bradley headstone
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Posted: Feb 17th 2010
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I found myself watching a very interesting lower league game the other night, well technically it was AC Milan against Manchester United, but the defending was strictly championship. A fact not missed by Sir Alex Ferguson who celebrated a United goal by telling Johnny Evans to ‘stop f*****g about’ in his best Neil Warnock impression.
Late in the game Clarence Seedorf scored a close range goal with the kind of panache that seemed luxurious for such a poor game. I hadn’t actually noticed him come on to the pitch but it reminded me of one of my favourite football musings. Does Clarence Seedorf have the biggest arse in football?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t spend my every football watching experience fretting over the derrieres of thick millionaires, but Seedorf’s is, well, frankly magnificent.
There’s a school of thought that there is an ideal shape for a footballer, bandy legged, pigeon toed, eyes on either side of the face, that kind of thing. I’m sure having a whopper round the back would fit in to that profile. I used to play a Monday evening game of indeterminate quality but always fought like a relegation six pointer. My mate was clearly the class act on the park, quick, powerful and about three evolutionary steps up the ladder from us mere mortals. His chief weapon I decided was his big arse. He would employ it to shield the ball, ease opponents out of the way and by the look of it some of his extra pace was derived from an internal combustion engine hidden within.
Seedorf isn’t just a physical freak, he’s a very good footballer. He’s won the European cup three times with three different clubs, one of them, Real beating Juventus was one of the most technically brilliant games of football I’ve ever witnessed. But all he is to me is a bum! It doesn’t help that his trademark dreadlocks have been shorn, leaving his head looking like a pea balanced on a plate of dumplings, but is it really the biggest to have played the game?
It’s probably best to establish some ground rules here. The game has been littered with fat footballers, from the legendary Fatty Foulkes, through the original swallow diver Franny Lee and more recently Mick ‘who ate all the pies’ Quinn. But that’s not what we are talking about here. Nether would I be inclined to allow brick outhouse forwards either, you know, the Malcolm MacDonalds and Geoff Astles of the world. The current flag bearer of the type is Preston’s John Parkin.
I also, with reluctance, rule out Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock (I’ve never quite understood the Razor part, presumably not his sharp wit?) While Ruddock’s girth is unquestionable and he did famously have to have a new short size created late in his career, he’s too much of a figure of footballing fun to be considered alongside the truly great big-beamed exponents of the people’s game. I had the misfortune to witness both Ruddock and the equally ridiculous Vinny Jones playing for my team, it was like natural selection had gone into reverse.
I’m also inclined to rule out those technically gifted and genetically low running imps that currently light up our leagues, Arshavin of Arsenal, a low-centred mincer making mincemeat of the assorted defenders he faces. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is the ultimate stereotype here. Rather than having the aspect of a pear he is actually built like one, albeit one with short stumpy legs and an oversize head. As a human being he might well have found a career in the circus, as a footballer he’s been designed to reinvent the way defenders try to defend. As a bottom, big but what self-respecting pear wouldn’t need a sizeable underside? Nothing-remarkable there.
To find any kind of competition to the well-upholstered Seedorf, it seems that we have to go Dutch. There’s definitely something in the water there. The only footballers even close to Seedorf’s crown are from his homeland. Most notable is Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink; his permanent pout probably owes something to the luggage he has to bring with him. What about Ronald Koeman, another well-padded seat on another well versed belligerent Dutchman.
To my mind it must be something in the diet, not so much a lifestyle choice but something in that dodgy beef that gave one of those De Boer boys a bad case of the nandrelones. Maybe the scientists looking for performance improving properties were looking in the wrong place, never mind blood thinning or improved recovery time. Perhaps it’s the arse enhancing aspects of the new wonder drugs that are the real secret of the new drugs.
You are not going to be able to concentrate on the second leg…are you!