Football
Illogic
Hans Keller
With apologies for the noun – but worse, or at least longer ones, have been invented in recent decades, such as my own `homotonality', or `musicalization' (which, I am relieved to hear from the Editor of the OED, had been perpetrated before I thought I'd made it up). Anyhow, 'illogicalities' wouldn't do here: I am concerned with all-pervasive stupidity, rather than intermittent thoughtlessness. After the World Cup, I proved in these pages that the corner-kick was outmoded, a non-threat; I have received no public professional support. Now, I wonder what those professionals who remain respectful towards every single Law of the Game thought the other night – if they were not too respectful to think – when Peter Shilton was obstructed just before the end of Nottingham Forest's European Cup game, away, against the legendary Ferencz Puskas's A.E.K. Athens.
He had caught the ball and, had he not been obstructed, could have punted it far into the other half, as is his wont. But since he was obstructed, he had to be punished – not the obstructer: such is the lawlessness of the Laws of the Game. Instead of freely punting, that is, he had to take an indirect free-kick 'from the place where the infringement occurred', which happened to be l inches from his goal-line, with the result that he couldn't even properly run on to the ball, frantically as he tried virtually to remove the net in order to have just half a step more to run. The kick itself did not even reach the halfway-line.
An indirect free-kick, mind you. What's that, you might ask, luckily ignorant. It's a free-kick 'from which a goal cannot be scored unless the ball has been played or touched by a player other than the kicker before passing through the goal' (Law 13). In other words, from where Shilton kicked, it's a meaningless condition: nobody has ever reached the other goal thus and thence – though had Shilton been allowed to punt without play being interrupted, had he not been penalized for his opponent's infringement, he could conceivably have scored: Pat Jennings did the other year, in Spurs' Charity Shield match against Manchester United. Nor is it mere empty-headedness that has, accidentally, produced this nonsensical legal situation mere forgetfulness about the need realistically to qualify the location of an indirect free-kick. On the contrary, this one must, in fact, have been thought up by a full gas-bag who, in Law 12, positively defined the juridical demand for feeble-minded jurisdiction: Law 12 actually specifies one offence that is to be meaninglessly penalised by an indirect free-kick, from which a goal must not be scored — although a goal can't be scored from it anyway: 'charging the goalkeeper except when he (a) is holding the ball; (b) is obstructing an opponent; (c) has passed outside his goal-area' (Clause 4). It may be agreed that whoever conceived this law was more of a danger to society than is a common or garden lunatic: compared to effective stupidity, ineffective insanity is no problem.
You might object, of course, that the referee needn't, or shouldn't, have penalised Shilton by penalizing the Greek attacker – that he should have heeded the so-called 'advantage' clause of Law 5 – which, for once, is unambiguous, if not umprobleinatic: the referee shall 'refrain from penalising in cases where he is satisfied that by doing so he would be giving an advantage to the offending team'. Well, there could not have been a better case for the referee's lawful inaction than Shilton's – but inaction, would have illustrated the disadvantage of the 'advantage' clause as it is formulated: the referee no doubt felt the realistic urge to demonstrate that the offence had not gone unnoticed.
At the end of La ci darem la matto (the famous Don Giovanni duettino), the music, now in a rather speedy siciliano rhythm, virtually turns into its opposite: unity is achieved by a complementary contrast. Let that master be my model for a concluding tribute to another master of wordless logic: at Upton Park on Saturday, West Ham's Trevor Brooking played the ball 44 times, missed it once, scored his side's goal and, for the rest, gave a display of sheer thought which turned his sovereign skill into a mere means of articulation, as distinct from that stationary vehicle of exhibitionism which it is for many another gifted player. By the time these lines are in print, Brooking will, I trust, have shone against Eire, outshone those who play to shine.
Previous page
