s latest cynical headline grabbing initiative, Fernandez has shown a crass misunderstanding of what Pope Francis represents, and the role expected of him by Catholics and non-believers alike.

As the international Catholic weekly The Tablet noted in its editorial, there is a paradox to Pope Francis being the centre of the world’s attention, the lead item on every news bulletin. In the Tablet’s words: “One of his chief tasks is to divert that attention away from himself as a personality and away from the Church as an institution, towards the gospel message and the person of Jesus Christ.He will do that by assuming the role of teacher,prophet and preacher. And as a truly global figure, he has to transcend his own race and nationality.”

Much as Mrs Fernandez would like this Jesuit to convert to the cause of the late Hugo Chavez, this is a priest I believe with sufficient independence of mind to know that in order to belong to everyone,he has , as the Tablet wisely recommends, to belong to everyone- not the exclusive domain of  a Latin American populist ideology with a tendency towards authoritarianism and conflict.

In her attempt to define the parameters in which Francis should conduct himself, Fernandez has quoted the historical precedent of the Papal mediation over Argentina and Chile’s disputed sovereignty claim over the Beagle Channel.

The comparison barely stands up to close inspection. The mediation over the Beagle Channel by a non-Argentine Pope involved a willing negotiation by two Catholic countries under the auspices of  a non-Argentine Pope. Any attempt by Pope Francis to mediate in the Falklands/Malvinas dispute would be rejected outright by Britain, on the grounds of the Pope’s nationality, and religious bias.

But the question is whether Pope Francis would allow himself to be used politically by the Fernandez government . I believe the answer must be no. For the goodwill that has grown up around the figure of Pope Francis has been largely largely thanks to a humility in style, practice, and word that is in striking contrast to the court of Mrs Fernandez, its confrontational politics, and bogus radicalism. When Mrs Fernandez reaches for her make-up, Francis washes feet.

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Barca shows that football can be more than just a game

 

I knew I hadn’t been dreaming when early this morning my local Battersea street flower vendor Steve told me: “You must pleased, mate”, before congratulating Barca on a “master class in football.”

You see, Steve is not only football mad, he is a fanatical Chelsea supporter and, as followers of my blogs and specifically of one of my assiduous stalkers Captain Terry will know, I don’t normally get such genial comments from across the river.

Steve is of course not alone. Last night’s game at the Nou Camp delivered what by any standards of know-how or tribal prejudice,  a performance worthy of taking a noble place in the history of the game, as an example of technical as well as creative brilliance  but above all of the human spirit.

This was no ordinary kind of victory, but almost an existentialist moment, which defines the self as the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once wrote, by a sense of “who we are and of our circumstances”. This was a team that in recent weeks had, by a process almost of transference, seemed to absorb within itself the darkness and despair that no doubt has affected, in the worst of moments, their heroic coach and friend Tito Vilanova.

Only days ago the astute football commentator Jorge Valdano, talked of Barca  “staring down a precipice” after its defeats against Real Madrid and Milan in the first leg of the Champions League.  The gloom was catching and spread among Barca fans, a sense that the club was entering one of those purgatories that the older generation of socios suffered for so many years, but which younger cules –brought up on the euphoria of the Rijkaard and Guardiola highs-had barely registered in their collective memory.

Last night’s post-match euphoria, uniting as it did all generations and cutting across political or social bias, seemed to have a more transcendent feel about it. Ok, one could, in other circumstances, have pointed to the two missed opportunities by Milan and suggested that things might have just turned out very different had had they scored. But this was not the kind of game where the winner simply struck lucky. This was a Barca that rallied having been spoken to by Tito by conference link in words that defied distance and cancer and filled them with hope. There was a redemptive quality to the occasion- a team back in touch with the most noble of its self , honouring Tito with his best ever victory.

Like the father said in the parable of the lost son: “We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Visca Barca- Mes que un Club!

 

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Barca: The challenge of being more than a football club

Next to feeling that things are not going right, there is nothing worse for a football club, as it is for one’s own life, than not knowing quite why, or not being able to find a way of expressing it.

For all the club’s historically self-conscious sense of cultural and political identity, this Sunday it’s difficult to find a  Barca fan without a deep sense of foreboding. The defeat in Milan, and the two Clasico defeats have left cules struggling to keep faith in a project they had come to believe was impregnable.

How different things seemed back in mid-January when Barca ‘s away 3-1 victory over Malaga was secured with football of such sublime quality as to leave few of those watching with any doubt that this was indeed the greatest team in the world. The talk then was of a team, gestated by Cruyff, moulded by Guardiola, and developed by Tito Vilanova, that had evolved to the point of near perfection.

Now there is a blame game under way, with the one-time choreography now transformed into a disparate target list of below-par individual players vulnerable to criticism. I watched saturday’s game vs Madrid with a group of usually discerning Barca fans and noone really could decide whether having Villa or Cesc works better when both have barely made a mark in recent games. Others suggested that Xavi and Pujol have been showing their age. A few criticised Alba and Alves  for failing in attack. Yesterday not even Iniesta and Messi escaped criticism, both showing evidence of brilliance in the first half, but effectively absent from the second when the arrival of Ronaldo shifted the whole dynamic of the game in Madrid’s favour.

Far from rising to the challenge, Barca  seemed cowered by it, bereft of a plan B, its sense of impotence summed up by Captain Valdes getting a red card for claiming a penalty against Madrid that was not given.

And yet the Barca players, in their anger, and their poor form, merely showed that they were human after all, leaving exposed the terrible deficit the club has to face with the continuing absence of   Vilanova. For Tito’s temporary stand-in Jordi Roura at the Bernabeu acted and behaved like a man utterly overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his control.

But let’s be clear: all the talk of Tito managing the team from New York does no one any favours, least of all Tito himself for it aims to transform him into a mythical figure when he  is a very real person who is struggling to focus on the real enemy at the gates: cancer.

What it does do is underline the dilemma facing Barca –a team that appears to have lost its compass but can’t call on the person who might be able to restore it. To appoint another more experienced and talented manager to take over from Roura -however temporary- rather than wait in the hope that Tito will recover and return would risk being seen as a clinical act unworthy of a club that emotionally aspires to represent more than just football.  For such an appointment would imply a public definition about Tito’s fate that would violate his wish that his illness remain a private matter.

The hope of every Barca fan is that Tito will recover and return as quickly as possible, just as Johan Cruyff did following his heart scare way back in the 1970’s. But while Tito’s absence continues, things may well get worse for Barca in football terms however much it may feel it has to retain the moral high ground. The coming days are going to be a real test of the meaning of mes que un club.

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The lessons Spain could learn from the UK

As an Anglo-Spaniard by birth, upbringing, and professional experience I spend much of my life seeking out the best Britain and Spain can offer each other and warning against potential no-go areas that should be common to both.

Following the news of late across Europe, I am not sure I would recommend the introduction of an outspoken and unpredictable British comedian into Spain’s turbulent political life  -can you imagine what havoc Russell Brand might cause-but there are other examples of British public life  I would commend to Spaniards, regardless of whether they are Castillian or Catalan or Basque or Andaluz. Here are some suggestions, in no particular order of merit, as they are all in a sense connected to what one can broadly describe as a more developed political culture.

Firstly, serious Spanish reformers could do well to study British law governing the organisation and funding of political parties, not perfect  certainly but fine-tuned over the years to ensure a certain measure of internal democracy, decentralisation,trasparency and accountability.

Secondly, Spanish media bosses should draw on the experience , not of the alleged illegalities of News International involved in ‘hackgate’ , but of the investigative skills and diligence of the Telegraph team that meticulously checked out , before publishing, the allegations contained in a leaked CD-Rom exposing the fiddling of relatively small amounts of expenses by some members of Parliament. By small I mean in relation to larger allegations of slush funds monopolising the front pages of certain Spanish newspapers.

Third, the Spanish Royal household could take a close look at how the House of Windsor has managed not only to weather the storms that have assailed it in recent years -from Diana’s death to Harry’s latest drunken escapade-but also to restore the popularity of monarch and future king. The Windsors have done this thanks not to the inspiration of any trusted courtiers but in response to some very professional strategic, political and public relations advice from lay individuals with wide experience of the real world beyond the court.

Finally, independent inquiries, with key hearings held in public, and statements taken on oath, and a administrative backup resilient against political or corporate pressure, have been used in recent years in the UK to try and discover the wood from the trees, whether it be unlawful killings Northern Ireland or illegal arms to Iraq or alleged police conspiracies.

Hard as it might be for some Spaniards to swallow, Perfidious Albion can still show the way when it comes to best practice in public service.

 

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The pain of being a Barca fan

Watching Barca’s performance last night against AC Milan not only threw me  into a bad depressive mode. It  made my flu that much worse so all I could think of was going to bed and hoping sleep would come as quickly as possible. This morning the memory of last night was the first thought that came to me so I felt it difficult to get up. A hang-over  despite not touching  a drop of alcohol since Lent began!

Such moods are familiar to football fans the world over but I suspect we cules suffer from post-match let-down syndrome more than most. Let’s face it we have been spoilt by the unprecedented success that out football team has enjoyed in recent years and which still had TV commentators like Glen Hoddle last night describing us as the greatest in the world.

Older generations of cules  suffered a great deal more, both politically and in sporting terms, and yet kept the faith, and their cool if Barca lost deservedly as it did last night, trusting in better days to come. By contrast I know of younger cules who now get drunk and violent and rather nasty when things don’t go according to what they’ve got used to. Such behaviour is unacceptable anywhere in sport, but most of all in a club that boasts a unique sense of civility.

 

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Farm Street & The Gays

Today’s Guardian, under the headline  ‘Church that turned away Wilde opens door to gay flock” may exaggerate a little  by suggesting that something akin to a theological revolution is under way at the Jesuit London HQ, Farm Street Church.

We are told that the church that 116 years ago refused the disgraced Oscar Wilde –post-trial on charges of sodomy  and indecent assault-a request for a six-month retreat, will on an evening two Sundays from now  welcome members of London’s Catholic gay community who will no longer be allowed to gather at Our Lady of Assumption in Soho.

The article omits to mention another Jesuit connection to the Wilde story. The fact that some time after Oscar’s trial, his beloved younger son Vivvyan Holland (Oscar’s wife Constance changed the family name after taking the children aboard) was given a place at my old Jesuit school Stonyhurst College.

One of the organisers of the Soho masses, Mark Dowd, a fellow OS (Old Stonyhurst boy) is quoted in the Guardian as being sympathetic towards Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster who in January announced, allegedly under pressure from the Vatican,  that the Soho masses for the gay flock were to be stopped, but who has not raised objections to the Farm Street move.  “Poor old archbishops have always got to play these games where they’ve got a certain number of chess pieces to move round, “Dowd is quoting as saying.

Personally I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Some years back I attended a memorable requiem mass at Farm Street for another OS, Edward Duke which was packed with gays and non-gays. Edward was a born extrovert and a rebel who found the discipline of school difficult to take and ended up breaking every rule in the book in order to get himself expelled. He then embarked on a relatively successful if somewhat decadent acting career which was tragically cut short when he died of AIDS.

The mass to bid farewell to him was concelebrated by a Franciscan, who had been a contemporary of Edward’s and mine at school, and by some Jesuit fathers who had tried to teach him. One of the Jesuits  collared me after the service and whispered in my ear that Edward had found Faith in God in his final hours. “You know, Jimmy, Edward came round in the end.”

By the above I am not suggesting that the Jesuits are about to turn Farm Street into a gay church nor take to the pulpit to challenge the Church’s teaching on same-sex marriage. It remains to be seen at what point Catholic  gays,  simply and without fuss, join representatives  of the Catholic great and good  and lesser mortals at the main 11 o’clock mass on Sundays without finding the need to form a separate group gathering, or have one organised for them. But for now the Jesuits of Farm Street’s  gesture towards the Soho Diaspora is loving and inclusive and human and deserves recognition as such.

 

 

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Celtic’s self-delusion

Blame it on the fact that I’ve been doing some research recently into  the 1978 World Cup in Argentina but Celtic’s defeat by Juventus in last night’s Champion’s League tie had an element of déjà vue – In Scottish terms.

Let me elaborate.  Earlier this season, I was among a group of Barca supporters that travelled to Glasgow for that Champion’s League group stage tie which has earned a special place in the history of Celtic. Cold and wet and blasted by the sound of the home supports, it was hard, as a visitor, not to come away with a sense of respect at the way that Celtic worked their socks off and managed to outmanoeuvre and beat, if only by a narrow margin,  the supremely stylish and successful FC Barcelona. (see an earlier blog of mine on my site http://www.jimmy-burns.com/blog/footb...)

With the evidence of hindsight, that match involved a below-par performance by some of Barca’s key players which Celtic exploited, and won by default. And while Celtic’s  achievement,  in getting as far as it has in the Champions League,  is worth honouring, it has been inflated thanks to the poor showing , by comparison,  of the Scottish National Team in the qualifying stages for the 2014 World Cup , and the absence of the Old Firm rivalry because of Rangers’ relegation.

And yet to judge by the expectations generated by its win over Barca , and Celtic’s subsequent qualification into the last sixteen of the Champion’s League, one would think that Lennon’s boys  had not just earned a rites of passage  into the top echelons of international football, but also secured  a certificate confirming them on a par with the very best.

Thus did we come to last night’s game when the roar of Glasgow’s east end reverberating round Parkhead  , and the defiant image of Lennon on the touchline, had an even greater self-assurance than usual, touched with the arrogance of a conquering  tribe that is ready to sweep all before it.

Well now that Celtic, outclassed and, despite protests of latino bias against the ref,  ultimately humiliated by Juventus last night, is facing almost certain exit after the second-leg, it is difficult to resist a historical parallel with the fiasco of Scotland’s campaign in the 1978 World Cup. In the run up to the tournament to  Argentina, the mood between October 1977 and June 1978 , as David Potter recalls in his excellent history of the Scottish national side ‘Wizards & Bravehearts’, varied between the euphoric and the ecstatic.

“There was little happening on the domestic front to hold any interest in a singularly insipid season, and conversation centred almost exclusively on Scotland’s chances in the World Cup,” recalled Potter, before adding “Ally MacLeod not only caught the mood, he typified it, telling everyone that Scotland would win the competition.”

Well substitute Celtic for Scotland, and Lennon for MacLeod, and you have almost a repeat scenario of self-delusion verging on farce.

 

 

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Letter to the Holy Spirit

 

The next Pope I am praying for…:

Would be from the developing world, preferably a Jesuit,  and not tied in an way to Opus Dei.
Start by making a full public act of contrition for where Church has failed to act with sufficient sincerity and justice, and a true sense of God in all things.

Carry out a detailed audit of the Vatican’s assets before deciding which can be channelled to mitigating world poverty and supporting major ‘green’ campaigns.
Convene immediately a new Vatican Council ,with full  representation of the laity as well as clergy, orders, and bishops to discuss the Church in the 21st century –reaffirming the ‘option for the poor’ as a key mission statement, and opening the way for  married and women priests .
Establish sufficient authority and respect  at an  early stage of his papacy so to be able to be admired and followed by peoples of faiths, all races, and all generations- a truly like Christ-like figure capable of drawing humanity together, ending conflict, and saving the planet.

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