Modern Classical Music/Silent Football Experiment No. 2

Ill on the sofa under the duvet for a red-hot FA Cup clash, so it's time for another music-football collision. I watched most of the Manchester United vs Liverpool FA Cup 4th with its usual 'naked' sound (ie ITV's slightly humdrum commentary) before trying a little bit of Debussy's Arabesque I, which worked momentarily, in the vein of classic silent film with ole' joanna accompaniment, but it was a little too coquettish for this match. Instead I moved into the 20th century (just) for some early Webern, easing into his 1904 symphonic poem Im Sommerwind. This worked a treat, with its late-late Romanticism taking the edge off the supposed aggression and tension in this North-West el classico; I hate all that pre-match media hype stoking up images of grudge-bearing gladiators in the ring, gnashing their teeth and slavering with racist thoughts, when you look at them and they're (mostly) a load of nicely-manicured boys just looking forward to a bit of a run-around. So the Webern turned the second half into a calmer, quietly euphoric state of affairs, with a few uncanny hilarities: some hints of homoeroticism between De Gea and Evra via some swoony string section frivolity; some perfect comedy when Gerrard was cued off the pitch to a massive cymbal crash, followed by menacing low double basses as Bellamy barrelled on; big chords for Kenny Dalgleish as he made furious hand gestures; and finally, the 'Hernandez theme', a flute and harp sparkling with youth and innocence. Fabulous!

All this is a distraction from the less glamorous endz of the Football League, where Wycombe have been  zinging wildly about like an old-skool Pong ball between dramatic wins and losses: our last four results have been 0-3, 2-3, 3-0 and 2-5, today against Brentford. As a sorry-bottom-lipped WWFC supporter lass tweeted forlornly, 'I try to keep positive but the table doesn't lie.' Indeed. The team does though: prostrate, snoozing and flabby at the bottom of the League. UGH!

Contemporary Classical Music/Silent Football Experiment No. 1

Now here's the way to enliven an drizzle-sodden midweek footy match on tv: turn the sound down and whack on some 20th/21st-century music. You wouldn't have thought that the incongruous pairing of Cardiff City vs Crystal Palace (Carling Cup semi-final 2nd leg) and orchestral works by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu would work, and I had just come from watching 'The Artist' in the cinema, but by golly, it worked a treat! The game transcended from an unglamorous fixture between Championship teams in the Cup competition that no-one cares about to a thing of impossible tension and daring, life or death stuff. The players, with one sweep of Bernard Herrmann-esque strings, transformed magically into dance-theatre performers of soaring balletic wonder; the manager's desperate flailings became exquisite choreography; Stuart Pearce and Chris Coleman, watching in the stand, were glowering villians accompanied by foreboding brass; and referee Howard Webb became, somewhat bafflingly, a romantic lead. The timing was hilariously apt, with emotional peaks of near-hysteria on certain attacking moves, or a flute line denoting the inner torment of a player doing a throw-in, who looked so confident but was made pitiably anguished by the music. Ha ha.

This only works, of course, when you're a neutral. This was proved by my experience of JazzBall at London's premier jazz hangout, The Vortex, in which two trios free-improvised to an early England game in Euro 2008; I couldn't bear it and dashed to a friend's house at half-time to watch it properly. But still, maybe this is the start of a whole new ball game, with grimy fixtures accompanied by the doyens/doyennes of modern music: QPR vs Wigan, soundtracked by Ligeti; Hull City vs Millwall, underscored by Saariaho. Tee hee.

Kerry Goes To The NON-Non-League

My first Saturday off since the summer! And I made the most of it by not going to my own team's home game (a rather vital one against bottom of the table Chesterfield, with whom we were equal on points; we got a last-minute winner to haul us to... oh, second bottom still) but my REAL local team, a mile away from my familial homes: Holmer Green FC, whom my Dad has been supporting for a few years, having shunned the groaning excesses, rabid egos and coruscating glamour of lower League football. So I thought I should, for old times' sake (we watched Wycombe together for 15 years), see what all the fuss was about.

I had to do a crash-course in the below-Conference Leagues on the way, negotiating the complex world of Evo-Stick, Ryman, Cherry-Red Records Combined Counties League (my favourite) and HG's own, the Molten Spartan South Midlands Football League Premier Division, into which they re-ascended after last year's relegation. This means they are a Step 5 team: 5th level down from the Conference, and I think 9 actual tables as there are countless Premier and Division One Leagues... erk!. They're currently sitting unpretty at the bottom of the table, with only 12 points to leaders Royston's 48.

I have to say, the ground - Airedale Park, right opposite my primary school - was even more brilliantly lowdown than I'd anticipated. Step 5 teams have to have covered terraces, so the south-end stand has recently undergone some renovations, ahem:

Here's the seated side, the Don Want Stand, named after their twinkly-eyed septuagenarian ex-groundkeeper who is addicted to the club, and was for most of the match trying to help get one of the match balls down from a refusenik tree with ladders and javelin poles.

Step 5 teams also have to formally announce the teams, so the ex-chairman, clad in green and white scarf, brought on his battery-powered mini-amp and mic and took us through the line-up. And by us, I mean Dad and I, the only supporters present when the teams ran out, rather unnervingly. It did fill up, with a whole 20 or so others trickling in casually as the game progressed.

Holmer Green faced the broad-shouldered Dunstable Town (not, confusingly AFC Dunstable, who are 3rd), who frankly ran HG ragged in the first half, and, both fitter and hungrier, were 4-0 up at half-time, though without the understated heroics of Nick Hancox in goal it could have been 10. Used to MOTD's glossy and lean thoroughbreds, galloping around all gold-toothed and whinnying, it was quite a shock to see both the wobbly-thighed goalkeeper,and the quite resoundingly ample striker Sean Christie gallumphing around up front, rather ineffectually dare I say. In fact the only player who looked lively was the main striker, the stolidly-named Andy Shed.

The second half brought a bit more spark, with HGFC at least neutralising the visitors for a spell. Then a decisive substitution saw Gary Lines' abortive meanderings replaced by the Emile Heskey of the club, a lazily nonchalant Danny Boateng, who managed to score a hat-trick, including a penalty. Dunstable had scored one more too, but a 5-3 scoreline is much more respectable, though the old gents around me (all three of them) still grumbled their way through it, as is the football fans' wont - Andy went to Chelsea to hear the fans carp their way through a 3-0 victory over Valencia this week.

Stamford Bridge and Airedale Park: rather alien worlds in so many ways. Defender Tom Alabaster advertises his own carpentry company in the programme. There was a distinct lack of arrogance, aggression and nasty tackling (well, there weren't many tackles at all, to be honest); a lack of pretension and a lovely nearness to the action (I watched most of the second half from the touchline, watching the ball rattle around alarmingly and enjoying the robust language of all players - frankly, they all need to wash their slatternly mouths out), with the teams clattering muddily between us on our way to the tea hatch at half time. The proper tea, along with real home-made sausagey hot dogs, was dished up by the manager's wife and daughter, the only other females in the near vicinity. There was a bizarre reserve to the HG fans which makes Wycombe's sometime sotto voces seem cacophonous - you really wouldn't have known at any point just by listening, that they'd scored any goals, as NO-ONE clapped or cheered at all! I couldn't help whooping mildly here and there just to add a bit of atmosphere, to the huge embarrassment of Father.

The away fans were, it has to be said, a little rowdy, banging the corrugated iron roof and tumbling down the slope in front of them in excitement after a backpass claim. They even SANG, once. Here they are, meddlesome lot:

I had a pretty great time for my fiver. I can see why Dad comes: it's why anyone goes to any game of football in the end, once you strip away the sponsorship (HGFC are sponsored on the shirts though, by - YES! - Country Bunches), the ludicrous salaries and the slavering media: to see a bunch of sweaty chaps scrap over a ball and hope for the sugar rush of a goal. And, at times (at least when I could ignore the  pain in my utterly benumbed toes) really quite romantic: players steaming about under a low winter sun on a frost-tinged pitch, lusty expletives and hot breath billowing from their mouths. If I'm not careful, I'll be daubing my face in green and white and chanting... well, I'll invent some chants!

WWFC - The Best Campaigners In Football! (But Not So Good At Actual Football!)

God love 'em. I was hugely proud to see a couple of weeks ago that MY team, not any of the high-profile tattoosome moneybags of the Premiership, were the first professional football club to sign the I Love Sport But I Hate Homophobia government campaign, causing David Cameron to tweet his congrats. Hurrah! It's part of the government's general Kick It Out campaign to banish any form of prejudice on the terraces (or, indeed, is it has been alleged rather a lot this week in the Prem, on the pitch). It frankly seems astonishing to me that there could possibly be anyone left in the world who feels that it might be a bit of a giggle to abuse anyone for their sexual preference, or indeed ethnic background, but then I'm an artist who mixes happily with all and sundry, not someone who lives in the Dark Ages eating meat pies, collecting Daily Star clippings of Page 3 beauties and getting a bit nervous when watching Graeme Le Saux, because he can string two three-syllable words together and has nice hair. I'm looking forward to someone, somewhere amongst our 92 professional teams of men, being as brave as Sweden's Anton Hysen and coming out. Wycombe Wanderers at least would make sure they were the first to give them a big, non-embarrassed man-hug. Here's Matt Bloomfield doing us all proud!

Not content with being pro-gay/lesbian/trans etc, the boys are also throwing themselves into Movember, the month in which men grow moustaches to raise money for prostate cancer awareness. Tomorrow, on November 1st, 14 players will begin their 'tache growing, and can be sponsored for the pleasure here! I've done so, and hope to hot-foot it to MK Dons at  the end of the month on my day off to witness what will surely be the Extreme Hilarity of a full team of handlebarred and face-fuzzed gents (AND manager - Gary Waddock is doing it as well), as if we'd all been transported to 1973. Brilliant! And again, I challenge the self-involved Prem boys to do the same: however much money WWFC raise from their 5,000 or so supporters, imagine how much Manchester United could inspire at the promise of Rooners, Nani, Hernandez et al looking like disco kings... Gareth Ainsworth, whose brainchild this was, has already been practising, and appears to have transformed into some sort of Leone-style villain, hur hur.

And if this isn't cheerily homoerotic, I don't know what is!

All this charitable loveliness makes the falling about ON the pitch that the boys must be doing seem a little less terrible... we are now sunken treasure rusting away in 23rd place with only Yeovil for company. Wycombe's new starlet, Jordan Ibe, who scored on his debut at the Battle of the Garys (Megson vs Waddock) on Saturday, is probably too wet behind the ears to grow a beard, being 12 or whatever he is... Just like bright young thing Matt Philips before him, who now plays for Blackpool, he'll be away to Liverpool or some such before he can even fashion a wee tuft of dormouse fluff on his chin, I should wager.

Making money out of rising stars has always been part and parcel of the youth training embedded in lower league clubs, sad as we might be to lose them. But this system is being threatened by the Elite Player Performance Plan, which proposes a fixed payment system that would mean the Big Bad Clubs at the top could cream off lowly clubs' talent for next to nothing, which hardly seems fair. The Premier League shoe-armed this scheme in by saying they'd otherwise withhold funding for youth training. What absolute darstardly gluttons. £1 million might only garnish the canapés at the VIP boxes for a season in the top flight, but it can keep a club going for a bit longer down at our end. Matt Bloomfield, who when not signing anti-prejudice charters does some online journalism for the BBC, writes about it his latest column, and there's an online campaign here. Let's bite the heels of those racism-spouting, Gillette-smooth fuckers!

Match of the Day: Beard and Canary Focus

Getting stuck into some MOTDs, which means some early season awards are here!

Team I will be half-heartedly supporting this year: Norwich City, what with the admirably stoic Paul Lambert being an ex-Wycombe manager (2006-8, getting us to a League Cup semi-final replay at Chelsea). Plus, they are a crew of right bruisers yet play in resplendent yellow, and I have a history of cheering on the most lumpish yet fluorescent teams (see Hull City FC, 2009/10)...

Beardwatch: It's all fun and games in the facial hair department this season, with a plethora of fashionable full beards making players look like they spend most of their time drinking flat whites in pop-up coffee shops in Hackney Wick whilst planning their next site-specific sound installation. Kudos all round.

On the other end of the scale is Carlos Teves, whose appearance this week made me laugh so much I both hyperventilated and snorted orange juice through my nose. (Pictured here with cutesome child):

Injury of the Day: Norwich's James Vaughan got an elbow in the face and was left slavering like a character in True Blood. I don't really blame his attempts at fisticuffs with Gabriel Tamas...

Hottie of the Day no. 1: Spurs newbie Scott Parker, possibly not realising that he is rocking a very on-trend vintage look with his side parting, and whom I can imagine as a sort of dashing, clipped-vowelled World War II pilot-type who dabbles in a spot of espionage while on leave, pausing only to kiss fast-talking dames.

Hottie of the Day no. 2 (Inaugural Manager's Award): There's never been much call for this before, but Andres Villas Boas is a) in his early 30s b) bearded and c) nattily besuited, which, to anyone who knows me, is a quite winning combination and makes Andres easily a contender for Belgian gay man's uber-style bible Fantastic Man. His opposite for the day, Steve Bruce, on the other hand, is clearly in training for the lead in 'Shrek: The Musical', poor fellow.

Alan Shearer Nincompoopery of the Day: 'Harry will be glad that the transfer window is now out the window', suggesting some sort of 'Playschool' camerawork gone mad. Simpleton!

Shirtwatch: It's all terribly confusing over on MOTD2, where Colin Murray has this season taken to sporting outright casualwear; I expect to see Gary and co. lounging about in skinny Topman cardies and deck shoes soon enough. Brad Friedel, who brought a touch of transatlantic glamour to Sunday's sofa by looking and sounding a bit like a cross between Metallica's James Hetfield and Kevin Bacon, spoilt it all by wearing a resoundingly AWFUL black ribboned shirt. Andy consequently refused to listen to a single word he said. Attire MATTERS, chaps!

My Fantasy Football League (One In Which I'm Not Bottom)

The last time I did a Fantasy Football League, I was wet behind the ears at university, had had a total of one boyfriend (Liverpool fan), and WWFC were, ooo, probably about where they are now! It was done through The Times with all the male members of my family, and co-ordinated with military precision by Father, who probably created a complex system of spreadsheets to monitor the amassing of points, as is his wont. We might as well have conducted our league via stone tablets with a currency of groats and some grunting and pointing, given how much more sophisticated the whole shebang is in 2011/12. I have been discovering this having risen to the bait of joining my husband's friends' Private League; I couldn't let an email rather exclusively addressed 'hello chaps' pass on by without a FeverBitchin' response...

So I quickly got myself a team: Tanglefoot Skillz FC (the league has ale-based names)! I'm now wishing I'd spent a leetle more time considering which boys to go with and not on designing a fantastically garish kit (fuschia pink and aquamarine green, YES!), having watched one single Match of the Day so far this season and realised how many erroneous decisions I'd made. Things I have learnt: don't put three defenders from the same team in your line-up; this is STUPID. Don't have TWO Stoke players: this is IDIOTIC. Select strikers who are ALWAYS going to play. Note who is injured and DON'T CHOOSE THEM. I made a solid mid-table start in week 1, and have now sunk like a stone to the bottom of the stinky boys' league AND to the bottom of another mini-league with my bros. For shame!

My perfect league would be one in which I save face and beat all seven of the boys (mostly ardent Arsenal/United/Chelsea supporters) with my Extreme Footy Knowledge and application of tips gleaned from Lee Dixon on MOTD2. But I suspect, unless a miracle happens and Rory Delap's throw-ins take on mythical strength and accuracy (once he actually starts playing), this shall definitely remain a fantasy...

Still, rather me at the bottom of a table than the Beloveds. A nod to Matt at A View From The West Stand for his review of our recent bitch-slap of Leyton Orient, whose miserable start to the season makes me feel much better about Wycombe's DDWL. I particularly like his comparison of Gareth Ainsworth to 'Shameless'' Frank Gallagher. Having a wee look at his most amusing blog in general, I couldn't help myself being tickled by the gratuitous pics of C-list ladies with their breasts out, given that their use was justified by outlandish metaphors, despite usually beating a feminist warpath. Though he has now promised to get some more photos of scrumptious chaps in there now, hurrah!

Two Unfortunates/The Seventy Two article is Guardian Pick of the Week!

I got asked by lovely Football League (none of your glam-bam-spank you Ma'am Premiership nonsense here, only the jumpers/goalposts/meat pies grit and grime of Divisions 2, 3 and 4, old money) bloggers Two Unfortunates and The Seventy Two to write an article for their bumper 2011/12 season preview. The Guardian's football pages chose it as one of their favourite things this week!

I went for a meeting of two of my worlds: contemporary composition and le foot. Catch it here by visiting pages 30/1 and also read my little preview of Wycombe's season on page 63. Wycombe have started in classic humdrum fashion with a 1-1 draw against Scunthorpe, including a sending-off. Curses!