Conspiracy

Deceptions, duplicities, illusions and allusions. They're there if you're looking for them. I was watching the Arsenal vs. Newcastle game and the sole flash point of an otherwise unextraordinary game was Arsenal's (almost-marquee[BUT NOT REALLY] signing) Gervinho having a tussle with world famous agitator Joey Barton and getting sent off. Gervinho was the biggest name signing Arsenal captured in the close-season, amongst a clamour for Big Name Signings. Joey Barton was a contract rebel, infamous for his litany of crimes against both football and, indeed, the general populace. His rap-sheet can be easily found, but I can't be arsed re-feeding it here. Offered to the world for free, Newcastle were willing to cut their losses for nothing, with a year left on his contract, even though he was possibly their best player last season. Too much baggage. The biggest surprise was that he actually started in that game for Newcastle, after being so publicly ostracised by the club. Amongst the potential suitors were Arsenal, who carefully linked themselves with a move for the firebrand Barton, while waiting for the media to decide if it was a good move to sign a media-deigned panto villain.

As everyone knows, you need a panto villain. As in any good panto, you need the villain, otherwise it's just some ex-celebrity norks-out-dolly-bird dressed as a man (or ex-celebrity Hollyoaks-lite pretty boy with plastic norks and over-the-top makeup dressed-up-as-a-maid man) who panders for attention, but just scares the kids. And shouts IT'S BEHIND YOU!!!
Terrifying.

But I digress. The Pretender clashed with the Panto Villain. New signing duelled with lost signing. And lost. For his part, Barton stayed on the pitch, a yellow card for him after Gervinho's red. Gervinho was pressurised by a defender in the box and (as if shot) went down under minimal contact. A dive. Barton was furious and hauled him up by the scruff of his neck. A set-to occurred, Gervinho play-slapped him, and Barton went down (as if shot) under minimal contact. A dive. Nothing out of the ordinary, maybe, it's just football.

It got me thinking though. In a game of high stakes, all the pressure was on Arsene Wenger (Arsenal's manager), as a media storm encapsulated his squad about two of his most coveted players leaving for (heated & hated) rivals. Cesc Fabregas was the team captain and often fond of being fonded and fondled by Barcelona, his home-town team. Then there was Samir Nasri, who wanted nothing more than to be fonded and fondled, but was willing to just get fingered for the exotic Dubai dollar of Manchester. This was the dilemma the Arsenal manager found himself in, and the team that he felt could cope without them floundered. For 75 minutes or something, the cutting edge either player would have brought to the pitch just wasn't there. The Newcastle keeper didn't have a single save to make, the Arsenal players guilty of having all the possession but no cut-and-thrust. A familiar tune to the ears of any frustrated Gooner. The media will no doubt paint this as another example of Arsenal's lack of incisiveness and discipline, but I thought Barton did in no small part do us a favour. Overreacting to the slightest of touches, he's given Arsenal a reason to circumvent the questions that would have come otherwise from the obvious ineptitude.

The whole incident looked ridiculous, the outcome dafter, and it felt almost orchestrated from the instant the Instant-Replay played. But suited all parties involved. Arsenal were trying to convince everyone that they didn't need their own rebels, the ones they owned, and the biggest rebel in the league gave them an excuse to stave the calls for heads and another reason to cry foul. Arsenal have almost become a parody of a byword for imagined injustice these days; the artisans who will only be appreciated in generations later, once the dust settles.
HAHAAA!! As if, once the dust settles, the cockroaches will give a fuck!

It suited Newcastle in that they got the result they wanted, a point against one of the 'Big Four' to assure everyone that they're not relegation fodder. Barton got the result he wanted in that he appeared to single-handedly get the point for his team, even despite the calls for his head. The new Gennaro Gattuso (look it up if need be, he's good). The chief mixer and agitator, professional to the end. And to top it all off, as the final whistle went, the camera stayed on Barton, walking across the pitch and congratulating all the Arsenal players. And each and every one of them congratulated him. Not one of them tried to dodge him, or call him out for a fight. He'd done himself a favour too, displaying his wares for all to see and bumping up the cost of his contract to any interested clubs. His foes hugged him too, as he'd saved them some awkward questions.

The panto villain is essential to any story, but this all reeks of stage managed corporate bullshit. Both clubs come out of the sorry debacle lighter than their actual playing of the sport merited, the journo's have enough grist to chew on and Rupert Murdoch gets his story from the channels he largely owns for the next day's papers (that he owns). It all felt like machinations in big business bullshit. The conspiracy that I alluded to earlier is in this. You can take it either as sport that's televised and entertaining, or that it's Sports Entertainment. Sports Entertainment, you know, like wrestling (WWF, before the Black Eyed Polar Bears got hold of it, WWE now). If we're willing to look at it like this, big business capitalism, full of smoke and mirrors, then where do we go next? Either way a lot of things seem too coincidental in a sport with no governable international boundaries and the favourable decisions always seem to go to the more econimcally viable. Big business owns it now, the sport that was once ernestly performed by the Dapper Dans and Charles 'Charlie' Charles of the old days. All BOOMBANGCRASH and delirium as the new season starts, and the new season feels like the last, but redressed and worse. At least in this case the panto villain rides off into the sunset wearing his comedy tits.