The Badger stars in ‘Merseyside Burning’
By The Badger | Mar 2 2012
The Badger made a genuine attempt to see the good in footballers recently. Unfortunately, after tuning into Ford Super Sunday on Sky Sports he realised that this is a futile feat. If Gary Neville’s pitiful floundering in the commentary box doesn’t make you want to cry for countless reasons, then the blatant ignorance of those that play the sport, and indeed those that organise it, will.
Let’s focus on the latter. Racism seems to be the buzzword around the footballing world these days, or rather, a certain ‘n’ word does. Players and fans alike are being accused of verbally abusing one another about their race, rather than sticking to the good old-fashioned sexism and homophobia that worked so well for as long as the Badger can remember.The big bad wolf is Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, who, on a side note, is doing a rather good job of taking the heat off his equally abhorrent teammate Andy Carroll. The Uruguayan said nasty things to Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, and the Frenchman got upset. He told on Suarez and got him in lots of trouble. Rightly so. How dare Suarez veer away from the script. Football players are allowed call each other c*nts and w***ers and spit at each other as much as they like but not mention anything to do with one’s skin colour. Why? Because.Suarez got banned from playing football for a while and, after having watching Mississippi Burning on repeat and listening to countless 2Pac albums, came back a new man. Befittingly, he encountered Evra once again. The perfect opportunity to bury the hatchet, no? No. The smarmy-looking Uruguayan decided he wouldn’t shake Evra’s hand before the match. Just like that, Evra became a modern-day Rosa Parks, only better because he’s good at football, while she always got put in goals because she had no first touch.The little Frenchman ran ragged and helped his team to a 2-1 victory – Suarez getting the goal for his side. He reminded us all that footballers really are just better than the rest of us. You could really tell he was doing it for everyone who’s ever suffered from the venom of racism; footballers are righteous like that. After the final whistle, Evra ran around and celebrated with the type of humility and class we have come to expect from French footballers. It wasn’t just three points for United, it was a victory for civil rights… Actually, the Badger takes all that back, Evra’s just as big a moron as the rest of them.Various other claims have been made in the past few weeks, namely racist chants from Porto fans towards Manchester City players Yaya Touré and Mario Balotelli, and claims that City fans in turn chanted that Porto striker Hulk isn’t actually incredible. The Badger isn’t sure which confuses him more; that morality is all of a sudden important in football, or the fact that people are surprised by these allegations, as though footballers and fans had been anything other than ignorant scumbags prior to now.N. B. For those of you irritated by the ironic endorsement of racism in this column, remember, the Badger is both black and white, and therefore immune to criticism.