Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Adidas Nastase and Manchester United, 1981

Now we're a lot of us getting to be old, old me, we start to turn inward and search for meaning in the burnt out shells of what were our lives. Gone are the Adidas Nastase, the Fred Perry, the Old Trafford free-for-alls, and the long nights around Piccadilly and Victoria, roaring for more, screaming in pain at the ecstasy of being a Manchester scally. Many are divorced, or going through a divorce, and even more are mentally ill and have hit the rails big time. We are the generation that invented binge drinking, casual culture, and Rave, but was any of it that productive, or are we just a load of tossers living in an irresponsible, ADD-riddled dreamworld, pumped up by failing egos and retro training shoes?
How green was thy valley back then, my Kool Kats? How mental did it feel to chug cheap wine on the French hillsides and riot in the ritzy boutiques? I remember the hot nights of '81, and the way it felt to ponce about with a litre of French red in one's brain, and a bouncy pair of tennis belters on't' feet. When the Scoreboard End was tightly stocked with myriad specimens of the prototype species that went on to infect the world like a Nameless Thing without a cause.
Anyway, the time is short, and the memory long, and when we reach that bridge we'll have to cross it soon enough. Go to my football Casual Perry Boys website and make your presence felt, me hearties. It's all still there, inside. You just have to set it free....or my name's not Ian Hough.

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