I am lucky boy to have lived so long without having my heart break. I had always wondered, idly, what it would feel like. I was sat on the sofa with P when yet another baby programme came on the television. As she sank into upset I put my arm around her. “Don’t worry” I told her, “we’ve still got plenty of time. You’re not to old yet.”
She looked up at me and said “I don’t believe that any more”. Then my heart broke.
I confess it is an odd thing to have a hero. My first was Peter Osgood the Chelsea Centre Forward when I started supporting the team at the beginning of the 70s. In those days I was an intense little boy with a taste for books who liked nothing better on a Saturday evening than to arrange football trading cards on the floor as I sat by our electric fire (with real flame effect) scoffing my Findus Crispy Pancakes. Life was dreary then and Peter Osgood was stylish. He was stylish because he had an easy athletic grace. He was stylish because he had sideburns, a wave in his hair and a dashing smile. He was rakish. Although he didn’t know it, he and I were linked. He was Chelsea and I was Chelsea. He wore the blue shirt and so did I – nagged from my weary mother. Each time he scored; each time he acknowledged the Chelsea fans I felt that he was somehow making it clear that he was doing it for me. Not just for me of course, but in part for me. When he played for England I was as proud as a little boy could be.
In 1998 I met him for the first time. P and I had travelled to Copenhagen to see Chelsea play Helsinborg. As we took our seats I saw him. He was just a coule of seats furhter down our row. I began to hyper-ventilate.
M: P … it’s him.
P: It’s who?
M: H … him … Pe … ter … Os … good
P: Who?
M: M .. mm .. my … hero
P: Go introduce yourself
M: Can’t … can’t … c .. c
P set off and introduced herself.
Osgood was utterly charming. I had assumed that all celebrities reacted to being pestered by strangers in one of two ways. Either they wore hats and dark glasses and shouted “fuck off” at fans while driving over them in tinted windowed 4X4s or else they lapped it up until thier egos exploded in a shower of drug abuse and sexual deviance. Ossie had a way of thanking you for being his “biggest fan” and sounding like he meant it. I told him he was the reason I supported Chelsea. He told me it was proud to hear that. I told him being a Chelsea fan (at that time) had been 20 years of pretty much uninterrupted misery and I held him accountable. He decided that my stuttering red-faced inanity was intended to be funny, gave me the benefit of the doubt and conferred a little laugh. Had my wife not been sat on his lap I would simply have fallen in love with him there and then.
Ossies’ money, it would seem, vanished into the usual crazy business schemes and in latter years he made money on matchdays working as a “matchday host”. His job was to be “Ossie”. He would mingle in the Executive Entertainment areas adding some sparkle; allowing chubby business men to meet a hero over their steak and veg. I resented this apprent indignity. Ossie, so far as I could tell, did not. When times were hard financially at Chelsea, Ken Bates made him redundant. That must have been humiliating but again when I next saw him he was sat in the bar at Chelsea surrounded by men trying to buy him drinks and calmly dispensing the stardust. What a hero the man was. I miss him.
Still can’t blog about the football. Tonight as I lay on my sofa waiting for P to finish peeling my grapes I chanced upon a televisual “spectacular” in which soap actors that I had never heard of were paired with minor singing celebrities and invited to sing duets. I should mention that this is competitive duetting. It had the cat’s piss stench that characterises much of the tv has to offer at the moment. I was about to turn over to see if there was anything interesting on QVC when I spotted that Stewart Copeland was a judge. This man was something of a hero to me having, as drummer in “The Police”, the sort of intimate tour-hardened relationship with “Sting” that frequently led to him punching the spiky-haired vegan world-music-championing twat in his smug sanctimonius face. Who among us can honestly say we have not wanted to do that? Stewart lived that dream for all of us. Now here he was sat next to Lulu and telling Nicky “have I mentioned I’m a graduate” Campbell that “he rocks”. Who among us can honestly say that we have ever wanted to do that?
The error was mine – I expceted him still to be cool – but why should he be 25 years on? That leads to me new test:
HOW DELUDED ARE YOU? aka “The Sex Pistols Test”
You have reached a certain age but of course you are still cool. You have bought a Coldplay Album and you know who the Kaiser Chiefs are. You poor deluded fool. Try this test:
(1) Begin by identifying your reference band. This is the NOT the first band you thought were cool but the first band you thought AND STILL THINK are cool. For my band I select the Sex Pistols.
(2) Count back the number of years from this year to the year your reference band arrived on the scene. We’ll call this THE COOL YEAR. In my case the Cool Year is 1977. The countback is 2006 – 1977 = 29
(3) Now count back the same number of years from your Cool Year. In my case 1977 – 29 = 1948
Me thinking that the Sex Pistols are cool in 2006 is like someone in 1977, surrounded by punks, thinking that Al Jolson could still cut it. Al Jolson is my “Delusion Artiste”
Now it is your turn.
Tell what your Cool Year is and complete the official delusion statement:
“Me thinking [Reference Band] are cool in 2006 is like someone in [Cool Year] thinking that [Delusion Artiste] could still cut it.”