Some thoughts on craft-beer and total football, with a little poem at the end, by, me Paul Cree
originally featured on my Substack PAGE - LAGER TIME - including audio
If you know me, or you know the name of this blog, at least, you’ll know I very much enjoy drinking lager. These days, I don’t get to do it nearly as much as I’d like but I do enjoy a pint, or five. Those that know me well, know that I’m no fan of craft beer. It’s an odd thing to say, as craft-beer is a very broad-church and that rational part of me knows it’s an irrational thing to have a gripe about. BUT, I can genuinely say, I’ve never drunk one I liked the taste of but it’s not the content inside the glass or the tiny can with the whimsical illustration on it, that gets my back up a bit. It’s the perception, in my tiny paranoid mind, that I’m being told this is better, I should be drinking this. Well, what some it, just is’nt
Certain arguments I get; small local brewery versus cooperate bemouth full of chemicals and in many cases, I can understand people’s reasons to opt for the stinky hops, but it’s not always that simple is it. I remember waking up one morning after a night on that Camden Hells and my head felt like I’d been drinking Special Brew in a park, all day. I don’t think it’s all that squeaky clean. Then when stories broke of Craft-Beer-big-bollox, Brew-Dog mis-treating their staff, it made me think of that pious man that runs Canada who keeps getting caught doing black-face. What if, SOME of this craft beer stuff, is actually bollox
In a similar way, all this can be applied to food - see vegan /organic / sour dough etc and of course, to my other favourite thing, football. I’m a Millwall fan and like most Milllwall fans, I know that being in the to- ten of the second-tier in English football, is a decent achievement and if we’re there, it means that we’re probably punching above our weight.
These days, with Man City’s brand of football being the zeitgeist, playing the ‘right way’ means having multiple players that are comfortable on the ball and can move and switch positions. Trouble is, the players that can do that, tend to cost a lot of money. Millwall, not having the financial resources of other teams, have had to rely a bit more on being stifling-boring and defensive or failing that, the trusted four-four-two, blood and guts method. Which is often considered archaic. But what if it works
I’ve sat through and endured many teams attempting to play the ‘right way’ and sometimes, they get no-where. What if, SOME of the proponents of the ‘right way’ are just, a bit shit - see poem below
THE EMPOPERS NEW FOOTBALL KIT
They say they play proper football
how the game should be played
passing the ball, from back to front
and back again, all one touch
like a slowed down pin-ball machine
gracefully pinging about the pitch
yet they never get out their own half
they don’t ever score, nor do they
ever win, but the crowd applaud and
the pundits praise, because they play
proper football, how the game
should be played
